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

56. Photograph of Clifford Clinton at his desk, in the office
in his home at 5470 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles. 1947.
• Summary: This photo and date were sent to Soyinfo
Center by Donald Clinton, son of Clifford Clinton (Jan.
2011).
57. New Yorker.1948. MPF [Multi-Purpose Food]. Jan. 17.
p. 19-20.
• Summary: In 1944, MPF was developed by Dr. Henry
Borsook, a professor of biochemistry at the California
Institute of Technology. It “is a soybean derivative, and it
seems to us to taste fine.” Its great, indeed revolutionary
value lies in the fact that three cents’ worth of MPF has
about the same nutritional value as a meal of beef, green
peas, a small potato, and milk. Borsook used research grants
from a philanthropic California restaurateur named Clifford
Clinton, and fromthe California Dehydrators’ Association.
As soon as its development was complete, Clinton
established the Meals for Millions Foundation in Los
Angeles. A non-profit organization, it has an office at 119
East 19th St. Since July 1946, the Foundation has
distributed some five million meals of MPF to 32 relief
agencies and these, in turn, have sent them to 21 foreign
countries.
58. Windsor Daily Star (Essex County, Ontario,
Canada).1948. Provides nourishing meals costing three
cents each: Versatile source of shortening and industrial oils
makes good Ontario cash crop. Jan. 20. p. 5-6.
• Summary: Robert H. Peck of River Canard, Ontario, has
grown soy beans for 22 of his 33 years. “It is his confident
faith that the soy bean will have more to do with Canada’s
future health and wealth than most people suspect... He
raised his first soy beans for a school fair in 1925. Since
then he has planted more and more each year until in the
middle 1930s, he began devoting a considerable acreage to
registered seed production. Last fall his beans took first
prize at the Royal Winter Fair at Toronto but, to his chagrin,
only placed second in the International Grain and Feed
Show at Chicago [Illinois].
In October 1947 “he was made a director of the
American Soy Bean Association, becoming the first
Canadian to be chosen for the governing body of that
organization since, in 1929, G.I. Christie of Guelph served
as president.
“In 1947 Bob Peck raised about 800 bushels of highgrade
seed soy beans on 50 of his 180 acres of farmland at
River Canard, seven miles south of Windsor, as well as
running a test plot for the Harrow Experimental Farm,
where new varieties are developed... In all Canada nearly
200,000 acres of farmland were devoted to soybeans last
year, as compared with 10,000 acres in 1941.” About 88%
of Canadian soy beans are produced in Western Ontario,
chiefly in Essex and Kent Counties. Some are grown in
MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDOM FROM HUNGER 36
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2011
Middlesex, Elgin, and Lambton Counties. Soybean oil is
now widely used in making shortening, while the meal is
used to feed dairy cattle and poultry. Soybean oil can also
be used to make more than 4,000 industrial products, such
as paints, plastics, and linoleums. In the USA it serves as a
basic ingredient in oleomargarine. “New uses are constantly
being sought by such firms as Victory Mills, Limited, which
recently announced the establishment of a $300,000
research project directed by Dr. W.D. McFarland, former
head of the chemistry department of MacDonald [sic,
Macdonald] College in Quebec.”
A large photo shows Mr. Robert H. Peck with a sack of
soybean seeds. Also discusses the work of Meals for
Millions in using soybeans to develop a 3-cent meal to feed
the hungry in Europe.
59. New York Times.1948. News of food; Styron boxes...
Jan. 31.
• Summary: “Another new product that is creating a stir
among consumers is Multi-Purpose Food. We tasted some
of this all-vegetable substance recently at a luncheon...”
60. Soybean Digest.1948. Multi-Purpose Food on friendship
train. Feb. p. 22.
• Summary: The low-cost Multi-Purpose Food that is 86
percent soy grits, which was first called to the attention of
our readers over 2 years ago, is at last attracting
international attention.
“MPF is on shipment to more than a score of countries
in Europe and Asia. A box car of half a million meals was
on the original Friendship Train when it left Los Angeles
[ca. 1947] for its transcontinental and ocean journey to
Europe. Three tons were dispatched to the Vatican to be
distributed by the Pope to hungry children. Fifty thousand
meals were sent to the starving Navajo Indians recently [in
the United States, at the four corners of Arizona, New
Mexico, Utah and Colorado].
“So far 32 relief agencies have distributed more than 5
million MPF meals to hungry people in distress areas. Cost
of this food runs about 3 cents a meal.”
61. Soybean Digest.1948. Grits and flakes... from the world
of soy: Multi-Purpose Food. Feb. p. 26.
• Summary: “A lunch dish in the cafeteria of the City
College of New York recently was ‘Multi-Purpose Food,’ a
low cost completely balanced food processed from soy
products. The food is being shipped by relief agencies to
hunger areas in Europe.”
“Recent newspaper pictures featured the relief feeding
of Navajo Indians with Multi-Purpose Food, which includes
soy products. The Navajos have been reported to be facing
starvation on their reservation.”