ECONOMIC FACTORS 249 



bo.th Europe and the newer countries, is more or less under human 

 control. So far as it becomes reduced or eliminated in any or all 

 the countries where such foodstuffs are produced and consumed, 

 the value of the supplies in the consumption of the future will be 

 correspondingly increased. 



The principle of substitution has already been referred to in the 

 preceding chapter dealing with food values. As an economic 

 factor influencing the rates of consumption of the different animal 

 foodstuffs and of all such foodstuffs taken together, this principle 

 naturally causes a displacement of more expensive articles of food 

 by others that serve the purpose equally or nearly as well. It is 

 to be observed, however, that the process of substitution, in the 

 matter of foodstuffs especially, is apt to be impeded by the friction 

 arising from the inertia of established habit and of conservatism. 

 The most prominent examples of substitution which are likely to 

 have an influence upon the consumption of animal foodstuffs, are 

 those of fish and of cheese for meat, of vegetable oils in the form of 

 of margarine for butter and of skim-milk for whole milk for house- 

 hold consumption. No very great progress has hitherto been made 

 in any of these directions, except in the utilisation of vegetable 

 oils for butter substitutes. Among European peoples there was 

 probably some increase in the per capita fish consumption in the 

 last two decades previous to the outbreak of war, though fish was 

 scarcely regarded as a substitute for meat among the well-to-do 

 classes, but rather as an additional course. The per capita con- 

 sumption of cheese actually fell in the United Kingdom between 

 1890 and 1910 owing to the more or less abundant supplies of 

 imported meat, and it does not seem to have risen noticeably in 

 any important area. In point of fact, there was no sign of an actual 

 meat shortage in Europe till after the year 1906 and the short 

 period that elapsed between the time of the first noticeable shortage 

 and the outbreak of war was not sufficient, nor was the shortage 

 ever acute enough, to cause any extensive processes of substitution 

 to come into operation. The wholesale disturbance of the pre- 

 viously established standards of consumption caused by the war, 

 and the conditions of shortage in meat supplies that are likely to 

 obtain at its close, will probably bring about considerable substi- 

 tution in Europe of both fish and cheese for meat. It has been 

 already observed that butter may in the future become more or 

 less a luxury of the rich. 1 With regard to the substitution of skim- 

 milk for whole milk little progress appears to have been made, 

 except in the poorer dairying districts where skim-milk has always 

 been an important article of food. Nevertheless for many domestic 

 purposes skim-milk, if clean and fresh, is nearly as good as whole 

 milk, especially for cooking purposes. The obstacles in the way 

 of its wider use among town populations hitherto have been firstly 



1 See above, Chap, ii., p. 213. 



