oil, and the oils of corn and other vegetable foods. Sugar and starch are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates do not occur to any extent in meats and fish, but are found in milk as milk sugar, and are the chief nutritive ingredients of vegetable foods. The mineral matters, and water also, are necessary for nourishment; but we do not generally take them into account in studies of dietaries. In general the animal substances contain the most water, and the vegetable foods the most nutrients, though potatoes and turnips and allied green vegetables are exceptions. Meats have more water in proportion as they have less fats. Thus, very lean beef is nearly three fourths water, while other and fatter cuts are less than one half water. The flesh of fish is in general more watery than that of ordinary meats. Flour and meal have very little water, and sugar almost none. In examining the proportions of individual nutrients, the most striking fact is the difference between the meats and the fish, on one hand, and the vegetable foods on the other hand. The vegetable foods are rich in carbohydrates, and the meats abound in protein and fats, of which the vegetable foods usually have but little. Beans and oatmeal, however, are rich in protein, while fat pork has very little. The following figures will serve to illustrate the quantities of the different ingredients and estimated. fuel values of common food materials. per cent per cent per cent per cent per cent per cen per cent Calories Beef, flank 30.0 15.0 14.3 0.7 880 J2. I Mutton, side, well fattened 43.7 44.2 12.4 29 2 2.6 1460 17.3 Smoked ham 44.2 38.5 14 0 23.7 0.8 1260 11.4 Pork, very fat, salted 368 51 8 14 8 34.61 1735 12. I 87.9 09 82.8 3510 58.5 11.6 10 6 0.2 Salmon, whole 44.81 40.41 15 0 10.0 4.3 205 365 35-31 40.6 24. I 14 3 8.8 635 Oysters, average Cows' milk 87.1 12.9 6.0 1.2 3.7 2.0 230 Cheese, whole milk Butter 10.5 Wheat flour 89.0 1.0 85.0 0.5 3.0 3615 12.5 87.5 II.0 1. I 74.9 0.5 1644 Food nourishes our bodies in two ways: it builds and repairs our tissues and it serves for fuel to yield heat to keep the body warm and to give it force and strength to do its work. The protein compounds are the building material. They are sometimes called "flesh-formers," because the flesh, i. e., muscle and sinew, is formed from them, though they make blood and bone as well and can also be transformed into fat. The fats and carbohydrates are the fuel ingredients. Both of them are transformed into the fat of the body, which is its reserve of fuel. The protein can serve as fuel also, but the fats and carbohydrates cannot build nitrogenous tissue, for protein contains nitrógen and they do not. Chemists have devised ways for estimating the fuel value, or, to use a more cor rect term, the potential energy of the nutrients of food. This is expressed in heat units, called Calories, the Calorie being the amount of heat that would raise a kilogram of water one degree centigrade or one pound of water about four degrees Fahrenheit. One Calorie corresponds to 1.52 foot-tons. A gram (453.6 grams make a pound avoirdupois) of protein or a gram.of carbohydrates is estimated to yield, on the average, 4.1 Calories, and a gram of fats 9.3 Calories, of energy. A pound of rather fat sirloin of beef would contain about 900, a pound of butter 3,00, a pound of wheat flour about 1,650, and a pound of potatoes 340 Calories. The potatoes yield so little because they are three-quarters water, the butter so much because it is mostly fat. In the adjusting of diet to the demands of the body the important matter is to provide enough protein for the building and repair of tissue and enough energy to keep it warm and do its work: Considering the body as a machine, there must be material to make it and keep it in repair, and fuel to supply heat and power. If there is not food enough or the nutrients are not in the right proportions, the body will be weak in its structure and inefficient in its work. there is too much, damage to health will result. This brings us to our second topic: the fitting of our food to our actual needs for nourishment. If Scientific research, interpreting the observations of practical life, indicates that we make a four-fold mis take in our food economy. First, we purchase need- lessly expensive kinds of food. false impression that there is some peculiar virtue in the costlier food material, and that economy in our diet is somehow detrimental to our dignity or our wel. fare. Secondly, the food which we eat does not always contain the proper proportions of the different kinds of nutritive ingredients. We consume relatively too much of the fuel ingredients of food, such as the fats of meat and butter, the starch which makes up the larger part of the nutritive material of flour and potatoes, and sugar and sweetmeats. Conversely, we have relatively too little of the protein or flesh-forming substances, like the lean of meat and fish and the gluten of wheat, which make muscle and sinew and which are the basis of blood, bone, and brain. Thirdly, many people, not only the well to do, but those in moderate circumstances, use needless quantities of food. Part of the excess, however, is simply thrown away with the wastes of the table and kitchen; so that the injury to health, great as it may be, is doubtless much less than if all were eaten. Probably the worst sufferers from the evil are well-to-do people of sedentary occupations-brain workers as distinguished from hand-workers. Finally, we are guilty of serious. errors in our cooking. We waste a great deal of fuel in the preparation of our food, and even then a great deal of the food is very badly cooked. A reform in these methods of cooking is one of the economic demands of our time. Some of these statements cannot be made as confidently as if we had more exact information, but they express the facts as far as they are known today. Take, for instance, the quantities cf food consumed by people in New England Here are some figures selected from the studies of dietaries of people in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Canada, and of people in corresponding walks in life in Europe. With them are dietary standards as proposed by leading European authorities and also by myself. The table is from the Report of the Storrs Experiment Station for 1892, above cited. I have said that our diet is one-sided-that the food which we actually eat, leaving out of account that which we throw away, has relatively too little protein. and too much fat, starch, and sugar. This is due Nutrients. DIETARIES. American (Massachusetts and Connecticut), Family of glass blowers in East Cambridge, Mass... cotton mills, Boarding house, Middletown, Conn.; well paid machinists, etc., at moderate work,. Blacksmiths, Lowell, at hard work Food purchased 126 155 426 4,010 6.8 Brickmakers, Mass.; 237 persons at very severe work. Mechanics, etc, in Massachusetts and Connecticut; average of 4 dietaries of mechanics at severe work (not including No. 5). Average of 20 dietaries of wage-workers in Massachusetts and Connecticut., Average of 5 die taries of professional men and college students in Middletown, Conn. 103 152 402 3,490 7.4 180 365 1150 8,850 11.0 Food purchased 133 163 508 4,140 6.6 European (English, German, Danish and Swedish) Well-fed tailors, England, Playfair. Hard-worked weavers, England, Playfair,. Blacksmiths at active labor, England, Playfair.. Carpenters, coopers, locksmiths, Bavaria; average of dietaries.. Miners at severe work, Prussia, Steinheil. German army ration, peace footing. German army ordinary ration, war footing German army extraordinary ration, in war University professor, Munich; very little exercise. Physician, Munich, Forster,. Physician, Copenhagen, Jurgenson. 151 43 22:3.570 6.6 4.7 4.8 176 1 667 4.115) 151 54, 479 3,085 4.7 4.0 50 4.6 122 34 570 3,150| 5.3 Average of 7 dietaries of professional men and students 11111 285 2,670 Dietary Standards. Adult in full health, Playfair (English) Man with moderate muscular work, writer 4.I 6.3 4.4 135 140 239 2.835 4.I 4.7 partly to our large consumption of sugar and partly to our use of such large quantities of fat meats. the statistics above referred to, the quantities of fat in the European dietaries range from one to five |