INDIAN CORN AS FOOD FOR MAN. 9I 



bran. These differences are well shown in the above table. 

 In the manufacture of hominy the germ is also removed, with 

 marked effect upon the proportion of fat in the product. It will 

 be noted that in the manufacture of both hominy and granulated 

 corn meal two-thirds or more of the ash constituents are 

 removed. While small amounts of these salts play a very 

 important part in the animal economy, there is reason for believ- 

 ing that the most of our foods carry them in such large excess 

 that the removal of a part of them in this case is no cause for 

 uneasiness. 



DiGESTiBii^iTY OF Corn Products. 

 The statement has been made that corn meal is less digestible 

 than wheat flour ; that our forefathers ate corn rather than 

 wheat from necessity, and digested it because they could ; 

 whereas the present less stalwart generation digests corn less 

 readily, and finding a better cereal at hand is wise in eschewing 

 the first. As a part of the work of the nutrition division of the 

 Office of Experiment Stations a number of digestion experi- 

 ments with corn have been carried out at this Station. The 

 reader is referred to a later publication of that office for details 

 of this investigation. Only the general results with a brief 

 outline of the methods employed are given here. The experi- 

 ments were performed with human subjects, and were continued 

 for periods of 6 days each. During this period each subject 

 received daily weighed amounts of food of known composition. 

 The feces corresponding to the food eaten were collected and 

 analyzed. In similar experiments with cattle it is usually 

 assumed that the difference in composition between the food 

 and the feces proceeding from the same represents that part of 

 the food which is utilized in the body ; in other words, that the 

 feces consist only of undigested food. In point of fact, this is 

 not strictly correct, since we know that the feces consist not 

 only of undigested food, but contain also small amounts of 

 waste matters resulting from the natural wear of the body 

 together with certain secretions, known to the physiological 

 chemist as metabolic products, which have found their way into 

 the intestines and have not been entirely reabsorbed, and which 

 thus contribute to the volume of the feces. Sometimes, espe- 

 cially when the amount of food eaten is small, the error thus 



