CONCENTRATION OF FOOD.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16406, 28 December 1918, Page 7

CONCENTRATION OF FOOD.

AMERICA'S ACHIEVEMENT,

War-time conservation in the United States, as elsewhere, meant first of all the saying of food, in order that the health and strength of the fighting Allies should be maintained at its apex of usefulness. What this meant is illustrated by some of the results obtained in the great "corn belt" State of lowa. In 40 counties, for instance, there were saved in two • months 3,646,6251b of sugar j in 41 counties J there were saved 13,721,6541b of -flour, ranging from 7 per cent, of the normal consumption in some counties to 60 per cent, in others; in 52 counties there were more than 35,000 people engaged in • drying • surplus food products, and in 26 counties 183 canning clubs were dedicated to the conservation programme. Another phase of the conservation movement was one of replacement. The State of Louisiana found .on its hands 10,000,0001b of second and third-grade sugars, against which many manufacturers and individual consumers were prejudiced—more through unfamilianty than otherwise. So it devised a plan whereby it could both educate its public and induce it to use this available supply in place of the higher grade product wanted for export. This consisted mainly of an arrangement bywhich anyone holding a permit for sugar buying could take 1251b of the second-grade produce in placo of every 1001b called for on the license. But there were many other far-reach-ing effects of the conservation movement that were less obvious but no less important in their fields. The utilisation of by-products were one of these. In California a new factory handled, in 1917, 5000 'tons of lemons and •turned out 180,0001b of citric acid. Two other plants have since been completed and are now producing lemon oil and citrate <tf lime as well.