COMMENT AND SUMMARY 



323 



officer's permitting his personal prejudices 

 or preferences to dictate the foods that were 

 provided for the submarine. 



Food Wastage 



The waste in the preparation of food will 

 vary somewhat with the size of the crew to 

 be fed. McCay (44), in his study of a 

 mess hall feeding an average of 3,700 men, 

 found that about one-seventh of the day's 

 nutrients ("as issued") found their way into 

 the scullery garbage cans. This type of 

 information is important from a practical 

 standpoint. Very little work has been done 

 in this field, and what has been done is 

 difficult to locate. For these reasons Mc- 

 Cay's findings will be discussed in some 

 detail. 



The amount of sohds per day per man in 

 these wastes was 104 grams. This refuse 

 contained the following (in gm.): proteins 

 10, fat 30, ash 6, carbohydrate 58. The 

 calories amounted to 538. The vitamins 

 lost per man per day in this refuse amounted 

 to 0.4 mg. for thiamine, 0.8 mg. for ribo- 

 flavin, and 9 mg. for niacin. These data 

 may be interpreted more intelUgently when 

 compared to the weight of the day's food as 

 issued. The total amount of solids was 666 

 gm., which contained 117 gm. of protein, 

 166 gm. of fat, 34 gm. of ash, and 349 gm. 

 of carbohydrates. The food had a caloric 

 value of 3358 Calories. It had 2.1 mg. of 

 thiamine, 3.9 mg. of riboflavin, and 26 mg. 

 of niacin. In order to secure an indication 

 of the composition of the food served, the 

 above scullery losses should be subtracted 

 from the values for the food as issued to the 

 ship. Since no plate wastage studies were 

 made in the mess hall, these figures on food 

 loss are only minimal. 



One of McCay's contributions was to ob- 

 tain data on what the men were eating and 

 drinking at Ship's Service and at other facili- 

 ties on the station. The daily food pur- 

 chased at Ship's Service was estimated as 

 522 Calories, with 60 percent of the calories 



provided in the form of candy bars. These 

 snacks compensated for the losses in the 

 caloric value of the meals resulting from the 

 scullery waste. 



The food wastage aboard a submarine is 

 likely to differ from that observed at shore 

 stations. McCay's data (45) on messing 

 aboard an aircraft carrier probably came 

 closer to conditions in a submarine, even 

 though there are vast differences in the num- 

 ber of men to be fed. In contrast to shore 

 stations, the wastage in the course of pre- 

 paring the food on the carrier was reported 

 to be small, but no specific figure was given. 

 On the other hand, the waste resulting from 

 discarding food by the crew of the carrier 

 amounted to from 10 to 20 percent of the 

 food served, with bread wastage of the same 

 magnitude. 



Emergency Food Rations 



Two types of emergency rations should be 

 considered for a submarine crew. The first 

 of these involves foods that can be used in case 

 the refrigerating system breaks down com- 

 pletely. Such a contingency may be a re- 

 mote possibiUty, but it should, nevertheless, 

 be considered. For such a time, canned 

 meats, powdered eggs, preserved butter, etc., 

 should be carried. The menus could be de- 

 vised so that if an emergency did not develop, 

 these foods could be used, to a certain ex- 

 tent, in the meals served during the last part 

 of the cruise. 



The other type would be for the time when 

 the men had to abandon ship. Here a great 

 deal of work has been done by both the Navy 

 and the Air Force. Their experience in de- 

 veloping various types of life raft rations 

 might go far in solving this problem. 



The literature on survival and emergency 

 rations has been summarized by Scott (53) 

 and Berryman (5). 



Comment and Summary 



Shortly after this report was prepared, a 

 paper by Schilling and Duff (52) on the food 



