A NORMAL DIET 393 



contributed by protein is apt to be slightly lowered by tbe increasing con- 

 sumption of sugars and fats. 



Amount of Fat. The amount of fat consumed varies with the country, 

 economic status, occupation and the time. Japanese diets seem to contain 

 the least fat of any that have been studied, the maximum in the really 

 native diets being about 30 grams, which is, or was, the recent European 

 minimum. The fat consumption is also much lower in Italy, particularly 

 among the laboring classes, than in northern Europe. Probably, this low 

 fat consumption is, in both Italy and Japan, due to the general operation 

 of the next factor to be considered, the economic. 



In every series in which data are available beginning with Engel's of 

 1853, the amount of fat eaten increases regularly with the income. There 

 are a few slight deviations from this rule in the series reported by Pearl 

 and in the Scotch families of Lindsay but the number of observations in- 

 eluded in these exceptional cases is rather small. In PearFs series fat 

 constitutes 37 per cent of the calories in the diets of the professional men. 

 There is one group (salesmen) of higher income ($300 or 14 per cent 

 more) in which fat contributed only 34 per cent of the calories but there 

 are only five studies included in this group. In Lindsay's series, fat 

 plays a slightly greater part in the diets of the families with income under 

 20s than it does in those of families with an income of from 20 to 25s, 

 and as great a part as in the group with an income of from 27 to 31s, 

 but the number of studies in these groups is only 5, 10 and 3, respectively. 



The largest amount of fat is found in the diet of American and 

 Swedish lumbermen, which, in one case, contained as much as 523 grams 

 fat, furnishing 58 per cent of the calories. American athletes and Fin- 

 nish students come next with 194 and 191 grams, furnishing 39 and 45 

 per cent of the total calories. In general, the amount and relative im- 

 portance of fat in the diet increases with the total food intake, though 

 in the diets of sedentary persons with ample income, the eifect of the in- 

 come may outweigh that of the energy intake as is illustrated in Ranke's 

 and Xeumann's observations on themselves (42 per cent and from 34 to 

 GO percent, respectively). 



During the fifty years immediately preceding the AA'orld War, there 

 seems to have been a general increase in the amount of fat consumed, at 

 least in several countries. Thus, Engel estimated the fat consumption in 

 families whose income permitted saving to be 39 grams per man per day in 

 1853, but in 1899 found it to be not less than 5G grams in any group 

 studied. The averages for all families were 2S.5 grams in 1853 and 74.9 

 in 1891. In 1908, Slosse and van der Weyer found 74 grams to be the 

 minimum in 33 studies of the diet of Belgian working-men and Slosse and 

 Waxweiler found that in only ten out of 1065 Belgian working-men's fam- 

 ilies was it less than 35 grains and in only 132 was it less than 00 grains. 

 Similarly, Lichtenfelt estimated the fat consumption in Germany iu 1894 



