Lae STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 
food Supply.—Answers are here sought to the questions: 
What does a given region or market furnish, z. e., what are 
the principal food materials available to the purchaser? What 
does each cost?’ How much nutriment does each contain? 
What ones are the most economical? ‘The real purpose is to 
compare the nutritive values of foods with their cost as they 
are actually offered to consumers in different parts of the 
country, and to learn what one’s people who wish to economize 
can best afford to buy and use. ‘These questions must be 
studied by actual examination of the market supplies in differ- 
ent places. 
food Consumption. Dietary Studies.—The inquiries on the 
subject seek answers to the questions: What kinds and quan- 
tities of materials do people actually buy and eat, and ‘how 
economical or uneconomical are they in the purchase of their ~ 
food? ‘The real subject here is the actual eating habits of 
the people. The data are obtained in part by inquiries in 
. different markets, but the most valuable information comes 
from studies of actual dietaries of typical people of different ~ 
classes. The inquiries are made by weighing, measuring and 
analyzing the food actually purchased, eaten, and left uncon- 
sumed. 
EHRRORS IN FOOD ECONOMY. 
Most of the dietary studies thus far made by the Station have 
been those of families and boarding-houses in cities, though 
a few studies have been made with farmers’ families. The 
results are not yet sufficient for the most reliable conclusions. 
But the scientific research thus carried out and used in inter- 
preting the observations of practical life implies that several 
errors are common in the use of food: 
First, many people purchase needlessly expensive kinds of 
food, doing this under the false impression that there is some 
peculiar virtue in the costlier materials, and that economy in 
our diet is somehow detrimental to our dignity or our welfare. 
And, unfortunately, those who are most extravagant in this 
respect are often the ones who can least afford it. 
Secondly, the food which we eat does not always contain the 
proper proportions of the different kinds of nutritive ingredi- 
ents. We consume relatively too much of the fuel ingredients 
SP ei ey 
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