NUTRITIVE VALUE AND COST OF CHEESE AND SOME OTHER FOOD MATERIALS.
Since the market prices of foods vary, it is difficult to compare the amounts of nourishment secured for a given sum, 10 cents say, in buying different food materials. We may, however, suppose that foods have certain prices and make the comparison on this basis. In the following table the amount of cheese obtained for 10 cents when cheese costs 22 cents a pound is shown, together with the protein and energy value of this quantity, this value being compared with similar values for a number of other common foods at certain assumed prices per pound.
Amounts of protein and energy obtained for 10 cents expended for cheese and other foods at certain assumed prices per pound.
| 10 cents’ worth will contain— | ||||
| 10 cents will buy— | ||||
| Food materials. | Price. | Proteid. | A fuel value of— | |
| Ounces. | Ounces. | Calories. | ||
| Cheese | 22 cents per pound | 7.3 | 1.9 | 886 |
| Beef, average | 20 cents per pound | 8.0 | 1.2 | 467 |
| Porterhouse steak | 25 cents per pound | 6.4 | 1.3 | 444 |
| Dried beef | do | 6.4 | 1.6 | 315 |
| Eggs | 24 cents per dozen | 10.0 | 1.3 | 198 |
| Milk | 9 cents per quart | 38.3 | 1.2 | 736 |
| Wheat bread | 5 cents per pound | 32.0 | 2.9 | 2,400 |
| Potatoes | 60 cents per bushel | 160.0 | 2,950 | |
| Apples | 1½ cents per pound | 106.7 | 1,270 | |
Since cheese is ready to be eaten when it comes from the market, it may be more interesting for some purposes to compare its composition with that of cooked beef, freed from bone and from superfluous fat, such a piece as would be served to a person at the table. Weight for weight, cheese has appreciably more protein than such cooked beef, and 50 per cent more fat.
So far as its composition is concerned, then, cheese is entitled to be considered as directly comparable with meat. The possibilities of using cheese and some other food materials in the same way as meat is discussed in some detail in an earlier publication of this department.[9] It is so used by the peasants of some parts of Europe, and was formerly so used among many other groups of people. The fact that it is not more commonly so used in this country is probably due to several causes. One cause is habit, which makes the meal seem incomplete unless it includes meat; another is the fact that since cheese has a more pronounced flavor than meat, it is not so likely to be generally acceptable as the chief food of a meal. There is always likely to be at least one member of the family who does not relish it in quantity. Another cause is the fact that it is commonly believed to be indigestible, and still another is the fact that housekeepers, through lack of experience, are much less skillful in the arrangement of bills of fare in which cheese is the central food than they are in arranging bills of fare in which meat is thus used. These last two causes will be considered in sections which follow.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] U. S. Dept. Agr., Yearbook 1907, p. 367.
THE DIGESTIBILITY OF CHEESE.
As was stated above, cheese has been thought a cause of digestive disturbances, but work recently done by the Office of Experiment Stations, in cooperation with the Bureau of Animal Industry, and briefly summed up in a recent publication tends to disprove this.[10]