THE INFLUENCE OF URBAN AND RURAL ENVIRONMENT 369 



FOODS 



Foods are properly considered from the sanitary point 

 of view a factor of environment only less immediately or 

 momentarily essential to life processes than water and air. 

 Through foods our contact with physical environment is 

 most widely extended. Entirely apart from the quality 

 and relative proportions of the essentials of human nutri- 

 ment expressed in protein, fat, carbohydrate, salts and 

 vitamines (discussed in Chap, xiv) there are in the processes 

 of production, transport, storage, preparation and serving 

 of foods, factors in the cause of preventable diseases of the 

 communicable and nutritional groups affecting in different 

 ways and to different degrees urban and rural residents. 



Variety, range, freshness and cost of foods used to be all 

 to the advantage of the country family, but today the 

 control of food supplies, through the power of demand by 

 cities, has so far altered the situation that in fact even the 

 family of small means in the city may supply its nutritional 

 needs more reliably throughout the seasons and often at 

 less expense than can the dweller on farm or in rural village. 



The greater buying power of the city permits a degree of 

 supervision over the sanitary safety of foods quite impossible 

 for scattered rural households. Today the city dweller 

 commands a range of foods, of higher standard, and better 

 guarded against the hazards of contamination by disease 

 than does the rural householder. Federal inspection of 

 meats is one of the great central sanitary services which 

 protects city food consumers to a degree quite lacking for those 

 who use almost entirely locally butchered and 'distributed 

 meats. 



Foods from all parts of the world are found in our city 

 markets, those from even distant lands being delivered 

 fresh on our tables by virtue of the superior character of 

 ventilation, chilling and speed in transportation, while the 

 canning, desiccation and cold storage of foods makes it 

 possible to have all the year round diets adapted to every 

 reasonable need or taste, and appropriate to age and 

 occupation. 



If there is advantage in food supplies today, it probably 

 lies with the city dweller, particularly during the winter 



