NUTRITION INVESTIGATIONS AND THEIE, RESULTS. 367 



One of the most obvious applications of the results of the nutrition 

 investigations is found in the commissary department of large public 

 institutions and in general in the feeding of large groups. Available 

 data and experimental methods make it possible to examine the diet 

 under such conditions and pass upon its adequac}^ and real value, as 

 related to its cost, in much the same way that an expert accountant 

 can pass upon the financial condition of any business enterprise. It 

 is often possible to point out ways of checking waste and diminishing 

 cost, or of improving the character of the food without additional 

 expense. 



As an illustration of the importance of nutrition investigations in 

 public institutions it may be said that as a result of studies carried 

 on for several years in large institutions in one of the Eastern States 

 very considerable savings were affected, while the diet as a whole 

 was improved. An examination of the accounts of one of these 

 institutions showed a per capita saving of 13.7 per cent in the second 

 year of the work over the per capita expenditure for the first year, 

 and this reduction is all the more striking in view of the fact that 

 during the year in which it was made the price of a large number of 

 the food materials used had advanced very materiall}^ A similar 

 saving was effected in a number of institutions, and it seems fair to 

 conclude that the results were applicable to all the public institu- 

 tions in the State. The total cost of the food supphed to all the 

 institutions in the State at the time the studies were made was con- 

 siderably over $1,000,000, and if a similar saving had been made in 

 all these institutions the total saving would have been more than 

 $150,000 per year. 



In general, it may be said that the importance of applying the 

 results of the nutrition investigations in the providing of food for 

 public institutions, in the provisioning of camps and expeditions, in 

 regulating the commissary department of the Army and Navy, and 

 in determining the diet in schools and colleges, as well as in the home, 

 is becoming more generally recognized each year as is shown by the 

 many applications made to the Department for information along 

 these lines and the numerous requests for aid in carrying on experi- 

 mental dietary studies and other investigations. 



DIGESTION EXPERIMENTS. 



It has long been a custom with physiologists to calculate the 

 digestibility of food of various kinds with the aid of average factors 

 when it was not possible to determine digestibility by actual experi- 

 ments. Since it is the food digested and not the food eaten which 

 is of special importance to the body, it is very often desirable in 

 discussing the results of dietary studies to consider digestible nutri- 

 ents rather than total nutrients, and the data desired may be readily 



