A BALANCED DIET
There is no doubt that under the conditions existing before the war the American people hved in a higher degree of comfort than that enjoyed in Europe. Hard times in America have always been better times than the best tim.es in Europe. As a student in Munich in 1890 I remember paying three dollars a month for my room, five cents daily for my breakfast, consisting of coffee and a roll without butter, and thirty-five cents for a four-course dinner at a fashionable restaurant. This does not sound extravagant, but it represents luxury when compared with the diet of the poorest Italian peasants of southern Italy. Two Italian scientists describe how this class of people live mainly on cornmeal, olive oil, and green stuffs and have done so for generations. There is no milk, cheese, or eggs in their dietary. Meat in the form of fat pork is taken three or four times a year. Cornmeal is taken as "polenta," or is mixed mth beans and oil, or is made into corn bread. Cabbage or the leaves of beets are boiled in water and then eaten with oil flavored with garlic or Spanish pepper. One of the families investigated consisted of eight individuals, of whom two were children. The annual income was 424 francs, or $84. Of this, three cents per day per adult was spent for food and the remaining three-fifths of a cent was spent for other purposes. Little wonder that such people have migrated to America, but it may strike some as astonishing that a race so nourished should have become the man power in the construction of our railways, our subways, and our great buildings.
