500 SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD PROBLEMS. 



It has long been known but perhaps never sufficiently emphasized 

 that the milch cow returns for human consumption a much larger 

 proportion of the food value of what she eats than does the animal 

 which is raised for slaughter. This is strikingly true not only of 

 the previously recognized factors of food value but also, and appar- 

 ently to an even larger extent, of the so-called vitamines. These 

 are contained in abundance in green leaf fodders such as grass and 

 hay. The vitamines thus consumed are stored in the animal tissues 

 to only a limited extent, but are transferred in relative abundance 

 to the milk. Thus the vitamines of coarse materials not directly 

 available as human food are brought into form for man's use, very 

 efficiently through milk production, very inefficiently through the 

 production of meat. Not only is milk the most economical in- 

 trinsically of the animal foods of farm origin, but of even greater 

 interest is the positive demonstration by fully controlled experi- 

 ments like those of Osborne and Mendel and of McCollum, that a 

 liberal use of milk in the diet is the best safeguard against any 

 deficiency which might possibly arise through restricted choice of 

 foods and the safest way to ensure that the consumption of enough 

 food to supply the energy needed shall meet all other requirements 

 of nutrition as well. 



Thus in bringing a larger share of our corn crop directly into 

 human consumption and in giving to such perishable foods as milk, 

 vegetables and fruit a more prominent place in the diet, we shall 

 be working toward permanent improvements in our national food 

 economy at the same time that we save the wheat, meat, fats and 

 sugar which are needed for our armies and the Allies. 



Laboratory of Food Chemistry, 

 Columbia University, 

 April, 1918. 



