CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 159 
its vital processes as are other food constituents and should always 
be given a place in the diet for this reason. These also are useful for 
increasing the bulk in a diet which is already sufficiently nutritious 
but lacking in amount. Then, too, as Dr. Langworthy has observed, 1 
the use of fruits, fresh and preserved, often makes palatable an other- 
wise rather tasteless meal. Jam with bread is a reasonable combi- 
nation, the highly flavored fruit product whetting the appetite for the 
needed quantity of rather flavorless bread. 
From the preceding paragraphs it is evident that various kinds of 
food are necessary if the body is to be well nourished. It now remains 
to be seen in what combination these articles of food should be selected 
and in what quantities they should be provided. 
It has been shown already that a certain amount of protein food 
is necessary. Under ordinary conditions of life natural tastes and 
desires generally lead to the selection of suitable foods, and so it 
comes about that the common articles of food consumed by the great 
majority of people in good health consist of meats, fish, eggs, milk, 
butter, cheese, sugar, flour, meal, cereals, fruits, potatoes, and other 
vegetables. In such foods as these there is plenty of protein mate- 
rial, and when the amount of food consumed is sufficient to satisfy the 
appetite and produce a feeling of satisfaction there is no doubt but 
that the body is supplied with a store from which it may pick out 
those combinations so essential to its nutrition. When, however, 
economic conditions become such that the more expensive elements 
(meat, fish, eggs, milk, and cheese) must be curtailed and the diet 
must be limited to a few articles of food, and those the very cheapest, 
care must be taken to provide a sufficient amount of proteins. 
A diet consisting of salt fat pork, corn meal, a little white flour, 
syrup or molasses, and a few green vegetables and fruits is high in 
fats and starches but low in protein. Salt fat pork consists almost 
wholly of fat, and while it adds much to the energy value of the diet it 
is very low in protein (tissue-building substance). The other foods 
also are low in protein, so that the diet is one-sided and poorly bal- 
anced. Taken as a whole, the people who live largely on a diet of 
this sort are more liable to diseases of nutrition (scurvy, beriberi, pel- 
lagra) and are neither so robust, active,nor productive of efficient labor 
as others who are more fortunately situated. Combined with foods of 
this sort there must be protein foods, such as beans, cowpeas, salt fish, 
and any others that can be afforded if a suitable diet is to be provided. 
THE FOOD IN CONVICT CAMPS. 
It is reasonable to assume that the food furnished to convicts 
at work on the public highways while serving their sentences should 
be wholesome and nutritious but that the cost should be as low as 
i U. S. Department of Agriculture: Farmers' Bulletin 293. 
53577°— Bull. 414—16 11 
