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From this point of view there is no such thing as a "meat substitute." But, nutritionally speaking, meat is only one of many; undeniably a good source of protein, but no better than milk or eggs.

Nutritionally, millet is almost the same story as oats. Millet seed is protected by a very hard hull. Cooking unhulled millet is almost impossible. After hours of boiling the small round seeds will still be hard and the hulls remain entirely indigestible.

There is no shortage ever of carbon from CO2 in the air and rarely a shortage of hydrogen from water. When the highly digestible starch in manioc is chewed, digestive enzymes readily convert it into sugar. Nutritionally there is virtually no difference between eating manioc and eating white sugar. Both are entirely empty calories.

One man may be a little taller, a little heavier, have a different tilt to his nose, but any two men are more alike than a man and a dog. So corn has a little less protein than wheat and considerably less lime, yet corn and wheat are, nutritionally, more alike than either is like sugar. None of the cereals will make a complete diet by itself.

Just how far the potato will go in providing the specific vitamines essential for growth is still unsettled. Nutritionally then, we can find substitutes for the potato; practically, too, we can find quite satisfactory alternatives for it in our conventional bills of fare.

But one baked potato would furnish the same energy as the three lumps of sugar; a quarter of a pound of cornstarch would supply the same fuel as the quarter pound of sugar. Nutritionally starch and sugar are interchangeable, the advantage as far as digestion is concerned being with the starch rather than the sugar. And yet we put sugar on starch!

The same is true of some of the other foods which supply protein in the diet such as dry peas and beans; cheese and peanut butter are at least twice as valuable nutritionally as beef. The domestic problem is to make palatable dishes from these foods. This requires time and patience. The cook must not get discouraged if the first trial does not bring marked success.

Nutritionally a tablespoon of maple sugar is equivalent in fuel value to about four-fifths of a tablespoon of cane sugar, while equal volumes of cane molasses, corn syrup, and maple syrup are interchangeable as fuel, though not of equal sweetening power. Molasses is a less one-sided food than cane sugar or corn syrup.