World Resources 
which are inedible by man; they even eat brewer’s grains in 
order that we can enjoy our beer! So animals do in fact con- 
stitute a very valued means of utilizing the by-products of our 
agriculture, rather than robbing us of agricultural produce, 
except in the very highly developed areas. 
In the third place, and I hope Pirie will bear me out in this, 
animals play a valuable role in increasing soil fertility, and in 
this way help to conserve the natural resources of the land, either 
by providing farmyard manure or more fundamentally in the 
system of mixed farming which is being increasingly adopted 
to improve the food crop production in the less developed 
countries. 
In the fourth place, the level of animal protein in a diet can 
in any event be looked upon as a convenient index of the general 
level of quality of the diet, since it serves as a general indicator 
of poverty or wealth. The whole diet is probably better where 
there is a higher consumption of animal food. 
Finally, in the fifth place, how else can we hope to ensure 
the presence of the necessary vitamins or minerals than by 
providing a mixed diet with animal products? And must we 
not also pay some attention to palatability? Julian Huxley 
asked us “‘ What are people for ?”’ Surely we are not here merely 
for existence; people do have a right to enjoy the food they eat! 
Palatability itself is indeed vital in any diet. Colin Clark him- 
self, in an article in the Dutch press, has said “It is true that to 
most of our fellow men this [a cereal diet] means a monotonous 
diet, consisting mainly of cereals. We all look forward to the 
day’’, he adds, “‘when they, as well as we, are able to include 
in their daily menu more meat, fruit and dairy products.” It 
is, I think, significant that all better-off nations automatically 
change towards a diet with more animal products, more animal 
proteins, more fats—a useful form of concentrated energy par- 
ticularly for industrial workers—and more fruits and vegetables. 
If my thesis is correct, animal foods do therefore form a 
useful index not only of the physiological quality of the diet, 
but equally of the order of magnitude of the effects of specific 
deficiency diseases, of the extent of satisfactory health and 
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