CONSUMER PREFERENCES IN PURCHASE OF MEAT 13 
The tendency toward a decreasing preference for pork and an in- 
creasing preference for lamb with increases in the standard of living 
was noted in the three classes of the American white group. In the 
colored group, which was located in Jacksonville (Table 8), some 
variations from the results presented in Table 6 were found. In the 
poor class of this group the preference for beef was higher and that 
for pork somewhat lower than was shown for the colored group lo- 
cated in Birmingham, New Orleans, and Washington. (Table 6.) In 
the middle class of the colored group the preferences for both pork 
and lamb were larger in Jacksonville than in the other three cities. 
In the colored households of Birmingham, New Orleans, and Wash- 
ington, 10.7 per cent of the poor-class housewives preferred veal and 
17 per cent of those in the middle class stated a similar preference 
for their households. In Jacksonville, however, no preferences were 
stated for veal in either the poor or middle class of the colored 
group. 
The Italian groups in Baltimore and Binghamton (Table 8) and 
in Denver, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco (Table 6) 
indicated about the same relative preferences for beef and veal. The 
principal variation of the Italian from the American white group 
was the high percentage of the total number of replies indicating veal 
as first choice in the Italian households. 
The primary differences between the Polish group in Philadelphia 
and Pittsburgh (Table 6) and that in Baltimore and Binghamton 
(Table 8) were the decreased preference for beef and the increase in 
the preference for pork in Baltimore and Binghamton. In neither of 
the groups was any preference stated for lamb. 
Question 7. — Whv do you buy — (a) steaks and chops, (6) roasts, and (c) 
boiling meat? (Tables 9, 10, and 11.) 
The variations in demand for different cuts of meat and particu- 
larly those of the beef carcass have resulted in rather wide price 
differentials between the more favored and the less favored cuts. 
These differences have been the subject of much discussion and some 
investigation, but the consumer reasons prompting the purchase and 
use of the different cuts have been given little attention. Accordingly 
questions directed toward determining these reasons were incorpo- 
rated in the questionnaire used in Baltimore, Binghamton, Jacksonville, 
New Haven, and Washington. Tables 9, 10, and 11 were based on 
these replies. 
Housewives of the American white group in answering the three 
parts of this question gave as the principal txnswer for each section 
of the question that they liked the particular cut of meat to which 
the question related. The significance of this reply common to all 
parts of the question rested in the decreasing relation which the 
number of housewives giving this as the reason bore to the total 
number of replies, when the replies to the three parts of the question 
were considered together. 
In the American white group the total number of housewives of 
the three classes — poor, middle, and well-to-do — replying to the first 
part of the question was 625, 62 per cent of whom stated that they 
purchased steaks and chops because they liked them. Of the 517, 
housewives who answered the part of the question relating to the 
reasons for buying roasts, 40 per cent gave as their reason that they 
