July it, 1916 Digestibility of Very Young Veal 581 



In order to make a comparison of the percentages of the principal food 

 constituents in the two types of uncooked meat, an analysis of the very 

 young veal and market veal is given below. The percentages which are 

 reported here are those obtained by averaging the results obtained from 

 the analysis of a number of different samples. Very young veal : Water, 

 76.09 per cent; protein, 18.48 per cent; fat, 2.79 per cent; ash, 0.99 per 

 cent. Market veal: Water, 71.97 per cent; protein, 20.07 P er cent; fat, 

 7.43 per cent; ash, 1.28 per cent. A comparison of the two types of veal 

 shows that very young veal contained more water than market veal and 

 correspondingly less protein and fat. However, when the meat was 

 cooked, the difference in the amount of protein and fat in the two types of 

 veal was lessened, owing to the loss of more water from the very young 

 veal than from the market veal. It was found that there was an average 

 of 33.23 per cent of protein in the former and 34.41 per cent in the 

 latter type of veal, although it is obvious that these figures represent 

 merely the protein content of meat cooked by a single method. Ob- 

 viously, if the meat were cooked in another way, for a longer or shorter 

 period of time, using a different amount of fat, or employing more or less 

 heat, the composition would vary quite materially. The chief difference 

 in the composition of the meat from the very young and the older calves 

 is in the percentage of water present ; this decreases as the animal grows 

 older, while at the same time the percentage of fat in the meat increases. 

 Aside from this, the meat of the two ages shows very little difference. 



NATURE OF THE DIET 



The very young veal was prepared by cutting in a meat cutter 

 all the meat to be used for an experimental period. The meat was 

 then thoroughly mixed to give a uniform product for eating and for 

 analysis. After the meat had been prepared in this manner, it was 

 cooked in the form of small cakes resembling Hamburg steak. A 

 small amount of animal fat was used in cooking, but no attempt was 

 made to increase materially the fat content of the meat cakes, and, 

 roughly, the same amount was used for both bob veal and mature veal. 



It has often been observed that the digestibility of a food is more 

 satisfactorily determined if it be incorporated in a mixed diet than if 

 eaten singly. Consequently, it was decided that the baeal ration to 

 be used in studying the digestibility of the meat in question should 

 contain fruit, bread and butter, and tea or coffee with sugar, if de- 

 sired. It can readily be seen that this diet contains all the essential 

 constituents of a well-balanced ration, while at the same time the pro- 

 tein constituent of the diet is derived principally from the veal. It 

 was impossible in these tests to prevent the subjects from knowing 

 the nature of the diet. For instance, they all knew that they were hav- 

 ing meat of some sort and that fat was used for the purpose of frying, 



