Popular Science Monthly 



747 



This Machine Tells You How Much 

 You Ought to Eat 



HERE is a machine that tells you what 

 to eat, or, more accurately speaking, 

 how much you are eating in the terms that 

 the chemist uses to measure food values. 



It is a calculating scales from the dial of 

 which one reads the number of calories and 

 the number of grams of protein in the 

 portion of food on the scale pan. The 

 principle is similar to that of the commercial 

 computing scales, which, if the price per 

 pound be known, shows by the indicator the 

 retail price of the amount of merchandise 

 being weighed. 



From a dietetic standpoint it is meaning- 

 less to weigh food in pounds. The proper 

 unit of the fuel value or energ\- yielding 

 power of food is the calorie. Lettuce con- 

 tains 65 calories per pound and olive oil 

 contains 4200 per pound. 



Wide differences are also found in the 

 protein or flesh building contents of foods. 

 Pure oils, starches and sugar contain no 

 protein at all and a Robinson Crusoe would 

 starv^e to death if his desert island were one 

 vast mountain of starch and sugar with 

 fountains of purest olive oil, honey and 

 maple syrup gushing from its side. 



So the hungry man who wishes to eat 

 scientifically sits down to dinner and places 

 his soup plate on the scale pan. He first 

 adjusts the tare weight (on the worm 

 thread at the left) to offset the weight of the 

 plate. Then the 

 poured in, which c; 

 the fan-shaped dial 

 swing sideways. The 

 scientific diner now 

 finds the word 

 "soup" under the 

 heading "Cal- 

 ories" and reads 

 directly from the 

 scales the num- 

 ber of calories he 

 is to consume 

 Protein can be 

 read separately on 

 another portion of the 

 dial. Each food must 

 be weighed separately, 

 for the machine can't 

 think straight if one 

 tries to weigh butter and bread 



A collection of buffalo skulls and elk antlers, 

 found recently in a secluded valley in the 

 West in a remarkable state of preservation 



N' 



The calculating food scale which measures 

 the energy value of each dish that you eat 



Relics of the Almost Extinct 

 American Buffalo 



OW and then, through the West one 

 finds such a collection of horns and 

 heads of the now almost extinct American 

 buffaloes, as is shown in the picture above. 

 The massiveness and strength of the buffalo 

 is phenomenal. Were a large steer's skull 

 placed alongside the big buffalo head at the 

 right-hand corner of the picture, it would 

 appear puny and shell-like by comparison. 

 The horns and frontal bone in the immediate 

 foreground are the re- 

 ains of the head of a 

 Rocky Mountain 

 B ighorn. The 

 branching antlers 

 shown belonged to 

 a one-time ma- 

 jestic elk, the 

 largest and most 

 lordly of the 

 American deer 

 kind, with the 

 exception of the 

 moose. The 

 horns to the left are 

 an especially fine set. 

 As the elk is far more 

 war>' than the buffalo 

 and moreover does not 

 travel, as a rule. 



together.- 

 Such a calculating food scale should find 

 practical use in the numerous investigations 

 and demonstrations now being conducted to 

 determine the cost of living. 



as a rule, m 

 large herds, he has not suffered the practi- 

 cal extinction which has befallen the 

 buffalo, and now all the Western State 

 game laws afford him adequate protection. 

 His distinctly American name is W^apiti. 



