56 FISH CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
This table will help us to a very fair idea of the comparative 
composition of some of our more common animal foods. The 
percentages refer to the fresh substance, except when especially 
stated as “dried,” “smoked,” etc. In the meats and fish the 
bones are excluded, the calculations referring only to the edible 
portions. The “extractive matters” are essentially the carbo- 
hydrates, which in the fish are of little moment. 
Looking down the first column we see that while medium 
beef contains 72 per cent. of water, milk contains 874 per cent. 
Roughly speaking, beefsteak is about three-fourths, and milk 
seven-eights, water. A pound of beefsteak would thus contain - 
four ounces of solids, and, if we assume a pint of milk to weigh 
a pound, a quart would contain four ounces of solids also ; that 
is, a pound of steak and a quart of milk contain about the same 
weight of actual nutrients. But we know that for ordinary use 
the pound of beefsteak is worth more for food than the quart of 
milk. The reason is simple. The solids of the lean steak are 
nearly all albuminoid, while those of the milk consist largely of 
fats and of milk sugar, a carbohydrate. 
The figures in the table are, I think, worth looking through 
with some care. Remembering that those for meat and fish ap- 
ply to only the edible portion, let me call your attention first to 
the varying proportions of albuminoids and fats in the second 
and third columns. On the whole you will notice that the fish 
average about the same percentages of albuminoids as the meats, 
but have rather less fats. 
RELATIVE NUTRITIVE VALUES OF THE ANIMAL FOODS. 
The figures in the last column are intended to show how the 
foods compare in nutritive valve, “medium beef” being taken as 
the standard. They are computed by ascribing certain values 
to the albuminoids and fats, and taking the sum in each case for 
the value of that particular food. The ratio here adopted, which 
assumes one pound of albuminoids to be equal to three pounds © 
of fats, is that assumed by prominent German chemists. Taking 
medium beef at 100, the same weight of milk comes to 23.8 ; 
butter, 124; mutton (medium), 86.6; fat pork, 116 ; smoked beef, 
