184 PEARL— STAPLE COMMODITIES AND 



to vise a certain amount of other protein, fat, and carbohydrate pri- 

 marily produced as fodder or feed. Human food produced in this 

 manner is obviously secondarily produced and cannot be allowed to 

 count in the net nutritive balance sheet on the same basis as the 

 primarily produced food. It is a relatively more expensive form 

 of nourishment. 



It is evident that under this classification many raw food mate- 

 rials will of necessity fall in part into two or more categories. For 

 example, to take the case of wheat, the major part of the raw grain 

 is ground into flour and as such used as human food, but in the 

 process of making the flour there is produced a certain amount of 

 feeding stufifs, bran, middlings, etc., which only indirectly contribute 

 to human nutrition through the products of animals which eat these 

 wheat feeds. Finally a certain small proportion of the wheat grain 

 is fed directly as such to livestock. Similar considerations apply to 

 very many other food materials. That all this adds a considerable 

 complexity to the problem is evident. But it is equally clear that if 

 anything approaching reliability in the final result is to be attained, 

 due regard must be paid to these complicated subdivisions in usage 

 of the raw food materials. Otherwise the same nutritive material 

 will be duplicated in the accounting and a misleading result reached. 



The general plan of this study has been first to determine as 

 accurately as possible from existing official statistics for each year 

 from 1911-12 to 1917-18, inclusive, the amount of the basic nu- 

 trients, protein, fat and carbohydrate: (a) produced, (b) imported, 

 (c) exported, classifying the results under the main headings given 

 above. From this tabulation as a base one may then proceed to 

 calculations of consumption. 



In all cases where investigation showed it to be necessary deduc- 

 tions were made for the following kinds of reasons : 



(a) Loss of commodity in storage. 



(b) Spoilage of commodity in storage. 



(c) Loss of commodity in transit. 



(d) Spoilage of commodity in transit. 



(e) Loss by vermin. 



(/) Amount fed to livestock. 



(g) Amount used for technical, non-food purposes, including the 

 manufacture of alcoholic beverages. 



