YOUR MONEY'S WORTH
Sheridan, Mary
Your Money's Worth By MARY SHERIDAN BY this fall we thought we would know where we were at. We would know, consumers thought, what the new Defense Production Act would mean in holding the price...
...15 cents...
...This takes very little time, and it's best for the cook not to wander back to living room conversation while the process is going on...
...Free...
...Frozen vegetables can be cooked this way while you're making gravy or mashing potatoes, and the result is a waterless, better looking dish than what you get from using the amount of water recommended in the package directions...
...Union Fork & Hoe Co., Columbus 8, Ohio...
...A revised 55-page booklet on home canning problems...
...Military production is up and will be stepped up sharply by next year...
...It's well worth mentioning that an additional reprinting has made copies of the fine booklet...
...A simplified plan, with tables for planning and recording expenses and income...
...One food executive — Frank Grimes, president of the Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA)—has dared to predict that food prices are likely to go down this fall because of big crops "and then we're going to see some spectacular sales —especially in canned goods...
...Melt two tablespoons of fat for every quart of vegetables in a heavy frying pan, add the vegetables, cover, and let them cook slowly, stirring occasionally, and adding salt and pepper when done...
...Cleverly illustrated with cartoons and particularly helpful on "health foods" and medical "devices...
...Good Cooking with Dry Milk, by Joan Miller and Catherine Person-ius...
...The baker's share of the consumer's dollar has increased while the farmer's share has decreased...
...Picnic Meals...
...It's the best egg slicer I've seen anywhere...
...This is an excellent way, too, to cook frozen vegetables...
...thawing on paper wastes the juice...
...Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson's statement in early September that the long-threatened pinch on civilian goods is here right now is the most decisive warning to date that a plentiful civilian market may not be with us long...
...The report adds that the Antitrust Division has not been so diligent as it might have been in examining the baking industry for violations, such as possible illegal price agreements...
...So far another buying rush hasn't started...
...New York State College on Home Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. A Book List for Parents...
...Automobile manufacturers, driving teachers, and repair men all say that the best way to use the brakes on a car is to "snub" or "pump" the brake pedal, which is easier on brakes and tires than the usual braking push and gives the most effective control on wet, snowy, or icy pavements...
...Hang-It" hooks (four for 50 cents) are made of metal with brakes for gripping the handles of mops, brooms, rakes, or other tools you want to keep off the floor...
...in window frames and sashes, from wood to steel and aluminum...
...In piping, there is a marked shift from galvanized steel to copper and brass...
...The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department comes in for a chiding in the report's recommendation that "in order to assure ample food supplies at reasonable prices for consumers" it and the Federal Trade Commission must prosecute all illegal acts in meat processing and marketing...
...A guide to knowing what labels mean and getting more for your money...
...If you prefer, you can leave the cover off, which takes a bit more cooking time...
...The principal cooking difficulty here is that the outside of a large cut, like a rib roast, might be overdone before the center was thawed out...
...Coprox" is a compound of copper oxide and cement...
...In a remarkable understatement, the report said, "The introduction of chemicals into foods in order to make a cheaper product resemble a better one deserves a very thorough study by this or some other committee of Congress...
...A new product for waterproofing damp basement walls sounds almost too good to be true...
...When farm prices go up, the food processors raise their prices "to reflect not only the rise, but in many-cases even wider margins for themselves...
...Civilian use of steel, copper, and aluminum will be cut back for three months beginning Oct...
...The line is, "When these are gone, there won't be any more...
...In general, the Act will roll ceilings forward from their present levels, pushing them up to heights that we cannot yet foresee...
...Even hamburger, once the poor man's salvation, is expensive these days—and it seems to get more heavily larded with fat all the time...
...The Food and Drug Administration is not protecting the public when it relies on "debates between opposing scientific representatives of commercially competing interests" instead of independent experts in setting bread standards...
...Available in powder form, "Coprox" is mixed with water, then applied to a wet surface (dry walls must first be soaked...
...The report recommends that bakers be required to label the content of bread and rolls and that legislation forbid the addition of non-nutritive ingredients to bread or other foods unless the chemical serves a useful purpose and is approved by the FDA...
...Panning Vegetables Panning, says the Department of Agriculture, is a good, easy way to cook tender vegetables, saving flavor, food value, fuel, and time...
...Pamphlet Parade Read the Label...
...Cornell Extension Bulletin 804...
...President Truman summed up the new price legislation with the gloomy prediction, "We will not be able to hold down rising prices with this Act . . . Moreover, the Act prohibits further rollbacks in the price of beef, and makes effective rollbacks on other vital cost-of-living commodities practically impossible...
...Instead, all we know with certainty is that inflation is with us...
...According to all advance announcements, "Coprox" forms a stonelike surface, completely waterproof...
...On non-farm prices, present ceilings can be lifted if manufacturers can show that their costs have gone up between the start of the Korean War and July 26, 1951...
...Recommended consumer reading on this issue is the article, "Peril on Your Food Shelf," by Rep...
...The dealers and wholesalers whose warehouses are over-stocked look forward to this chance to unload...
...The Presto egg sheer, with a sturdy base of die-cast aluminum and cutting wire of Swedish spring steel, is designed so that it will cut through an egg any way you wish...
...it costs a little less than good paint...
...Dudley J. LeBlanc to the Tobey Maltz Foundation in New York for some eight million dollars plus a $100,000 yearly salary for LeBlanc for 15 years...
...Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C. Answers by the Canning Doctor...
...The Department of Agriculture confirms what most gardeners have learned by experience: room temperature, not sunlight, completes the ripening-reddening process on tomatoes not quite ready...
...When bread sold for 13 cents a loaf in 1947, the wheat farmer got 3 cents out of that 13...
...Our Common Bugbear A summer remarkable for consumer restraint in buying clothes, appliances, and cars was partially explained by the exorbitant cost of food, particularly meat...
...While certain models may not be available, there is an abundant choice of appliances for the buyer willing to shop around...
...Contemporary Houses Developed from Room Units, available again from the Small Homes Council, University of Illinois, Mumford House, Urbana, 111...
...Among housing trends are these interesting changes: More houses without basements...
...Assembled by Gertrude Blair, home economist, and Gordon H. Cole, editor of The Machinist, this is a collection of lunch box and picnic recipes, including sandwiches, soups, salads, main dishes, and desserts...
...1. Retail stores do not yet reflect the pinch...
...Farm prices go up if other prices go up...
...Consumer Education Department, Household Finance Corp., 919 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 11, 111...
...One good defrosting suggestion is to let meat thaw out on a rack in a roasting pan, then use the juice in cooking or for gravy...
...1 a copy, and worth many times that much for its ideas...
...Reading recommendations and references according to ages...
...Notes Hadacol, that patent medicine concoction of honey, minerals, and alcohol, has been sold by Louisiana's state Sen...
...New York, N. Y. Products & Gadgets Harry R. O'Brien's "Gardening Slide Rule" has slots for vegetables, annuals, perennials, and bulbs, with culture, hardiness, and other gardening information listed...
...Incidentally, owners of home freezers will be interested in the frozen-food researchers' report that slow freezing of meat increases the amount of drip in the subsequent thawing and that the amount of drip increases with the length of frozen storage...
...The new legislation, cloudy and indecisive, leaves the 10% rollback on livestock but forbids any further rollbacks on beef...
...Food prices remain the bugbear of us all...
...The new credit rules are in favor of house builders under the less-than-$ 12,000 category, providing for 25 years to pay instead of the 20 year pay-off previously required under Regulation X. On a $12,000 house, veterans now have to make a down payment of $960, non-veterans $2,400...
...Guy Gillette, Iowa Democrat, which held extensive hearings during the past year on food, its prices, and the chemicals that go into commercial products: • On meat pricing, the Senate group concluded, it "seems quite clear that the basic economics in the marketing of meat products is charging what the traffic will bear...
...At hardware stores or from Gardex, Inc., Michigan City, Ind...
...Available in three sizes: small (about 71/4 inches diameter, $1), medium (81/4 inches square, $1.25), and large (8 by 111/2 inches, $1.50...
...in 1949 when bread sold for 141/2 cents a loaf, the wheat grower got 2.4 cents as his share...
...To prevent the loss of B vitamins, frozen meat should be cooked without thawing and the juices used for soups and gravies, report a group of nutritionists in Nutrition Reviews...
...The absence of a particular model, or the coming shortage," is used as a sales argument for buying now...
...In shingles, buyers' preference has switched from wood to asphalt...
...Slice into small pieces green beans, summer squash, spinach, cabbage, or okra...
...James J. Delaney, chairman of the nonpartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food Products, in the July American magazine...
...During 1949 prices farmers received dropped 13%, but retail prices went down only 4...
...We can hope that Grimes is right, but all other forecasts are to the contrary...
...At department stores, or Seth & Jed., New Marlborough, Mass...
...Installment buying controls are relaxed...
...The unknown Foundation identifies itself with cancer research, which may cause an unfortunate identification in the minds of gullible consumers about Hadacol's already over-touted powers...
...61% of single-family houses built last year, in 1950, had no basement...
...The farmer is not the food profiteer...
...Cornell Extension Bulletin 802, New York State College of Home Economics, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. Your Budget...
...For consumers, Wilson said, this means that a "vastly greater amount of materials" will have to be diverted into rearmament, with a corresponding cut in automobiles, television sets, household appliances, and other civilian goods...
...One-third down payment is still required for new automobiles, and dealers complain that the three-months extension doesn't make enough difference to speed up sales...
...For a perspective on some of the complex problems related to it, here are a few highlights from the recent repo"rt of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee headed by Sen...
...Free...
...Cork pads to use under hot dishes are practical and good to look at...
...Is the Pinch Here...
...Pattern in Houses Our current housing pattern these days, according to the most recent government surveys, is a one-story "ranch-type" house with four rooms and bath...
...Installment buying has been slow despite relaxation of Regulation W and fancy trade-in inducements of doubtful ethics...
...For time-buying of cars, appliances, radios, and TV sets, the pay-off period has been extended from 15 to 18 months...
...Power to freeze wages remains about the same, with the Wage Stabilization Board's continued authority to make readjustments...
...For home repairs and improvements, credit terms have now been extended to 36 months, instead of 30, but as yet there are no facts to show whether or not the added credit time has promoted home owners to take on improvements they have been hesitating about...
...Put the frozen chunk in a few tablespoons of melted fat, cover, and cook over a medium hot flame, seasoning when done...
...The credit relaxations, however, have spurred sales of used cars...
...It is available in quantities of 10 or more at 15 cents a copy from Brevity, Inc., 270 Park Ave...
...We would know, consumers thought, what the new Defense Production Act would mean in holding the price line and whether we were at war or peace...
...There is a big jump from the $12,000 to the $15,000 house, where veterans must make a down payment of $3,550 and non-veterans $4,300...
...5 cents...
...Consumer Service Department, Western Beet Sugar Producers, Inc., 2 Pine St., San Francisco 11, Calif...
...It allows residential rent increases of 20% over June, 1947, levels...
...In house heating, gas has gained preference over coal-fired equipment...
...69 cents at hardware or department stores...
Vol. 15 • October 1951 • No. 10
