Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/22

 How Our Fighters Will Be Fed

Nothing is left to guesswork. Menus are planned by chemists and physicians

���Above: The daily Army ration of the garrison or permanent camp. Other articles in prescribed quantities of equal food value may be substituted if desire

��UNCLE SAM has written generous menus for his fighting men on land and on sea and if the regulations which he has prescribed are followed his soldiers and sailors need never go hungry. He provides approximately twenty-eight cents a day to buy food for each one of his soldiers and a like allowance is made for his sailors. To the housekeeper who has to contend with war-time prices of food- stuffs, this sum seems entirely inadequate, but it must be remembered that Uncle Sam buys his supplies in ton lots and not by the pound.

There is no guesswork in either the army or the navy when it comes to deter- mining just how much food a man shall be given. All this has been figured out and the person charged with the responsibility of supplying the food merely follows certain tables.

The fixed allowance or portion of food furnished a soldier or sailor each day is called a ration. It consists of specified components or substitutive articles. There may be an over-issue of any ration com- ponent, provided there is an under-issue

��It costs the Government only about twenty-eight cents a day per man to provide such wholesome- looking meals as this on the left for the men of our Navy

��or equal value of other components; but the total cost of a man's rations at the end of a month must not exceed the average of the daily allowances for that period.

In garrison or permanent camp, a sol- dier's allowance of food consists of the following components and quantities, or specified quantities of substitutes: Beef, 20 oz. ; flour, 18 oz. ; baking powder, .08 oz. ; beans, 2.4 oz.; potatoes, 20 oz. ; prunes, 1.28 oz.; coffee, 1.12 oz.; sugar, 3.2 oz.; evaporated milk, .5 oz.; vinegar, .16 gill; salt, .64 oz.; black pepper, .04 oz.; cin- namon, .014 oz. ; lard, .64 oz. ; butter, .5 oz. ; syrup, .32 gill ; and flavoring extract, .014 oz. A number of substitutive articles are pro- vided for each of the ration components. For instance, instead of the 20 ounces of beef, a like quantity of mutton may be supplied or 12 ounces of bacon, 16 of canned meat, 14 of dried fish or other meat sub- stitutes. Instead of the bean component, 1. 16 ounces of either rice or hominy may be supplied. Prescribed quantities of dried apples or peaches or of jam and preserves may be substituted ' for the prunes. The reserve ration is less varied.

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