FOODS FOR EMERGENCIES

Abstract

Writing in 1942 on the subject Unusual Foods of High Nutritive Value, we urged reevaluation of supplies of food, with emphasis on a number of resources which theretofore had not been tapped extensively and which warranted more consideration in developing plans for feeding populations for which supplies of food were limited. The undernutrition of hundreds of millions of the European population precipitated by the war and scarcely arrested, if at all, since the ending of hostilities, prompts reiteration of this subject. Also a number of the foods which we considered in our previous paper have assumed immense importance in many of the war-torn countries, and some account of this experience is now available for review. Two general observations relate to this experience; each of them has been repeatedly affirmed. The first is that starvation in the European countries, bad as it has been, has everywhere been less than was anticipated