CHAPTER XII. UNTABULATED LOSSES 
American agriculture suffers many kinds of losses to which the 
Department cannot at present assign specific dollar values or 
acreage equivalents. They are accordingly not covered in the 
figures tabulated in this report. They include losses in nutri- 
tive values in food preparation, damage from the feeding of birds 
and wild game, labor and materials used in controlling pests, 
losses during the processing of most animal products, deteriora- 
tion that shortens the period of usefulness of goods such as 
buildings, furniture, and fabrics manufactured from agricultural 
and forest products, and deterioration of farm machinery and 
other capital investment items. The general nature and extent 
of some of these kinds of losses are discussed in this chapter. 
Losses of Food in Homes, Institutions, ard Restaurants 
The Nation's food supply provides approximately 3,200 calories 
per capita per day when measured as it enters the kitchen. Yet 
this is probably 700 to 800 calories more than is needed for 
actual ingestion. Some of the difference may be due to overeating, 
since a fair percentage of adults are overweight. A large part 
of the difference, however, is due to losses of food in the home 
or in institutions and restaurants. 
There are three types of physical, or visible, losses: 
(1) Excessive fat on meat that is discarded as kitchen 
trimmings, drippings from cooking, or as plate 
waste. 
(2) Kitchen trimmings of fruits and vegetables which, had 
they been in perfect condition upon receipt, would 
have had only a minimum discarded as inedible; also 
excessive amounts of good-quality produce that were 
trimmed off owing to poor management practices, 
(3) Other foods, a large proportion of which probably 
are frain products, that are discarded because of 
staleness or spoilage due to poor management practices 
or because they are left-eovers, bread crusts, etc. 
In addition to these losses, there are invisible, chemical losses 
in quslity and nutritive value. Some losses in nutritive value 
are unavoidable during transport from farm to consumer and in the 
cooking of foods, but probably a large share could be avoided 
through education in household food-preparation practices and 
through better handling of fresh produce in wholesale and retail 
distribution. 
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