106 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 241 



Any such method of scoring should take into account both qualitative and 

 quantitative factors. Since milk is both qualitatively and quantitatively Im- 

 portant, it should have the highest score, and since it should furnish approxi- 

 mately 25 per cent of the total calories, the major portion of the calcium, and 

 more than 50 per cent of the phosphorus, a large number of units of vita- 

 mines A and B, and a considerable amount of iron, which is utilized very 

 efficiently in nutrition, a score of 24 seems very moderate. 



Since, next to milk, the most important item in guaranteeing a well-bal- 

 anced diet is a liberal supply of vegetables, they should have a score nearly 

 as high as milk (in this case 23 per cent). Vegetables are best subdivided 

 into groups, setting the leafy vegetables in one and the potato in another. 

 Leafy vegetables are high in ash and vitamines and low in calories; and other 

 vegetables, if used in variety, to some extent will take their place and add to 

 their calories, so that the scores for these two groups should not be very dif- 

 ferent. The potato should not be used to the exclusion of other vegetables, 

 but it should be used with considerable freedom on account of its ash and 

 vitamines and especially iron and vitamine C. Because the potato is only 

 one member of the vegetable group, it should not have quite so high a score 

 as the other two. 



Fruits, like vegetables, contribute to the ash and vitamine value of the diet 

 and are even more important in furnishing vitamine C, so that a score of 21 

 for them (which is only slightly lower than for the vegetables) seems desir- 

 able, giving higher value to the raw fruit. 



With the liberal supply of milk, eggs and meat (which supplement milk 

 especially for protein and calories) may together have a somewhat lower 

 score (18). Since the egg is more of a factor in growth than meat, it de- 

 serves a score as high as meat even when used only three times a week. 



Although any scoring system has the fault of arbitrariness, some measure 

 had to be devised to compare one diet with another. It is believed that the 

 division of the score into five recognized food divisions has not only greatly 

 facilitated the work of evaluating diets of different character, but has re- 

 sulted in total scores which, when contrasted one with another, represent, as 

 far as is possible in terms of numbers, the dietary values of the food habits 

 of the children studied. 



Scores for Diets as a WTioIe 



Using the numerical allowances of this scheme of scoring, the diets of 1.55 

 Carver and 120 Southwick children during their school years were graded, and 

 the distributions of the resulting scores are presented in Tables 5 and 6. 

 Everywhere in this report the records of the children of mixed parentage 

 are, for both towns, combined with those for the children of native parent- 

 age; partly because the numbers of children of mixed parentage are too small 

 for separate consideration, but principally because the visits to the homes 

 showed that the habits of these families of mixed parentage are practically 

 the same as those of the native families. 



Forty-five per cent of the diets of the 95 Carver children of native and 

 mixed parentage have scores ranging from 40 to 60 on a scale of 100; while 

 for the 93 Southwick children of native and mixed parentage the largest 

 group, 48 per cent, is found higher on the scale, between the scores of 60 

 and 80. 



Because of the smallness of the total number of children of foreign parent- 

 age, percentages have not been computed for the distributions of the diet 



