681 



animal fats and oils for purposes of injumfactnring and illnmination, so 

 that tliey have scarcely any sale outside, the food niaiket, which is so 

 overstocked and in which the competition is so severe. 



Indications of the excess of fat in our food products are abundant. 

 We may find theui in the quantities of fat of meat which are cut 

 out of the "trimmings" at the but(;her shops and in the fat left uneaten 

 on the plates on our tables. In the Report of the Connecticut Storrs 

 Station for 1891, above referred to, a number of cases are cited in whicb 

 the quantities of fat thus rejected were determined by weighings and 

 analyses. 



In a piece of roast beef weighing 1(! jxtuiids, tlie "trimmings," which 

 consisted of the bone and the meat cut out with it and which were 

 left for the butcher to sell to the soap man or get rid of as he might 

 otherwise choose, weighed 4.5 j>ounds, so that 11.5 pounds of meat went 

 to the consumer, who of course paid for the whole. The 4.5 pounds of 

 "trimmings" consisted of, approximately, 15.25 pounds of bone iiiid 0.5 

 pound of tendon ("gristle"), which would make a most palatable 

 and nutritious sou]), and 1.75 pcmnds of meat, of which 1 pound was 

 lean and 0.75 pound fat. The customer Avas so desirous of getting rid 

 of the fat and bone that he did not mind the lean which the butcher 

 in his hurry trimmed out with it. The butcher said that he sold this 

 sort of beef largely to the ordinary people of the city — mechanics, small 

 tradesmen, and Liborersj that many of his customers preferred not to 

 take the "trimmings;" and that these were not exceptionally great in 

 this case either in amount or in the ratio of meat to bone for that "cut" 

 of beef, which was the " rib roast." Inquiries of other butchers brought 

 similar infonnation. 



One of the dietaries in Table I above is that of well to-do machinists 

 and other people of moderate incomes in a boarding house in Middle- 

 town. One ninth of the whole nutritive material of the food was thrown 

 away with waste from the kitchen and table. One sixth of the whole 

 of the fat was thus left uncousumed and most of this fat came from meat. 

 This wastefulness is not mere x>erverseness. It is in i)art at least in 

 obedience to a natural instinct which leads us to reject material which 

 we do not need for nourishment. 



The percentages of fats in the American dietaries above detailed, the 

 magnitude of Avhich is so striking when compared with the corresponding 

 percentages in the dietary standards and European dietaries, explain 

 the physiological reason for the rejection of fats in the household and 

 meat shops and the falling off in demand for fat meats in the market 

 at large. These things are the response of the natural instinct to an 

 unnatural usage. They are the protest of nature against an abnormal 

 diet induced by an abnormal agriculture. 



In the wise ordering of nature such evils tend to work their own cure. 

 Tlds case is no exception to the rule. There are indications that the 

 taste of consumers is changing. Very fat beef is in less demand than 



