history of meals for millions, soy, and freedom from ... - SoyInfo Center

the product to prospective large-scale users, public
agencies. He also was instrumental in making available a
plan for large scale production through facilities of other
dehydrators and food processors throughout the United
States.
“A 20,000 pound trial order was placed by the French
relief agency in April 1945. It was through Mr. Boltz that
the meal, prepared by the famous chef of the Omar
Khayyam restaurant, George Mardikian, was served to
delegates to the United Nations Conference on International
Organization at San Francisco.
“Character of the Multi-Purpose Meal:” Thirteen
characteristics are listed; they are somewhat different from
the 10 requirements that Mr. Clinton presented to Dr.
Borsook. For example: “2. It violates no dietary rule of any
religious faith.” “7. The food cost is approximately 4¢ per
meal. 8. Protein base is supplied by soy-bean grits, to which
are added dehydrated potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, onions,
leek, parsley, herbs, salt and pepper.” 12. There is no patent
on the formula...”
Preparation. Availability (“F.W. Boltz Corporation,
3614 Council Street, Los Angeles, California, is the present
source of the basic product–Multi-Purpose Meal”).
Percentage composition of Multi-Purpose Meal (Soy grits
68.0%. Potatoes 9.0%. Vegetable seasoning and salt 8.6%.
Cabbage 4.5%. Onions 4.5%).
“Statement from article entitled: ‘A Nutritionally-
Adequate, Low-Cost Multi-Purpose Meal,’ by Dr. Henry
Borsook, California Institute of Technology, May, 1945.”
“A combination of legumes and cereal and other
vegetable proteins can provide the protein equivalent to
meat or eggs. By adding to this mixture calcium, iron salts
and certain synthetic vitamins, a vegetable mixture can be
made which is the nutritional equivalent of meat and dairy
products at far less cost. The food engineer thus can do
more than contrive substitutes for certain natural (i.e.
unprocessed) foods. He can make low cost foods as
nutritious as expensive foods.”
“Vita-Meal: As served daily at Clifton’s ‘Vita-Meal’
(with Multi-Purpose Meal as its main constituent) contains
two items:–1. Multi-Purpose Meal, prepared to take out in a
small carton with a wooden spoon. 2. A dessert wafer. This
is a chocolate sandwich-type cookie, the filling of which
contains vitamin C, the fugitive vitamin found in leafy
green vegetables and orange juice, but which is destroyed in
cooking. This wafer is prepared by a Los Angeles firm
specializing in vitamin preparations.
“At Clifton’s the dehydrated Multi-Purpose Meal is
enriched and varied by the addition of vegetable fats, meat,
fish, nuts, cheese and other ingredients. These improve the
flavor and give the meal a daily variety as well as raising
the caloric value.
“More than 3 million subsistence meals of various
types have been served at Clifton’s. During the past year of
MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDOM FROM HUNGER 26
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service, Multi-Purpose Meal has proven its claim to a place
in any program for emergency or subsistence feeding.”
Note: This is the earliest document seen (Dec. 2010)
concerning Clifford Clinton and his work with Dr. Henry
Borsook and the development of a highly nutritious, lowcost
food. It is also the earliest document seen (Dec. 2010)
that lists the ten requirements of the multi-purpose meal Dr.
Borsook was asked to develop, or that gives its name as
“Vita-Meal” or “Multi-Purpose Meal.” Address: 618 So.
Olive St.–648 So. Broadway, Los Angeles, California.
30. de Kruif, Paul. 1945. How we can help feed Europe’s
hungry. Reader’s Digest. Sept. p. 50-52.
• Summary: The author, a skillful writer on popular science,
discusses Meals for Millions and their multi-purpose meal.
With Europe on the brink of starvation, scientists “have
converted soybeans into powerful protein food that is
palatable. Plentiful soya plus abundant wheat can change
Europe’s famine ration into a diet meaning the difference
between life and death for millions...
“For the past four years Europe’s people have been
living on rations dangerously low in protein–and protein
starvation breeds pestilence...
“The hopeful fact is that modern famine-fighters no
longer think of food in terms of meat, milk, butter, eggs and
vegetables, but rather in nutritive essentials–calories,
proteins, minerals and vitamins...
“Viewers-with-alarm have reckoned without the
soybean, a powerful newcomer among America’s major
food crops... But this versatile vegetable has had one
failing: Western people, in general, haven’t liked its taste
and have refused to eat it.
“Luckily for Europe’s threatened millions, chemists
have now licked this one lack in the soybean. They’ve debittered
its protein so that it takes on the taste of any food
with which it is blended. Last spring’s famine in Greece was
checked with the help of soya in our War Food
Administration’s stew. But now the threat of starvation has
spread all over Europe. Will it be possible to make soybeans
so tasty that they can be made a major part of Europe’s diet,
along with wheat?
“The positive answer has come from California. In
1943, Clifford E. Clinton, who owns and manages two large
cafeterias in Los Angeles, was serving as consultant on food
to the War Department and UNRRA [United Nations Relief
and Rehabilitation Administration]. He foresaw today’s
menace of European hunger and asked scientists of the
California Institute of Technology to fight it. For their
experiments he provided a money grant.
“Caltech’s Dr. Henry Borsook turned nutritional
practice topsy-turvy by beginning in the kitchen instead of
the test tube. He hired a skilled French cook, Mme.
Soulange Berzceller [sic, probably Berczeller], and in her