Food in War Time — Context and Discussion

Calories as a Wartime Currency

Lusk treats food not as pleasure but as fuel, measured in calories and priced at ten cents per thousand. He provides tables that translate human activity into energy expenditure: sitting adds 5 percent to basal metabolism, standing at attention adds 14 percent. Walking three miles per hour burns 1.1 calories per pound of body weight; running at 5.3 miles per hour burns 3.1. These figures allow him to calculate the cost of a soldier's forced march—30 miles in 10 hours, with a 44-pound pack, yields a daily requirement of 4,022 calories. He even computes that walking eight miles at three miles per hour saves more money than a five-cent streetcar fare, though he wryly notes the cost of shoe leather is excluded.

The Boy Who Eats Like a Man

A recurring theme is the overlooked food needs of adolescents. Lusk reports that boys over twelve require as much food as men, and that during the war some families sent boys to boarding school to reduce food bills. He cites the emaciation of poor children as a factor that lowers their requirement—a grim observation that underscores the stakes of rationing. Girls' needs, he admits, have not been investigated, but he presumes they match their mothers'. This section grounds the abstract science of metabolism in a domestic reality: the family table becomes a site of national sacrifice, where a growing boy's appetite is both a biological fact and a logistical problem.

Green Leaves and the Science of Sufficiency

Lusk repeatedly returns to the nutritional power of green leaves, which he presents as the secret behind the Italian peasants' surprising strength. He explains that the poor-quality protein in corn is supplemented by leaf protein, and that leaves supply the fat-soluble vitamins otherwise found in butter. This argument is not merely academic; it is a practical guide for wartime substitution. If butter is scarce, green leaves can provide the same accessory substances. Lusk's tone is that of a physiologist translating laboratory findings into household advice, but he never oversimplifies: the leaves must be eaten with oil to unlock their full value. The result is a compact lesson in nutritional chemistry, delivered without condescension.

Lusk's pamphlet is best read as a period document that reveals how early nutrition science was mobilized for national policy. His calculations—of caloric costs, of metabolic rates, of the hidden value in a plate of greens—are precise but never pedantic. Readers interested in the history of dietetics, home-front economics, or the scientific rhetoric of sacrifice will find here a concise, data-driven argument that treats every meal as a strategic decision.

I’ve always marveled at how Food in War Time measures the plain arithmetic of hunger—calories for marching, for labor—while our buccaneer histories measure plunder in gold. Both reckon what a body costs, I suppose. One weighs bread, the other blood. They share a quiet ledger, those two, bound by necessity. History of the Buccaneers of America — Inside the Classic keeps that same grim account, only salted with sea air.