66 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 263 



Another tabulation, made to see whether or not the lunches of the younger 

 pupils varied to any marked degree from those of the older ones, brought out 

 only one difference — a tendency on the part of the smaller children to take 

 milk or cocoa more frequently than do the pupils in the upper grades., 

 This may be because the parents do not see as much necessity for urging 

 milk consumption by the children beyond the third grade as by the younger 

 ones; or it may be on account of the dislike of the children for carrying such 

 foods, which dislike is asserted more as they grow older. 



Principal Items in Bob; Lunches 



Number of 



Food lunches Per cent 



Milk - - - - 234 15 



Cocoa or soup - 109 7 



No milk, cocoa or soup 1,217 78 



No hot food - - 1,448 93 



Sandwiches only ~. 119 8 



Sandwiches plus cake and (or) pie only 458 29 



Sandwiches: bread and butter (') 248 16 



cheese 92 6 



egg ~ - 147 9 



jelly or jam 374 24 



meat (=) - 513 33 



peanut butter 192 i? 



Raw fruit ~ - 708 45 



Cake or pie or both ~ - 1,077 69 



Two sweets 349 22 



Three or more sweets 351 22 



Candy - -.... 88 6 



Total number of lunches 1,560 



^ Includes all Tautter substitutes. 



^ Includes fish, as salmon, sardine, etc. 



The item "cake and (or) pie" includes cake, doughnuts, and very sweet, 

 fancy crackers, as well as all sorts of pie. These are the foods which are 

 chiefly responsible for the presence of two sweets in 22 per cent of the lunch 

 boxes and three or more sweets in 22 per cent more; a total of 44 per cent of 

 the lunches, therefore, containing two or more sweets. Candy, it wUl be 

 noted, did not appear in many of the lunches. Like ice cream it is eaten fre- 

 quently, and in large amounts, by many children if there happens to be near 

 the school building any place where it can be bought. 



The raw fruit reported as a constituent of 45 per cent of the lunches is 

 almost without exception apples. Most of the original data regarding these 

 lunches were collected during the months of December, January, February, 

 and the early part of March. It would seem true, from the contents of those 

 lunches seen in April and May, that had all the data been secured later in 

 the school year, when the home stores of fruit are depleted, probably a 

 much smaller proportion of the lunches would have contained raw fruit. 



