Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/598

592 he is getting his money's worth or not—whether his pounds are sixteen ounces or only ten; whether he is paying at the rate of five or twenty-five cents per pound for a simple, ordinary, nutritious food. The list of foods sold in packages is constantly increasing. It includes fruits, pickles, vegetables, crackers, cakes, cereals, syrups, meats, fish, vinegar, spices, milk, cheese, butter, jams, jellies and even dried eggs. The great advantage, which all will admit, is that the package protects the food from dust and dirt and possible infection. The disadvantage is the greatly increased cost over the bulk articles.

Until the present food laws and the "weight and measure" laws were enacted, the consumer had not perhaps noticed that the "carton" had taken the place of the pound, and that this had shrunken in weight with each passing season. When the housekeeper, who was hard pressed to make her scanty allowance carry her through the week, expostulated with the grocer, in regard to the weight of his "pound" of butter, he simply said "That is the way we buy it; we do not sell the package for a pound; nobody is cheated." Decidedly some one was cheated—the consumer of course. The small housekeeper buys a bottle of vinegar for 15 cents or at the rate of 60 cents per gallon for vinegar selling in bulk at 25 or 30 cents per gallon.

One of the most conspicuous illustrations of the tendency to allow the manufacturer to reap, to say the least, a large profit, because the consumer wants to buy his food "ready prepared," is the fad of making the breakfast to a great extent of the newly invented "breakfast cereals." A few years ago the people did not know the meaning of these words, and now they are common in the most modest bill of fare.

Since these foods are made mostly from wheat, corn and oats, it is absurd to suppose that the claims of some of the manufacturers are true, when they say that these foods are in every way better than the original grains from which they are made—in fact that the process of manufacturing is a proteid-concentrating process. Analysis has shown that the amount of so-called "predigested" or "malted" material in these foods is small at most, and aside from the dextrin which is formed largely by dry heat just as bread is toasted or potatoes are browned in frying, these "malted" foods are little better than crackers or bread. It is a question, anyway, whether the normal stomach welcomes the appearance of predigested food; it is provided by nature with "apparatus and chemicals" necessary for the digestion of food, and why should the work be taken away from it?

Dismissing then the claim that these prepared foods are so much better than simply ground and partially bolted cereals, what do we pay for the finished product per pound? Are these cereals luxuries?

From the Bulletin of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station for 1906 we quote the following cost in cents per pound for some of