Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

PHALEN. Technology of Salt Making in the United States. United States Bureau of Mines, Bulletin 146 (1917).

BENEDICT and BENEDICT. The Energy Content of Extra Foods. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 179, pages 153–162 (1918); Vol. 181, pages 415-422 (1919).

HAWK, SMITH, and HOLDER. Baker's Yeast as Food for Man. American Journal of Physiology, Vol. 48, pages 199-210 (1919); Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 13, page 1088.

HIRSCHFELDER. Simple Method for Administration of Iodides in the Food in Goiterous Regions. Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 79, pages 1426-1427 (1922).

MURLIN and MATTILL. The Laxative Action of Yeast. American Journal of Physiology, Vol. 64, pages 275-294 (1923); Chemical Abstracts, Vol. 17, page 2730.

SERGER. Artificial Sweetening (Saccharin) and Its Use in the Fruit Preservation Industry. Chemiker Zeitung, Vol. 47, pages 98-100, 123-124, 145-146 (1923).

CHAPTER XIII

FOOD BUDGETS AND FOOD ECONOMICS

The Problem of the Best Use of Food

SEVERAL of the foregoing chapters include statistical estimates of the money values of the annual products of particular food industries, and in some cases the discussion of the place of food in the diet has included suggestions as to the desirable proportion which the expenditure for the food in question should bear to the total expenditure for food. The data thus far given have, however, not been sufficiently comprehensive or systematic to constitute either a record of the food budget of the people as a whole, or a complete recommendation as to what the food budget of an individual or a family should be. Full discussion of this subject, especially if approached from the standpoint of the science of nutrition, would lead us farther into the field of dietetics than belongs to the scope of this book; but some consideration of it from the standpoint of food economics seems essential to the proper rounding out of the general study of food products to which this book is devoted. In this concluding chapter, therefore, an attempt will be made to summarize the place of each of the most important articles or types of food in the food budget and to indicate, from the results of actual experience, the effects which differences in food selection may be expected to exert upon the nutritive value and economy of the diet as a whole.

As pointed out in Chapter I the requirements of nutrition, and therefore the factors of food value, may be summarized, from the point of view with which we are concerned in the present

study, under the four general heads of energy, usually expressed in terms of calories; protein; mineral elements; and vitamins. Viewed from this standpoint the nutritional-economic characteristics of the chief types of food materials may be very briefly summarized as follows:

1. Breadstuffs and other grain products — economical sources of energy and protein but not satisfactory in their mineral and vitamin content.

2. Sugars and fats chiefly significant from the nutritional standpoint as supplementary sources of energy, although some fats are also important as sources of the fat-soluble vitamin.

3. Meats, including fish and poultry -rich in protein or fat or both, but showing, in general, the same mineral and vitamin deficiencies as do the grains and breadstuffs.

4. Fruits and vegetables

varying greatly in their protein and energy values, but very important as sources of mineral elements and vitamins.

5. Milk important as source of energy, protein, mineral elements, and vitamins; the most efficient of all foods in making good the deficiencies of the grains and in insuring the all-round adequacy of the diet.

It is plain that differing prominence of any particular type of food in the food supply may readily influence its economy and its nutritional character. And it is also well known that the food supplies of different countries, and of different groups of people in the same country, do differ widely from each other in this respect, some people living more largely on fruits and vegetables, others more largely on meat, others more largely on grains or breadstuffs. The discussion which follows is based on American observations of actual normal conditions.

A Study of American Experience

The character of the American food supply may be studied by investigating any or all of three kinds of available data: First,

the census statistics and crop and market reports for the various food industries of the United States with corrections when necessary for imports and exports. Second, the extensive inquiries of the Bureau of Labor Statistics covering data obtained through interviews and questionnaires from thousands of families in various parts of the United States. Third, the data of the more detailed and intensive dietary studies, each covering an accurate record of food consumed during a definite period of a week or more in a family or larger group, taken as typical and studied carefully by trained field workers such as those of the United States Department of Agriculture or of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. The results obtained from these three methods of inquiry are in good agreement and show that the total or typical American food budget distributes its expenditures about as follows: For meats, poultry and fish, 30 to 40 per cent of the total expenditure for food; for eggs about 5 per cent; for milk, cream, and cheese, about 10 per cent; for butter and other fats, about 10 per cent; for breadstuffs and other grain products, about 15 to 20 per cent; for sugar and molasses, about 5 per cent; for vegetables and fruits, about 15 per cent; leaving a remainder amounting usually to about 5 per cent for unclassified food materials and food adjuncts.

Table 65, herewith, shows the average distribution of expenditure for food over the main groups of food materials and the corresponding contribution of each of these groups toward the total nutritive value of the diet in 224 representative American dietary studies. That these 224 groups of people are representative of the American people as a whole as regards their food budgets is shown by the close agreement in the percentage distribution of money spent for food in the average of these studies with that found from statistics of the food industries, and with that of the average found by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its less detailed but very extensive inquiries. The 224 families whose dietary

records are here taken for critical study are also representative of the American people as a whole in the sense that they represent all parts of the country, both urban and rural conditions, different years and seasons of the year, and a wide and representative range of economic conditions and levels of expenditure. There is ample reason therefore to believe that the data of these 224 records may be taken as representing average American food conditions, and that whatever differences they show when subdivided according to the differing prominence of any particular food are the differences which may be expected to result regularly and normally from such differences in food selection.

TABLE 65.

AVERAGE PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF COST AND
NUTRIENTS IN 224 AMERICAN DIETARIES

[blocks in formation]

In order to find what differences of this kind normally exist in American food budgets and how they affect the food economy, certain conventional limits were employed to divide the 224 dietaries into three groups with reference to each type of food according as the place of this type of food was "low," "medium,"

1 The average cost per man per day of the entire 224 dietaries taken as a basis (expressed as 100) on which to express the relative costs of the various groupings made to study the influence of particular foods upon the nutritive value of the dietary as a whole as shown in subsequent tables.

« ForrigeFortsett »