TROPICAL FOOD MATERIALS 



65 



high level of nitrogenous metabolism could not be expected from 

 diets made up of poor wheat and excessive quantities of pulses. 

 Selecting the results obtained for the coefficients of digesti- 

 bility where the foodstuffs were of fair quality and where the 

 amount of any individual food material, such as the pulses, was 

 not excessive, the following may be accepted as representing the 

 average coefficients of digestibility for the Indian cereals and 

 pulses investigated : 



In the experimental work necessary for the determination of 

 these coefficients, the aim ever kept in view was to maintain the 

 characteristics of a normal well-balanced diet. In no instances 

 were large quantities of any one food material added, as seems to 

 be the usual custom in investigations of this nature, so that the 

 coefficient of absorbability presented above are such as would be 

 likely to hold good for the protein and carbohydrate con- 

 stituents of the foodstuffs when consumed in ordinary quantities, 

 and not those obtained when some one food material is given out 

 of all proportion to what would ever be the case except under 

 artificial or experimental conditions. 



It has already been pointed out that the ordinary wheat sup- 

 plied to the gaols is mixed to a considerable extent with barley 

 and other grains. This accounts for the much lower coefficient 

 of protein absorption obtained for ordinary wheat than that 

 shown by wheat of good quality a difference of just over 10 per 

 cent. The gram dal was investigated under conditions that were 

 not conducive to a high degree of protein absorption ; it was 

 eaten in the form of parched gram, practically not cooked at all, 

 and retaining all its cellulose and other elements, a certain 



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