10 BULLETIN 1443, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
6.8 per cent of the total number of persons in the households did not 
eat meat; in the middle class, 6.3 per cent; in the well-to-do class, 
4.7 per cent; and in the wealthy class, 3.4 per cent. These differ- 
ences appeared to be explained for the most part by the larger pro- 
portion of children in the poor, middle, and well-to-do classes. 
Children under 5 years of age were the largest group of household 
members not eating meat, so that as the percentage of children of 
this age increased the percentage of the people not eating meat 
increased also. In the poor class, about 14.5 per cent of the total 
membership of the class was composed of children under 5 years of 
age. In the middle, well-to-do, and wealthy classes, the similar 
values were about 8, 6, and 8 per cent. Another factor contributing 
to the decrease noted for the wealthy class was the fact that of the 
children under 5 years of age in this class only 20.9 per cent did not 
eat meat, whereas in each of the other three classes the percentage 
of children under 5 years not eating meat was over 34 per cent of 
the total number of children in each group. 
Within the American white group, the larger relative numbers not 
eating meat were found to be in the group of children 9 years of age 
and under and in the group of adult women. Of the total number 
of children under 5 years in the group, 34.1 per cent did not eat 
meat. About 3.9 per cent of the children between the ages of 5 and 
9 did not eat meat and 3.4 per cent of the women over 19 3 r ears of 
age did not eat meat. The other age groups showed but little vari- 
ation, 1.6 per cent of the men over 19 years did not eat meat, and 
a similar per cent of the children between 15 and 19 years of age 
did not eat meat. Of the group of children between 10 and 14 
years of age, 1.2 per cent did not eat meat. 
A slight increase in the tendency to eat meat was noted in the 
group of adult men of the American white class as the standard of 
living increased, but an opposite tendency was observed in the group 
of women over 19 years of age. 
In all age divisions of both the poor and middle classes of the col- 
ored group the percentages of those not eating meat, were less than 
the corresponding percentages of the American white group. 
In eight foreign groups, the order of array of the total number of 
persons not eating meat, when expressed as percentages of the total 
number of persons in the households visited, was as follows: French, 
8.9 percent; Polish, 8.4 percent; Jewish, 7.1 percent; Italian, 4.9 per 
cent; Scandinavian, 4.2 per cent; German, 3.4 per cent; Russian, 1.9 
per cent; and Finnish, 0.5 per cent. With the exception of the Jewish 
group, the higher percentages were to be attributed largely to the 
proportionately larger numbers of children of the younger ages who 
did not eat meat. The number of men who did not eat meat in the 
Russian, Polish, and German households was less in proportion to 
the total number of men in each of these groups than in the other 
nationality groups. 
Question 5. — If there are any adults who do not eat meat, what are the reasons 
why they do not? (Table 5.) 
Replies to this question were few in number, because the scope of 
the question was limited to adults. For the American white group, 
the reason most frequently assigned by those not eating meat was 
that they excluded it from their diet, either because of doctors' orders 
