Cooking in times of war can be difficult as, in addition to local needs, food is also shipped to the troops at the front, to war refugees, and to hospitals. The price of food also inflates (rises), making it more expensive and difficult to feed a family. Therefore, the Ontario Board of Health published a pamphlet, entitled “The best foods to buy during the war”, to help educate the people on the home front about the best affordable and nutritional foods to buy. There were four categories of food – fat and energy foods, muscle and flesh-forming foods, bone-building foods, and medical foods. It also examined alternatives, such as only having meat once a day and replacing meat at certain meals with dried beans and peas, which contain the same amount of flesh-forming material as meat, but were much cheaper. The article also re-assured the reader that the government was watching the price of food and would step in if prices went too high.
“War-Time Cooking and Food Values,” Berlin Daily Telegraph, March 11, 1915.