ARTICLES 85 



a higher relative consumption of breadstuffs, together with 

 a lower consumption of meat and milk. The proportion of 

 total energy provided by bread and meat together is also 

 higher in the working-class diets than in the food supplied 

 to the country as a whole — namely, 60 per cent, as compared 

 with 5 S per cent. The figures only express what is a matter of 

 common knowledge respecting the dietary habits of different 

 classes of the community. Such differences cannot, however, 

 be taken to indicate that the diet shown in scale B is less 

 valuable as a source of energy than one providing the same 

 number of calories according to a scale represented by the 

 averages of D, E, F. Both diets provide sufficient total protein 

 and sufficient total calories, and it does not seem to be a dis- 

 advantage in the case of diet B that more of its calories are 

 supplied by breadstuffs and less by meat, than in the case of 

 the other diets. It is even possible that it may be an ad- 

 vantage, since flesh protein exerts a stimulating action on the 

 combustion of food within the human body, increasing the 

 heat production without producing a corresponding increase in 

 the output of work. 



