with two and a quarter times as much energy as any other food.

It does not follow, however, that there is no difference in the
products. The margarin men accuse butter of harboring tuberculosis germs
from which their product, because it has been heated or is made from
vegetable fats, is free. The butter men retort that margarin is lacking
in vitamines, those mysterious substances which in minute amounts are
necessary for life and especially for growth. Both the claim and the
objection lose a large part of their force where the margarin, as is
customarily the case, is mixed with butter or churned up with milk to
give it the familiar flavor. But the difficulty can be easily overcome.
The milk used for either butter or margarin should be free or freed from
disease germs. If margarin is altogether substituted for butter, the
necessary vitamines may be sufficiently provided by milk, eggs and
greens.

Owing to these new processes all the fatty substances of all lands have
been brought into competition with each other. In such a contest the
vegetable is likely to beat the animal and the southern to win over the
northern zones. In Europe before the war the proportion of the various
ingredients used to make butter substitutes was as follows:

AVERAGE COMPOSITION OF EUROPEAN MARGARIN


Per Cent.
Animal hard fats 25
Vegetable hard fats 35
Copra 29
Palm-kernel 6