FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 109 



ishes." Hence, butter should be compared and classed with the 

 savory foods like meats. It is the cheapest food of that class. 



Combined with bread, butter makes one of the cheapest of 

 foods. Bread and butter is about the lowest priced order or 

 dish in a restaurant. 



The above table does not show the full nutritive value of 

 butter because it gives only the chemical value. In actual di- 

 gestion 97>^ per cent of the butter is digested and other fats 

 have a still lower digestibility. This is stated by Robert Hutch- 

 inson in his ''Food and the Principles of Dietetics," p. 135 : 



''The ease with which butter is digested renders it of great 

 value as a source of fat in the diet of sickness. In phthisis, di- 

 abetes and many forms of dyspepsia, patients can take a quar- 

 ter of a pound of it a day without difficulty and with great ad- 

 vantage to nutrition. Cooked butter, on the other hand, is more 

 apt to disagree, probably owing to the liberation of fatty acids 

 in it by the heat emplo3^ed in cooking. The absorption of but- 

 ter in the intestine is very complete even when one quarter of 

 a pound of it is taken per day, less than .5% is wasted. This 

 is a more profitable result than would be obtained with any 

 other form of fat and should teach us that it may be well to 

 give butter a fair trial before having recourse to cod-liver oil 

 or other medicinal fatty preparations. 



Digestibility of fats 



Melting Percentage 



Point Unabsorbed 



Butter 37d. C 2>4 



Bacon 48d. C 8 



Mutton Fat 52d. C lo 



Stearin has a melting point of 150 degrees F or 65 de- 

 grees C. 



It should be borne in mind that the number of calories 

 obtained for ten cents is as these foods are purchased. In pre- 

 paring for cooking and for eating, a considerable part of most 

 foods is discarded. The work of preparing the food, the sea- 

 soning, and the labor and fuel consumed in cooking, add that 



