CHAPTER II 



THE RATE OF CONSUMPTION 



(n) MEAT. 



MEATS of various kinds, and meat products, have always 

 formed the most important item among the animal food- 

 stuffs in ordinary human consumption, and they still do 

 so. Other foodstuffs of animal^ origin, taken together, represent 

 a greater food value and cost more in the average national food 

 budget than is generally supposed. 1 Moreover, the consumption 

 of the latter group tends to increase in proportion to the meat 

 group in countries of large urban populations. Notwithstanding 

 this fact, meat is still the typical form of animal foodstuffs, and the 

 rate of meat consumption is a fair criterion: of the extent to which 

 animal foodstuffs as a whole are consumed. 2 



It is only in a few countries that attempts have been made to 

 obtain tolerably accurate statistics for meat consumption, and in 

 still fewer that the consumption of the other animal foodstuffs has 

 been ascertained with any degree of exactness. Concerning the 

 variations from year to year there is naturally very little inforrra- 

 tion obtainable. Estimates have been made at different times of 

 the meat consumption in most important countries, but some of 

 these are out-of-date and others untrustworthy owing to the scanty 

 statistical information upon which they were based. In countries 

 that are predominantly agricultural and that have poorly organised 

 departments of agricultural statistics it is clearly impossible to do 

 more than make a rough estimates of the total consumption of 

 animnl foodstuffs ; much is consumed on the farms or sold in small 

 parcels to local dealers and to neighbouring market towns, con- 

 cerning all of which little account is kept by the producers. In 

 this connection it is to be observed that much more accurate 



1 In the United Kingdom in 1911 the total value of the meat consumed 

 has been estimated at about ^128 millions (Rew), while the total value of the 

 other animal foodstuffs consumed in the same year cannot have been much 

 less than ^100 millions. In the United Kingdom for the five years 1908-13 

 the average energy value of the meat of all kinds (including poultry and game) 

 consumed has been estimated at 8,508,000 million cal., and that of the dairy 

 produce and eggs at 7,541,000 million calories (Cd. 8421, App. I.E.), Prof. 

 T. B. Wood (National Food Supply, p. 8) gives the percentage of the total 

 energy value supplied by meat of all kinds as 18% and that supplied by 

 dairy produce as 15% in the United Kingdom. 1909-13. 



2 In practice all animal industries lead to the production of meat in some 

 form, either directly or indirectly. It is almost impossible to produce other 

 animal foodstuffs without at the same time producing certain relatively large 

 quantities of meat, and conversely there are but few important meat-pro- 

 ducing areas that do not at the same time produce considerable quantities 

 of milk or eggs or both. 



