[2] The low score of fresh cod is due chiefly to the absence
of fat and the presence of water.

The great value of milk in the diet has already been discussed. The
"score" of milk is about the same as that for sugar (milk, 761; sugar,
725); hence, if sugar is ten cents a pound and milk eighteen-cents a quart
(about nine cents per pound), milk is cheaper than sugar. Yet there are
people cutting down their milk supply when the cost is only thirteen or
fourteen cents per quart on the ground that milk is too expensive! The
economical housewife should have no compunctions in spending from
one-fifth to one-fourth of her food money for this almost indispensable
food. Whether the free use of milk will be good food conservation as well
as good economy depends upon the supply. If there is not enough to go
around, babies and the poor should have the first claim upon it and the
rest of the world should try to get along with something less economical.

A pound of eggs (eight or nine eggs) gives about the same nutritive return
as a pound of medium fat beef, but to be as cheap as beef at thirty cents
a pound, eggs must not cost over forty-five cents a dozen. Eggs must be
counted among the expensive foods, to be used very sparingly indeed in the
economical diet. Nevertheless the use of eggs as a means of saving meat is
a rational food conservation movement, to be encouraged where means
permit.

The saving of sugar, while a necessary conservation measure, is contrary
to general food economy, since sugar is a comparatively cheap fuel food
and has the great additional value of popularity. Sugar substitutes are
not all as cheap as sugar by any means, but molasses, on account of its
large amount of mineral salts, especially of calcium, has a score value of