CONSUMPTION 10 1 



still more of climate determine where barley and hops and rice and 

 sugar shall be grown, and not cotton or wheat or something else. 



The American farmer is not wanting in resourcefulness, but it 

 would not be without grave embarrassment and heavy financial loss 

 that he would find himself deprived of a market for products that 

 within the next two or three years will be worth, at the present rate 

 of increase, $125,000,000 per annum. 



NOTE. Opponents of the liquor business have, of course, not 

 failed to point out that there are other demands for the farmers' prod- 

 ucts which would fill the gap left by the forcible curtailment of 

 brewers' and distillers' demand. The purchasing power of the public 

 would not be reduced, but might even be increased, if changed habits 

 of consumption brought greater bodily efficiency. EDITOR. 



25. CHANGES IN DIET 



a) AWAY FROM MEAT 1 

 BY J. RUSSELL SMITH 



As population advances and increases, there is a tendency for us 

 to change the nature of our food supply. In new countries we grow 

 a crop, feed it to the animals, and then eat the animals and their 

 products. As population increases, we tend more and more to eat 

 the plant products ourselves. As this change comes, the tree crops 

 advance more and more toward the exact filling of our needs. The 

 physicians, the "cures," and the health-food faddists are more and 

 more calling us away from meats and grains and high cookery to the 

 diet of nuts and fruits. The table of food values shows that the nuts 

 far outrank flour and even eggs and meat in protein, and that they 

 also furnish fat and carbohydrates. To keep such highly concen- 

 trated food from doing injury, the fruits furnish the necessary bulk, 

 succulence, and acids. In the Mediterranean countries the tree farmer 

 with his olive orchard and its oil, has already given us tree-grown 

 butter, which, by the way, keeps, while the more expensive animal 

 product promptly spoils. Incidentally it is very significant that 

 Italian olive oil is cheaper now in American cities than American 

 butter is, and our olive industry has barely started. The nut-trees 

 show us equally good substitutes for meat and bread, while the fruit- 



1 From Harpers Magazine, January, 1913, p. 280. 



