THIRD ARTICLE-THE FEEDING OF THE FAMILY.1

The second article in this series, published in the November issue of the MONTHLY REVIEW, brought out the fact that a very large proportion of the low-income families of Washington were not spending enough money upon food to maintain the family members in good health. The conclusion was based on the assumption that an adult male could not be maintained in health at a less expenditure than 31 cents per day for raw food at present prices. This minimum standard of 31 cents per day was based upon earlier studies, with allowance made for recent increases in the cost of food.

A special dietary study made by this bureau in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, the results of which were not completely tabulated at the time the above article was published, reaches substantially the same conclusion-namely, that 30 cents is the least sum upon which an adult male could be properly fed at the prices now prevailing.

And such a sum, it must be emphasized, is not offered as a guide to proper feeding. It is no more than the theoretical minimum upon which health could be maintained provided that the housekeeper has a perfect scientific knowledge of food values and food buying, that there is absolutely no waste in cooking and eating, and that eating is a mere mechanical process of stoking the stomach with food to keep the fires of life burning. As a matter of fact, of course, it is wildly incorrect to assume scientific knowledge of food on the part of the average housewife; some waste is absolutely unavoid

1 Some of the more important studies used as reference in the preparation of this article were:

The chemical composition of American food materials, by W. O. Atwater. Bulletin No. 28, Dept. of Agriculture.

How to select foods, by Caroline L. Hunt and Helen W. Atwater. No. 808, Dept. of Agriculture.

Household waste and ways to avoid it, by Caroline L. Hunt. Office of Home Economics, Dept. of Agriculture.

Farmers' Bulletin

Circular of May 9, 1917,

able; and eating itself is inevitably, and perhaps desirably, a source of much enjoyment. To those of very small incomes the pleasure associated with daily eating is one of the most important incentives for keeping alive at all.

The minimum of 30 or 31 cents a day for food per adult male is thus extremely low. But the startling fact, as was pointed out in the earlier article, is that, even when such standards are taken and no allowance is made for waste and ignorance, a very large number of the families covered by this investigation fall below the "minimum of subsistence" line and many fall far below.1

PROPER FOOD NOT ALTOGETHER A MATTER OF COST.

For all of the families falling below the 30-cent-per-day minimum, an analysis of diet would have little interest. Most of them were spending as much as they could on food and no better knowledge of food values and food buying would make possible the obtaining of a diet adequate to healthful living. To preach to such families the gospel of the clean plate," or to offer them dietary advice, would be bitter irony.

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But undernourishment and bad nourishment are not entirely matters of insufficient expenditure for food. Often they are due to a bad distribution of the amount expended, to lack of knowledge of food values, and of the needs of the human body.

With this fact in mind, the investigation of the cost of living in the District of Columbia was made to include a special dietary study of a group of families. From the data obtained it is possible, by comparison with recognized standards, to judge whether the families. were undernourished or overnourished and whether the housekeepers were wise in their selection of food. Also it is possible in some instances to point out wherein a different selection of food would have furnished a more nutritious diet for the same expenditure, or one equally nutritious for a less expenditure.

PLAN OF THE DIETARY STUDY.

The study was made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in cooperation with the Office of Home Economics of the Department of Agriculture. In such an inquisitorial and difficult undertaking as a dietary study the value of the results obtained depends entirely upon the intelligence displayed in gathering the facts (the raw material for tabulations) and in making generalizations therefrom. Three special agents of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, chosen because of their tact and special training and experience in dietetics, were assigned to do the field work under the supervision of Dr. Charles F. Langworthy and

1 See MONTHLY REVIEW for November, 1917, pp. 2-4.

his staff in the Division of Home Economics. The families studied were selected by these three agents, each agent limiting herself to about three families in any one week, so that she could visit each family every day for the purpose of weighing and estimating the quality of the food purchased and weighing and estimating the amount of foodstuffs going out as garbage. The agent first won the hearty cooperation of the families and through her daily visits was able to check up accurately every item of kitchen income and outgo.

The families cooperating were 31 in number, 23 white and 8 colored, with incomes varying from $400 to $1,600 per year. They were chosen from the list of those who had previously cooperated by furnishing data for the general cost of living investigation. Each of them conformed to the usual definition of a typical family, i. e., man, wife, and two or more children under 16 not earning money, and no boarders or roomers in the household. The study of each family's diet covered a period of a week, counted as 21 meals, and, with four exceptions, all were made in the month of May, 1917, the four exceptions falling in April, June, and July.

All food in the house was weighed on the first day of the study, and all food purchased through the week was similarly weighed. From the total weight of food of various kinds on hand or pur chased during the week was deducted the weights of the various foods on hand on the last day of the study. The weight of the garbage day by day was also subtracted. This gave the amount actually consumed by the family. The Bureau of Labor Statistics furnished scales and trays for weighing, a garbage can for keeping the table and kitchen waste, and blank forms for entering the food purchased during the week. Facts were also obtained by the agents regarding the sex, age, weight, occupation, and number of meals taken by each member of the family, and the number of meals taken by guests, if any.

HOW WE CHOOSE OUR FOOD.

Very few people understand what their food contains or whether the food they eat is fitted to the needs of the body. The extent of the common knowledge is roughly indicated by that of the little girl who eats bread crusts to make her hair curly and by that of the man who eats fish to develop his brain power. As a result of this ignorance there is great waste in the purchase and use of food, loss of money, and injury to health. The food costing least per pound may be and often is the most expensive per unit of nourishing value. The stuff eaten by store and factory employees, especially young girls, often serves merely to tickle the palate and not to furnish fuel and tissue for the body.

Even though so much valuable work has been done by the Department of Agriculture and others on the subject of the nutrition of man, very few people have informed themselves of it or make any use of it. It is not possible, in this place, to enter into an extended discussion of human nutrition. But it is desirable to point out briefly what may be considered as necessary to a well-balanced diet, in order to make clear the results of the present study.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A WELL-BALANCED DIET?

A "balanced" ration, as the term is used in connection with meal planning, is one which provides a mixed diet made up of varied and sufficient food to meet all bodily needs. It is absolutely essential that the diet contain different kinds of food in order that life and health may be maintained. When people live for a considerable time on a too restricted diet they develop various definite diseases. Thus, the rice diet of the poor people of Japan leads to beriberi; scurvy is caused by too much salt meat and lack of fresh vegetables; and the lack of lime in the food of children produces rickets. In addition, variety is desirable because food is more perfectly utilized when taken as part of a mixed diet than when taken alone. A dinner of pork chop, macaroni and cheese, suet pudding, and chocolate would be a bad combination because it would preponderate in the fatty foods. A dinner of baked potato, halibut, spinach, bread, butter, and Indian pudding would be more nearly balanced.

The three nutrients found in food are protein, fat, and carbohydrates (starches, sugars, and cellulose). The body demands a certain proportion of each of these and the amounts eaten must be sufficient to produce a certain fuel value. In the actual serving of meals, these three nutrients may be obtained through various combinations of foods. For this purpose food may be divided into five classes and it is very important that the food consumed during the day should contain a fairly definite proportion from each of these groups. The five classes are shown in the following list, with the approximate amounts which will furnish a balanced ration and a fuel vaiue of 3,000 calories for the support of one adult male for one day at moderate muscular work. These amounts are liberal rather than bare minima.1

1 Household waste and ways to avoid it, by Caroline L. Hunt. Circular of May 9, 1917, Office of Home Economics, Dept. of Agriculture.

For convenience in the proper selection of foods according to the above standards, the following classification of the more common

By fuel value is meant the energy-giving quality of food and. broadly speaking, it is the principal measure of the nutritive value of food. This fuel value, or energy, is expressed in terms of calories. Thus, the calorie is the unit measure of heat, the same as the pint is the unit liquid measure. It is the amount of heat required to raise one pint of water 4° F. Foods can be burned in a special apparatus to determine the fuel value. Experiments made with the respiration calorimeter to measure the energy used up by a man proves that the heat generated by a given amount of food is the same, whether it is burned in a crucible or used up (burned) in the human body.

But the number of calories which a given weight of food yields is not a completely safe guide to its nutritive value. It is a guide to the extent that all nutrition experts agree that a sufficient number of calories is the main thing to be sought for in providing a diet. It is an unsafe guide, unless the housekeeper remembers that the neces