

DIGESTIBILITY OF CEREAL BREAKFAST FOODS. ISI 
is given to this subject in connection with the nutrition investi- 
gations carried on by the Storrs Station, in cooperation with 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture.* 
One important class of food materials that is being used to an 
increasing extent in the ordinary diet of families is that of cereal 
breakfast foods. ‘The chemical composition of the large num- 
ber of various kinds of such foods now on the market is quite 
well known, the analyses being already very numerous; but 
little has hitherto been definitely understood regarding the 
availability of these foods to man. During the past year a 
series of digestion experiments with breakfast foods was car- 
ried on as part of the nutrition investigations of the Storrs 
Station. An account of these experiments, and the results 
obtained, is given in the present article. 
DETAILS OF EXPERIMENTS. 
The work here reported comprises nine experiments with 
three different brands of breakfast foods; three with ‘‘Grape- 
Nuts,’ four with ‘‘Malta Vita,’’ and two with ‘‘Force.’’ Each 
of these materials was eaten, in separate experiments, in a very 
simple diet consisting only of milk, cream and sugar in addition 
to the cereal. All the food consumed and feces excreted were 
carefully weighed and sampled and the samples analyzed. 
From these data for amounts and composition of food and 
* Previous reports of the Station have contained accounts of nutrition investigations 
carried on in coéperation with the U. S. Department of Agriculture. This codperative 
inquiry regarding the food and nutrition of man is provided for by an Act of Congress 
which makes an appropriation of $20,000 per year for the purpose. The responsibility 
for the inquiry is intrusted to the Secretary of Agriculture, who places the immediate 
charge in the hands of the writer. It has been the definite policy of the Department 
‘to invite the coéperation of a considerable number of investigators and institutions in 
different parts of the United States in the prosecution of this inquiry. The share 
borne by the Storrs Experiment Station consisted in several kinds of work, of which 
some of the principal features have been metabolism experiments with the respiration 
calorimeter, digestion experiments with different kinds of food materials and studies 
of actual dietaries of people of different classes. The work of the year 1903 included 
a continuation of the investigations with the respiration calorimeter and a number of 
digestion experiments in which the nutritive values of several different kinds of food 
materials were tested by actual experiments with healthy men, Among the food 
materials tested were several of the breakfast foods which are in common use in 
Connecticut and elsewhere. ‘he results of these latter investigations are reported in 
the present article. j 
Investigations with breakfast foods, similar to those here reported and like these 
forming part of the coéperative inquiry mentioned above, have also been made dur- 
ing the past year at the Maine and Minnesota Stations. It is probable that the results 
of all these investigations will be included in a publication of the Department of 
Agriculture. 
