GERMANY FROM WITHIN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21575, 10 February 1940, Page 13

GERMANY FROM WITHIN

THE SOLDIER’S FOOD VALUE OF SOYA BEAN The Frankfurter Zeitung quotes an official report on the feeding of the German soldier. The soldier's rations, says the report, are calculated on the same scientific basis as a worker’s of comparable age and weight doing comparable work. But there can lx? "no comparison between the worker even in the heaviest work and the soldier at the front. This must be borne in mind in calculating the food elements, particularly meat.” Bread: The army (black) bread, customary for decades, forms the basis; in circumstances which make it unobtainable an iron ration of Army biscuits (of the ryvita type) is given out.

Meat: Importance is attached above all to the supply of fresh meat. Recent experiments in the supply of packets of boneless meat, frozen hard in the so-called Bireseye process, have given satisfactory results. A special place continues to be taken by canned meat —for instance, pork in its own juice. Vegetables: Fresh vegetables and fresh potatoes are of particular importance. They assure the supply of vitamins and mineral salts. The popular sauerkraut, for instance, is rich in vitamins. Lately vegetables have been so dried, by gentle and constant heat, that most of the vitamins are retained. Reinforcements at the front can only be given dried vegetables, as all useless weight, especially water content, must be avoided. Thus pulse (beans, lentils, dried peas, etc.) and rice are the vegetables of the troops in an advance.

The iron ration contains no vegetables (it consists- of 200 grammes of canned meat and 250 grammes of Army biscuits). Tins containing meat and vegetables ready cooked (for instance, pork with sauerkraut and potatoes) are primarily for the mountain and armoured troops and such units cannot reach the field kitchens.

Fats: The soldier’s principal fat is butter; otherwise he receives lard or margarine.

Evening meal: For the evening meal the issues include canned liver sausages and black puddings, corned beef, smoked meat, bacon, such sausages as keep well, hard cheese, soft cheese in packets, and in future Polish bacon. Specially good food is available for units subjected to hard conditions—for example, tinned tongues or fresh pigs’ trotters.

Drinks: The usual drink is coffee mixture; under exacting conditions and in cold weather there is also tea. A substitute for bean coffee is being prepared from rye and barley coffee, with an admixture of synthetic caffeine. For drinking on the march there is also citric acid with effervescent salts.

Soya bean: The soya bean has for some time past been included in the rations in the form of flour. It can be made into vegetable rissoles to replace meat. Its albumen and lecithin content, and its usefulness in cases of great physical exhaustion, make it a food of great importance. An American newspaper has gone so far as to say that Germany won the war in Poland on the soya bean; for the German Army would have been unable to march so quickly without it. Tobacco: The soldier has a free tobacco ration. It helps to make up for a good deal of the soldier’s shortages at the front.

Preparation: A special field cookery book has been issued. It should be possible to boil, bake and steam separately in the field kitchen, in order to lose as little as can be helped of the food value of the meals. This is expected to be achieved before long by a relatively small rearrangement of the field kitchen. But after all, the tastiness of the food depends on the cleverness of the cook.