Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/727

 Popular Science Mofitlily

porting large quantities of sugar began to eat the surplus to make up for the deficiency of other foods, they soon reached a per capita consumption of 74,95 pounds.

All these orders for quick-action food brought in sight the bottoms of sugar bowls and barrels all over the world. Germany is getting a very scant ration of sugar at present. The government of France has decreed that twelve pounds a year is quite enough for each of her inhabitants, and similarly the United Kingdom family supply has been cut to 36 pounds a year for each person.

These figures do not, however, include the amount of sugar which confectioners and bakers and manufacturers work into their products. The actual amount of sweetening which the French individual assimilated in 1917, judging from certain export figures, was probably 24 pounds, which was slightly less than normal. The best obtainable statistics indicate also that in the United Kingdom enough raw sugar was received to give every man, woman and child 62 pounds in 1917 as compared with the 77 pounds of refined sugar assimilated the pre- vious year.

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��America Is Not Saving Much Sugar

Despite the cautions of the Food Administration, the consumption of sugar in the United States has not decreased very much, considering the fact that candies, desserts and various other edibles are being used more than su- gar in the concentrated forms. The exportation of condensed milk and canned fruits has also somewhat augmented the American use of sugar. Another

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��tor in the six pounds per capita increase in consump- tion in 1917 as c o m - pared with 1916 has been the curtailing of the liquor traffic. Even before the war, sugar was having an increasing vogue as a substitute for alcohol.

In some phases, the present sugar shortage is a blessing in disguise. The recent investiga- tions of Professors Sher- man and Swartz in the laboratories of Teachers College, Columbia Uni- versity, show that we are inclined to eat more free or uncombined sugar than we should. Four to five ounces a day, which is about our present consumption in all forms, is considered a healthful ration. It is best to eat sugar in made dishes or conserves, so that it may be somewhat diluted and therefore more digestible. Much sugar can be provided for our fighters, if we eat more sweet fruits and vegetables, as well as of that alluring though often cloying honey, which satisfied a saccharine craving long before the Crusaders brought from the Orient the magic crystal of the succulent cane. In addition to honey w^e have as sweeteners maple syrup and corn syrup, which will both answer many purposes for which we now use sugar, and often quite as satisfactorily.

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