720 STORRS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



































not to get the highest-priced meats, and she did try in various ways to econo- 
mize as best she knew how. But, nevertheless, she bought eggs at 25 cents a 
dozen, not realizing that they were for her a very dear food. The result of the 
examination of the dietary showed it to supply just about four-fifths as much 
nutriment as the American standard would require for people at moderate 
muscular work. By wiser management the family might have had the full 
amount at considerably less cost. 
‘*One fruitful source of this bad economy is the prejudice against the cheaper 
kinds of food, and the impression that the finer and costlier kinds have some 
special virtue. With this is a false pride which considers economy in food a 
thing unworthy of the buyer’s dignity. A series of investigations lately begun 
in New York City* have brought out some striking illustrations of this unfortu- 
nate fact. Among the families visited is one of seven persons, so poor that the 
mother has not a dress in which she is willing to be seen on the street of even 
the poor quarter where she lives. She therefore stays in the house day after 
day, giving herself up to constant drudgery. The cost of food for the family is 
$14 per week, or $2 per person. The markets of New York, including those of 
this district, afford excellent food at extremely low prices, so that the family 
might be well nourished at half the expense. But these people, some of whom 
really wish to economize, are the victims of a theory. They think they must 
have ‘the best.’ They buy the nicest and costliest cuts of beef, the tenderest 
chicken, the earliest spring vegetables, and other things in like manner, and pay 
high prices for them. They will doubtless continue to do so until they learn 
that their policy is an unwise one, and why it is unwise.” 
As regards the food of people in business and professional — 
life the most common error from the standpoint of health is 
that of an excessive and illy-balanced diet. A great many 
people with little muscular exercise eat too much. ‘The diet 
is apt to consist largely of the materials which contain fat, 
starch and sugar. 
The dietaries of the farmers’ families thus far studied were 
out of balance. ‘The food contained relatively too little of 
the protein compounds, those which make muscle, blood and 
bone, and relatively too much of the fuel ingredients, espe- 
cially starch. In other words, they would have been im- 
proved by the use of more of the leaner kinds of meats, as 
beef and veal, more fish, milk, beans and peas, and less of _ 
such materials as potatoes, corn meal and sugar. ‘There was 
not such variety of food as the farm and garden might easily 

* These inquiries are being carried out by codperation between the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture and the New York Society for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor 
under the immediate direction of one of the writers (C. D. W.) They are made among 
families in the most congested parts of that city. Hand in hand with the investigation goes 
the practical application by the teaching of food economy in cooking schools and otherwise. 
This enterprise, and a somewhat similar one which is being carried out in Chicago by coépera- 
tion between the Department of Agriculture and the Hull House, are among the most inter- 
esting and useful of the kind with which the writers are familiar, 
