THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. Ig! 
ing the amounts of nutrients that may be bought for the same 
price in different food materials. At the same time the method 
above detailed is doubtless accurate enough for a general com- 
parison of the relative cheapness and dearness of ordinary foods, 
and is used in calculating the costs of protein below. 
Of the different nutrients, protein is physiologically the most 
important as it is pecuniarily the most expensive. In fish, .fur- 
thermore, as in the leaner kinds of meat, it is the predominant 
nutritive ingredient. For these reasons the cost of protein in 
fish and other foods may be used as a means of comparing their 
relative cheapness or dearness, as is done in the preceding table. 
The figures represent the ordinary prices per pound and the 
corresponding costs of protein, in specimens of food-materials 
obtained in New York and Middletown, Conn., markets. 
Though the number of specimens is too small for reliable aver- 
ages, the figures, taken together, doubtless give a tolerably fair 
idea of the relative costliness of the nutrients in the different 
classes of food. 
[hus the nutrients of vegetable foods are, in general, much 
less costly than in animal feeds. The animal foods have, how- 
ever, the advantage of containing a larger proportion of protein 
and fats, and the protein, at least, in more digestible forms. And 
further, the so-called “ nitrogenous extractives” of kreatin, car- 
nin, etc., of meats, which contribute so much to their agreable 
flavor, exert a nutritive effect which, though not yet explained, 
is nevertheless important. It is these which give to “extract 
of meat” its peculiar flavor and stimulating effect. 
Among the animal foods, those which rank as delicacies are 
the costliest. By the above calculations, the protein in oysters 
costs from two to three dollars, and in salmon rises to nearly six 
dollars per pound. In beef, mutton and pork, it varies from 
108 to 48 cents; in shad, bluefish, haddock, and halibut, the 
range is about the same; while in cod and mackerel, fresh and 
salted, it ranges from 67 to as low as 33 cents per pound. Salt 
cod and salt mackerel are nearly always—fresh cod and mackerel 
oftener, and even the choicer fish, as bluefish and shad, when 
abundant, furnish cheaper sources of protein than any but the 
inferior kinds of meat. 
