formation applicable to retail cuts. Information is given for beef car- 

 cass of commercial grade on the wholesale basis and also as trimmed for 

 retail. Data are included also for a boned carcass of commercial grade 

 as cut and trimmed for Army specifications into three categories — ■ 

 roasting or broiling meat, boiling or stewing meat, and chopped meat. 

 Although these values are primarily for Army purposes they may be 

 useful at times in making calculations of civilian diets when specific 

 data on the cut and grade actually used by families are lacking. These 

 figures probably would be better estimates of what families in general 

 used than the figures given for any particular kind of boned roast or 

 stew meat. 



The few data available on the retail cuts of meat indicate such wide 

 variation as to make it impractical to estimate the composition of many 

 different cuts. Wholesale cuts of any one grade are more uniform 

 and were selected for presentation here where it was feasible to sub- 

 stitute them for the retail. When wholesale cuts are trimmed, some 

 bone, very little if any lean, but considerable fat may be removed, 

 causing the retail portion to have a lower percentage of fat and a higher 

 percentage of protein than the original. The substitution of the com- 

 position of wholesale for retail cuts, therefore, causes an overestimation 

 of the caloric value of the retail portion and some underestimation of 

 the protein, mineral, and vitamin content. The values for fresh meat 

 suggested for use on a retail basis in these tables are only from those 

 wholesale cuts that are considered to apply well to the retail cuts of 

 the same grade. 



In the section on pork the item, "miscellaneous lean cuts," applies 

 to those so-called lean cuts of a medium fat pork carcass used as meat 

 and therefore excludes lard, bacon, salt side, and fat back. Data on 

 the remaining cuts were averaged according to the estimated propor- 

 tions available to civilians. As military and Government procurement 

 is in terms of certain cuts of pork rather than of carcasses, the propor- 

 tion of the different lean cuts making up the civilian supply varies 

 somewhat from time to time. As the values for this item stand, they 

 apply to the combination of wholesale cuts of medium fat pork available 

 to civilians in 1944. However, they may be used in general to apply 

 to the sum total of the cuts sold in retail channels, excluding the fat 

 cuts mentioned above. 



The mineral content for most of the items of meat and fish was cal- 

 culated by applying to the protein content the factors suggested by 

 Sherman 4 as follows: 



Milligrams per 100 grams of protein in — 

 Meat Fish 



Calcium 58 109 



Phosphorus 1,078 1,148 



Iron 15 5.5 



The vitamin values were also obtained by applying a factor to the pro- 

 tein content. All available literature giving vitamin data that could 

 be related to the protein content was reviewed and for each kind of 

 meat the average thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin value per gram of 

 protein was calculated. For the present the use of one set of vitamin 

 factors for each kind of meat — beef, lamb, pork, and veal — seemed best 



4 Data adapted from Sherman, pp. 563, 564. See footnote 3, p. 2. 



