Food in War Time (WWI Centenary Series)

Graham Lusk

• Publisher: Last Post Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781473367548
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

This early work by Graham Lusk was originally published in 1918 and we are now republishing it as part of our WWI Centenary Series. 'Food in War Time' is a work by a professor of physiology at Cornell University Medical College. It includes chapters on 'A Balanced Diet', 'Calories in Common Life', and 'Rules of Saving and Safety'. This is an excellent work for anyone interested in nutrition during the First World War. This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world's bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history. Each publication also includes brand new introductory essays and a timeline to help the reader place the work in its historical context.

II. CALORIES IN COMMON LIFE

A person is properly nourished who receives adequate energy in the form of carbohydrate and fat (and incidentally protein); adequate material for repair of wornout parts, such as protein and mineral salts; and the diet must contain certain accessory food substances known as food hormones or “vitamins.” Also, it must contain water. But this is not all, for the food offered must be acceptable to the palate of the individual. A member of the French Scientific Commission which visited the United States in the summer of 1917, when questioned regarding the use of corn bread in France, replied “on ne peut pas changer des habitudes.” The proper nutrition of an individual depends, therefore, not only upon a sufficient supply of food from a mechanistic standpoint, but also upon the reasonable satisfaction of the sense of appetite. These dual fundamentals of proper nutrition should be ever borne in mind.

Heat from the sun enters into the composition of the food substances when they are being built up in the plants, and this energy, which is latent in the food, is set free in the animal body and is used as the source of power behind all the physical activities of the body. The energy can all be recovered as heat and measured in the form of calories. According to the principles of the law of the conservation of energy, heat is not destructible. The understanding of the value of a calorie is indispensable for the comprehension of nutrition. A calorie is the measure of a unit of heat, or the quantity of heat necessary to raise a liter of water from 0° to 1° Centigrade. Apparatus has been invented for measuring the heat production of a man, an apparatus which is called a calorimeter or a measurer of calories. If one puts a man weighing, say, 156 pounds in the box of such an apparatus, so that he lies comfortably o...