Battle Creek Sanitarium School of Home Economics - Nucleus Yearbook (Battle Creek, MI)

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Q, The Opportunities for the Dietitian Before the worker equiped with dietitic knowledge lie twu courses of work, one course of which may bd considered as recon- structive and the other as preventative. To the work of reconstruction let us give all honor, and give it likewise to those who undertake it. Yet in this line of work the dietitian's place, at least this far in her progress, is rather beside that of the pharmacist than beside that of the doctor and of the nurse. However good it may be to directly or indirectly, succor the sick and restore to active and useful work an ailing and run- down mechanism, yet a wider, and surely a nobler field, lies in applying present day knowledge of food and hygiene in such a manner as to safeguard the already healthy. Any machine, ani- mate or inanimate, no matter what its original perfection, once broken clown is never capable of again attaining its maximum of productiveness. Consider the number of people whose output is hindered hy crippled mechanisms, ill-health of greater or lesser degree. It is, let it be repeated, well worth while to restore these, but what a prodigious waste of energy is due to faulty engineering and eq-uipment, these in turn due to neglect or ignorance of the body's requirements. Food is the physiological energy-producer and likewise that which regulates and builds iup the human machine. Since the bes ginning of life food has been an interest as well as a necessity to mankind. and many have been the theories advanced and charms imputed to this or that foodstuff. Only two generations ago the now highly prized tomato was cultivated in our Grandmother's gar- den as the ornamental and supposedly poisonous fruited plant known as the Love-apple. From this to the absurd jingle, Eat carrots to make you beautiful And cabbage to make you wise. Ideas fully as original and -unproven have liourished in each era. But the main idea which has run through many generations in the more fortunate classes, was to have a f1Im1fy -both in regard to quantity and variety. To prove this of the past few genertions. one has only to read the novels of the periods,-Dickens for exam- ple,-and note the frequency and sumptousness of the eatables offered upon the slightest pretextg or, better, secure an early copy of one of the womens' magazines and turn to the. household pages. Some of the menus for Sunday dinners would put to blush the veriest holiday occasion of the present time. Three, or at least two kinds oi meat formed the mainstay and round these were cir- cled such a variety of dishes as surely indicated a complete Satur- day spent in the kitchen. The hostess felt herself quite disgraced without several varieties of pickles, of preserves, of eondiments' and other relishes',, while the pastries, cakes, cookies, sauces, jellies, were of a greater medley than fare forth at a pot-luck supper. T32

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SENIOR CLASS 31

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S Scarcity of foodstuffs, as well as of labor, has materially re- duced this superabundance, yet even in those homes where diminu- tion has meant .merely a greater leisure for the housewife this more normal scale of living has not brought as great a benefit as might be desired, simply because of the lack of knowledge of food values, and the relation of food to growth, work. and health. In another class--the hungry who have never been with us-how much has never been done, and how very much there is to be done by those properly equipped for the work! Let ns reach our im- perfectly assimilated foreign population, teaching them wisdom in the choice of American foods and ways of cooking. It has long been known that the poor get less value for their money than the richer, because of lack of training. This opens a splendid opportunity for vital service to be rend- ered by the visiting housekeeper, managers of industrial lunch- rooms, and settlement workers with dietetic knowledge. Education is the watchword. Particularly Education of the present genera- tion, that their development may not be hinderedg Education of the children, themselves, that they may eo-operate and imitate the parents' efforts, and carry the good work forward to benefit the future. In this process of education the teachers of Home Eco- nomics holds a responsible position, The day is passing when teachers of Domestic Science and Art are expected to instruct merely in the routine of cooking and sewing. There is an essen- tial need for teachers equipped with a wide knowledge of foods and feeding, for her work meets the most 'receptive and most varied group of the peopleg under her care are children from homes of comfort and of poverty, of education and of ignorance. and to these homes her influence extends to the benefit of the adult as well as the children. School lunch-room work offers a like opportunity for this far-reaching service. There have been wonderful additions to the welfare of the world through the works of science. Let us he diligent carriers of the new addition-the science of eating-and, as the home-life centers around the family board as surely as about the family hearth, let us carry forw-ard the ethics of home-making that our nation may make strong development,-physically and morally. fhMIiLlA M. Bnooiis. 33