The untrained housekeeper is responsible for the sheer waste of
one-fifth of the average salary--wasted because she does not
know how to buy her foods, in quantity or quality; because she
has not known what kind of foods to give to produce the best
results; because, as a bargain-hunter, she is the cause of the
great quantities of “material just like the goods, but at a
cheaper price” which flood our markets and lack durability.
No man would employ a purchasing agent who did not know the
materials he was to buy; yet woman, with the greatest purchasing
power, goes at it without knowledge.
We find that the majority of young men in the universities
who go wrong are of those who live in boarding-houses where
landladies know little of the choosing and preparing of foods.
An inadequate lunch is followed by hunger during the middle of
the afternoon, with the resultant glass of beer to satisfy the
appetite for the time being.
(1496)