The milling and sale of flour, the baking of bread, and the purchases of the individual are all regulated to a greater extent than would have scarcely been thought possible before the war.

Every effort has been made to produce a great 1918 wheat-crop.  Congress, at the time the Food Control Bill was passed, fixed the price of the 1918 wheat at a minimum of $2 per bushel, and the President later fixed the price at $2.20.  This has been high enough to encourage the farmer to increase his crop and not too high to be fair to the consumer.  The Department of Agriculture, during the winter of 1917-18, had for its slogan, “a billion-bushel crop for 1918.”  It has worked intensively to help the farmer in selecting and testing seed and in fighting destructive insects and plant-diseases, and in every way to help him grow more wheat.

Constant reliance has been placed on the individual’s intelligence and patriotism in wheat-saving.  One of the unusual aspects of the Food Administration is its confidence in the co-operation of the country and the response which this confidence has met.  Wheatless meals are now a commonplace occurrence.  Wheatless days are being observed in many hotels and homes.  People all over the country have pledged themselves to do entirely without wheat until the 1918 harvest is available.  About 100,000 barrels of flour were returned by individuals and companies during the spring of 1918, to be shipped to the Allies and the Army and Navy.  The individual all over the country, consumer, dealer, miller, or farmer, has risen to the occasion to do his share toward the fulfilment of the Government’s promise to Europe.

CHAPTER II

THE WAR-TIME IMPORTANCE OF WHEAT AND OTHER CEREALS

When the United States was called on to supply the Allies with much of its wheat and flour, we fortunately found at hand a plentiful supply of a great variety of other cereals.  The use of corn was, of course, not an experiment—­generations of Southerners have flourished on it.  But we also had oats, rice, barley, rye, buckwheat, and such local products as the grain sorghums, which are grown in the South and West.  All of them are cereals and all can be used interchangeably with wheat in our diet.

To understand clearly the value of cereals in the diet to-day, it is well to review the part played by food in general.  Europe to-day is eating to live.  She therefore thinks of food not in terms of menus but as a means of keeping up bodily functions, as sources of protein, carbohydrate and fat—­terms seldom heard outside of the university a few years ago.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD

We need food first of all to burn as fuel for all the activities of the body, just as any other machine needs fuel.  The fuel value of food, or its energy, is measured in calories.  A calorie measures the amount of heat or energy given off when anything burns, whether it is coal in a stove or food in the body.