Food Facts for the Home-Maker

This book is intended to be a help to the young housekeeper who is starting out in the new home without either a knowledge of science or the technical training which could help her. This is more often the case of the girl who has been to college and has devoted her time to other subjects outside the home, so that she starts in handicapped on the business of home-making, than it is the case of her sister who has stayed at home and has been trained there by her mother.


The book is also intended to help those women who have kept house for years and who are excellent cooks and careful planners. It should give a scientific foundation to their technical skill, showing them the reasons why they have been doing certain things all their lives, and perhaps showing them ways in which they may shorten processes and thus save time and energy.


Few women realize the great importance of the proper feeding of the family. Undernourishment among our children in the United States is far more prevalent than is generally supposed, and is found quite as often in the homes of the well-to-do as in those of the poor. It is the result of ignorance rather than of poverty or the high cost of food. Children need a well-chosen but simple diet.


This book is written primarily to show mothers how they can feed their children easily and economically. A little attention to the subject by the home-makers will make the greatest difference to the nation in producing strong, well-nourished men and women, capable of doing their part in carrying the great responsibilities placed upon our country at this time. I have a great hope that the mothers and home-makers of America will take the lessons of this book to heart and that it may play some real part in giving us a stronger and sterner race.


This book, while it contains some recipes, is not intended to compete with cookbooks, but rather to supplement them. I have kept the order of material customarily used in cookbooks, that of following the courses of a dinner. This necessitated the present order of the two chapters on fats and sugars. If I had adhered more closely to the discussion of foods according to their chemical composition, these two chapters would have appeared in reverse order.