Skimmed milk and buttermilk both have their value as nutriment, and experts say that even after cream has been removed the skimmed milk still contains nearly ten per cent of its nutritive properties. Buttermilk is often more acceptable to patients than sweet milk, and, if it can be obtained fresh every day, it can be used occasionally to add variety to a strictly milk or liquid diet. It is said that six ounces of buttermilk has in it the same amount of nutrition as a medium-sized potato.[2] “Actual experiment has demonstrated that a fifteen-cent lunch containing nine different food materials (soup, beef, potatoes, turnips, bread, butter, coffee, milk, sugar), did not have any greater nutritive value than a four-cent lunch consisting of a pint of skimmed milk and ten ounces of bread.” [2] U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 74. In ordering milk it is better to get too much than too little. The excess can always be used in food combinations, and at the prices ordinarily paid it is not an expensive food. Because of the ease with which it is digested by the average person, and its nutritive properties, it can be served in almost a numberless variety of forms to sick people, and often in preference to other foods. [Sidenote: Care of Milk] Assuming that it is possible for dealers to supply pure milk, and that the housekeeper knows whether or not she is getting the genuine article for her sick family, there is still something required, if it is to reach the patients in good condition. Be the article never so pure when delivered, it can quickly become impure by careless handling. The milk delivered at a very early hour may be left at the door where it is exposed to heat, dust and flies, and by the time it is taken into the house impurities may have entered that will account for it becoming sour in a few hours. Another source of contamination can be traced to the practice of putting milk in open vessels into the same refrigerator with meats and vegetables. Old tin or wooden vessels should never be used, and vessels should be thoroughly scalded and scrupulously clean before the milk is put in. If the racks and shelves in the cooling room are scrubbed daily, also the inside of the milk refrigerator, and a temperature of 50 F. or lower maintained, there should be no difficulty in keeping milk sweet twenty-hour hours or longer.