Using cream and butter. Mrs. Allen gives an extra amount of cream and butter to the little girl who is under weight. She makes the cream so appetizing by whipping it and sweetening it with a little honey that Alice eats a few spoonfuls gladly with a piece of bread for her dessert. Do you think that it is extravagant to use these materials? On the farm, if you sell dairy products, you have a way of disposing of both the cream and butter at a good price. If, however, the milk of one cow is kept for home use, part of the milk can be set for cream to be used on the morning cereal or with some dessert. The skimmed milk can be used for cooking, and, if need be, beef fat or even chicken fat added, when these have been nicely tried out. Cream is a digestible form of fat for children and for older people who cannot eat fat pork. You can see that cream is cheaper than butter, because the butter requires labor; and you must never make the mistake of thinking that a woman's time does not count. It is sometimes a high price to pay.

Fig. 124. - 100-calorie portions of milk and cream.

More about the cost of food. It is very difficult when we use food raised on our own place to calculate how much it costs. There are some facts about food economy that we all ought to learn, because it is true that some kinds of food are always cheaper than others. Bread and cereals give us more nutriment for the money than meat, because the supply is larger and less labor is used in producing them. Here is a table that shows you the relation of money and food value received in a few common foods :