346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



article of food, as purchased or as served on the table, which yields 100 

 calories of energy. This he has called the " standard portion." 1 



Often it happens that the quantity required to make a standard 

 portion is a very convenient amount to serve on a plate. One large egg, 

 weighing 2 ounces, is almost exactly a standard portion. An ordinary 

 serving of butter (^ ounce), a teaspoonful of olive oil, one large orange, 

 one large banana, one medium thick slice of white bread — each contains 

 very nearly 100 calories of energy. By an easy computation one can 

 readily learn the exact weight of any kind of food whose composition is 

 known, which will yield 100 calories. It would help greatly if some 

 enterprising manufacturer were to place on the market standardized 

 measures made in metal for a standard portion of sugar, milk, rice, 

 butter, oatmeal, flour, dried beans and any other food which does not 

 vary much in cdmposition. The only difficulty with this method is that 

 certain food products as purchased in the market differ considerably in 

 composition. It would therefore be much simpler for the consumer if 

 the food manufacturer were required to guarantee not only the purity of 

 his product in the ordinary sense, but to guarantee also a certain energy 

 content. If, for example, a certain brand of oatmeal bore on its label 

 the statement, " This package is guaranteed to contain 2,000 calories 

 of heat energy," this information would be worth many times as much 

 to the purchaser as the statement, " This food is guaranteed to comply 

 with the food and drugs act," etc. For he would then have some basis 

 upon which to judge the actual economy of his purchase. Some other 

 product likewise " guaranteed to contain 2,000 calories " might cost 

 him only one half as much. 



Such a guaranty would entail no great hardship on the part of the 

 manufacturer, because it would involve the employment only of a com- 

 petent chemist to make an occasional analysis, or a determination by 

 combustion of the heat value. The law of many states already requires 

 that milk admitted to the markets must not fall below a certain per- 

 centage of fat (cream). If the label on top of the bottle were required 

 to state, "This bottle contains 650 calories of food energy," the legal 

 requirement would mean something to the purchaser, for it would enable 

 him to tell whether milk is or is not a cheap food as compared with, 

 say, oatmeal or eggs. 



A person must have a certain minimum of energy value in his food 

 every day. There is no law of nature more inexorable than this. Cer- 

 tain faddists like Horace Fletcher have averred that they live on much 

 less energy than does the average man, and yet when Mr. Fletcher was 



1 By writing to the Superintendent of Documents at Washington the careful 

 student of the problem can have a list of publications on foods. Bulletin No. 28 

 of the Department of Agriculture, published in 1906, price five cents, entitled 

 ' ' Composition of American Foods, ' ' by Atwater and Bryant, contains nearly all 

 the information required regarding the fuel value of the common articles of food. 



