Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/66



HE day of miscellaneous drugging has passed. The era of dietetics has dawned. Foods are the materia medica of the new school of preventive medicine, and with the new discoveries along these lines (made possible by the biological laboratories), the importance of food in the health program has grown apace. General education in food values has spread this knowledge among the people; it has not been hidden in the laboratory. Food is everybody’s business, and it must be chosen mainly by the women in the home.

Although standards for the purity and composition of foods are set under the food law, those can only be standards of average excellence that may be legally enforced. Standards of high excellence—exceeding legal requirements—must be set by manufacturers themselves. It is they who have the opportunity, and the duty, of establishing quality standards and of adapting foods to the habits of life and economic needs of the people as they change.

With the passing of the coal and wood stove, and the coming in of gas and electricity and the small kitchen, there are fewer long cooking operations in the home. Soup making and cereal cooking, especially, have passed