Foods : nutritive value and cost / by W.O Atwater.

  • Atwater, W. O. (Wilbur Olin), 1844-1907.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods : nutritive value and cost / by W.O Atwater. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Tlie figures of Table B tell their story so plainly that they need very little comment. A quarter of a dollar invested in the sirloin of beef at 22 cents per pound pays for one and one-seventh pounds of the meat with three-eighths of a pound of actually nutritive material. This would contain one-sixth of a pound of protein and one-fifth of a pound of fat, and supply 1,120 calories of energy. The same amount of money paid for oysters at the rate of 50 cents per quart brings two ounces of actual nutrients, an ounce of protein, and 230 calories of energy. But in buying wheat flour at $7 a barrel, the 25 cents pay for six and a quarter pounds of nutrients, with eight-tenths of a pound of protein and 11,755 calories of energy. The price of food is not regulated solely by its value for nutriment. Its agreeableness to the palate or to the buyer’s fancy makes a large factor of the current demand and market price. There is no more nutriment in an ounce of protein or fat of the tenderloin of beef than in that of the round or shoulder. The protein of animal food does, however, have an advantage over that of vegetable foods. Animal foods, such as meats, fish, milk, and the like, gratify the palate in ways which most vegetable foods do not, and, what is perhaps of still greater weight in regulating the actual’usage of communities by whose demand the prices are regulated, they satisfy a real need by supplying protein and fats, which vegetable foods lack. People who can afford it, the world over, will have animal foods, and will compete with one another in the prices they give for them. In general, the animal foods are more easily and completely digested than vegetable. There is doubtless good ground for paying somewhat more for the same quantity of nutritive material in the animal food. For persons in good health the foods in which the nutrients are most expensive are like costly articles of adornment. People who can well afford them may be justified in buying them, but they are not econom¬ ical. WASTE OF FOOD. We waste food in two ways. We throw away a great deal, and many of us eat more than we need. That which is thrown away in the form of kitchen and table refuse does no harm, and in so far as it is used for feeding animals, or, in the case of fat, for making soap, it is not an absolute loss. That which we consume in excess of our needs is worse than wasted, because of the harm it does to the health. In connection with studies of dietaries bv the author and associates in Hew England, some observations have been made which bear upon this prevalent habit of throwing away valuable food. Thus, in the dietary of a carpenter 7.6 per cent of the total food purchased was left in the kitchen and table wastes. The total waste was somewhat worse than this proportion would imply, because it consisted mostly of the protein and fats, which are more costly than the carbohydrates. The waste contained about one-tenth of the total protein and fat, and only one twenty-fifth of the total carbohydrates of the food; or, to put it in