A NORMAL DIET 365 



which meat-raising is one of the chief industries. In 1903, the per capita 

 consumption of meat in Great Britain was, among artisans, laborers and 

 mechanics, two pounds per week ; among the lower middle classes, paying 

 from $75 to $125 annual rental, 2.5 pounds; in the middle classes, 3.5 

 pounds, and amongst the upper classes 5.75 pounds. (Lusk(t), 1918.) 



As can be seen from Holmes' figures, the cereals furnish most of 

 man's food. Certain few are of particular importance. In the earliest 

 periods, barley was the predominating or only cereal. In Europe, barley 

 was supplanted by oats and by rye and these, in turn, were in great part 

 displaced by wheat. In eastern and southern Asia the supplanting cereal 

 was rice. 



In order to make them more available as food, man early learned to 

 break and grind the grains, to soak the fragments in water and to cook 

 this porridge. Cereals prepared in this way are to this day a very im- 

 portant and even a major part of the food of the people in many lands. 

 Familiar examples are the boiled rice of the East, the oatmeal porridge 

 of Scotland, the maize polenta of Italy and, in a slightly modified form, 

 the many flour soups and cooked dough dishes of central Europe. It prob- 

 ably did not take man long to discover that the uncooked mixture of cereal 

 and water could be dried in the sun or over the fire and that this then 

 furnished, with or without cooking, a readily available, yet durable source 

 of food. Present day examples are spaghetti, etc., noodles of all kinds, 

 the oat and barley cakes of northern Europe and the unleavened bread of 

 much of Asia and of other parts of the world. The preparation of an 

 actual bread came much later and is, in fact, a matter of comparatively, 

 recent and local development. For this purpose neither rice nor maize 

 can be used alone and rye and wheat are immensely superior to barley. 

 This superiority depends upon the peculiar properties of the proteins of 

 wheat and rye flour. These form a sticky, extremely tenacious mass when 

 mixed with water. This mass holds the starch, etc., firmly, imprisons the 

 carbon dioxid formed by fermentation and thus produces a light, firm 

 loaf. This will hold its shape in spite of considerable handling and can 

 be preserved with comparatively little change for a considerable time and 

 even indefinitely. It is this superiority of wheat and rye for bread mak- 

 ing that has caused them to so largely supplant the other cereals as sources 

 of human food. Wheat bread is generally preferred to rye because of its 

 color and texture and, by some, because they find the taste more agreeable. 

 But there are many, chiefly those accustomed to it from early life, who 

 prefer the taste of rye bread. At any rate, it is still the bread of most 

 of eastern and central Europe, except in the larger cities. (See Table 

 III.) 



However, there seems to have been, until the outbreak of the war, 

 a gradual displacement of rye by wheat. To a considerable extent, no 

 doubt, this was due to the increasing proportion of the population living 



