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

nutritious and can be incorporated in various ways in the
diet of children (Autret and Van Veen 1955).
“Predigested foods” [fermented]: Mentions soy sauce,
and tempeh in Southern Rhodesia.
“Conclusion: It is evident from the foregoing account
that besides cereals and pulses which form important
sources of protein in the diet of the low income groups in
tropical countries, oilseeds and oilseed meals represent an
abundant and a most important source of proteins which
have not been fully utilised so far for supplementing human
diet.” Address: Central Food Technological Research Inst.
(CFTRI), Mysore, India.
123. Soybean Digest.1958. Nationwide cycle trip on soy
diet: Will attend convention. Aug. p. 9.
• Summary: Carl Urban, age 40, plans to cycle across the
USA in the summer heat on a 40-day diet costing only $10.
His “only food on the bicycle ride from Los Angeles to New
York will be Multi-Purpose Food (95% soy grits) filling for
soy bread sandwiches. Margarine from soybean oil will
provide the needed extra calories. In case he needs added
low-cost energy he may drink some soybean milk.” He
plans to supplement his diet with vitamin C.
His wife and two children plan to pace him in the
family car “and have family reunions each night in friendly
motels and motor courts. Urban plans to do 100 miles a
day.” He left Los Angeles on July 26. He plans to attend the
ASA convention (of which he is a member) at Des Moines,
Iowa, on Aug. 19.
“Urban thinks many Americans, as well as restaurants
and food service institutions, could provide better nutrition
at lower cost by proper use of soy products.”
124. Rose, Florence. 1958. Plan international nutrition
conference: Propose a working conference of officials from
interested countries to tackle world nutrition problems.
Soybeans can play a big part. Soybean Digest. Sept. p. 74-
76.
• Summary: This is the text of a speech made by Florence
Rose of MFM at the American Soybean Association’s 38th
annual meeting (On Aug. 20). Her actual mimeographed
speech was titled “Soybeans Lead Bread–Through the
World’s Hunger Fronts.”
During the past 12 years, the Meals for Millions
Foundation, Inc. has sent over 54 million of these “3¢ meals
based on soy grits to over 100 countries around the world.
ASA’s 38th annual convention in Memphis, Tennessee,
was the site of the second stage of the Multi-Purpose Food
(MPF) idea “which is to assist other countries to produce
their own counterpart Multi-Purpose Food, from their own
resources.” Today, in India, there is a MPF that utilizes
peanuts as the protein source. “The Minister of Agriculture
of India became president of our Indian Meals for Millions
Association formed in 1955 to make the Indian people
MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDOM FROM HUNGER 54
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aware of this new approach to their age-old problem. Prime
Minister Nehru authorized funds for the initial pilot plant
now operating at the Central Food Technological Research
Institute at Mysore.” MFM has aided the take-off of the
pilot plant by purchasing over 100,000 pounds of the Indian
product–“in addition to the 10 million meals of soy-based
MPF shipped to India prior to 1956.
“The great United Nations agency, UNICEF, is
prepared to assist the government of India in setting up
large-scale production, after certain preliminaries are
completed.” A “grant of $25,000 has been made to our
nongovernmental Indian affiliate to help it popularize and
publicize the existence of this new food.”
There is also a soy-based Multi-Purpose Food in Brazil
now. In the Philippines and Japan, Meals for Millions is
working to develop local production of MPF. In Japan, in
“cooperation with Mr. Shizuka Hayashi and your Japanese-
American Soybean Institute, we hope there will soon be a
Japanese MPF utilizing American soybeans as the protein
base.”
With its small budget and staff, MFM began looking for
a short-cut that might cut the time between a good idea and
concrete action.
“Trial balloon: This is the background that led us to
send up a trial balloon in the May issue [article, p. 20-22] of
the Soybean Digest proposing the idea of an International
Conference to which would be invited principally officials
on the ministerial levels from interested countries...”
Recently Florence Rose and Ernest Chamberlain (MFM
secretary) presented the idea at the recent World Health
Organization (WHO) assembly that met in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, from May 22 to June 24. They personally
discussed the conference with the ministers of health or
their deputies from 27 of the 85 countries represented. “All
expressed enthusiasm in participating in such a conference
if the means could be developed to bring them to the
conference location.” Such a conference might be
sponsored by the California Institute of Technology or one
of the United Nations agencies such as WHO, FAO, and/or
UNICEF. Best of all would be the American Soybean
Association. Specific commitments to initiate MFM
programs were given by ministers from Ceylon, Indonesia,
and Liberia.
“Yesterday, Dwayne Andreas of Honeymead Products
Co. gave us an inspiring example of what interest can mean,
by offering Meals for Millions a [rail] carload of soy grits, a
gift that will help provide an additional half-million meals
of soybased MPF that can tremendously accelerate our
programs in Japan and Spain and Italy.” Address: Executive
Secretary, MFM Foundation, Inc.
125. Soybean Digest.1958. Dr. Borsook is food man of year.
Oct. p. 19.