We see, therefore, that there is a gain in nut importations between 1900 and 1910 twelve times as great as the gain in population; that the later increase is so great that this gain between 1900 and 1919 is 39 times as great as the increase in population. Surely this is conclusive evidence of the great increase in nut consumption in the United States, when we remember how greatly the American nut crop was increasing during this period.
Nut consumption increases thirty-nine times as greatly as population
These authentic figures astonish even the man who has learned by experience that “nut meat is the real meat” of greatest food value; for they show what great number of his fellow countrymen have proved their belief in the same fact. The man who has looked upon nuts as a holiday diet alone, cannot fail to see his error, when he realizes that this increase in the importation of nut meats in 1919 compared to 1900 is nearly nine times as great as the increase in population; despite the largely increasing American production.
Higher education in food values has led people to realize the necessity for different and more varied diet—and this educational development has been facilitated also by economic conditions.
The public forced to cut down on animal flesh—grazing land scarcer
As population increases, land becomes more valuable. As land becomes more valuable—intensive farming is practiced. Grazing becomes virtually impossible under such conditions; and, despite all the efforts of the Department of Agriculture experts, cattle raising is pushed farther and farther from the large centers of population. Increased transportation and costs of refrigeration mean increased meat prices—even the importation of large quantities of South American beef between 1910 and 1914, for instance, failed to keep meat at a price low enough so that it could constitute the large food element which it once was on the American table.
“Shall We Cease to Eat Meat?”
Available supply of pork, beef and mutton shrinking
asks Field Illustrated for March, 1919. A question of great significance, from a publication of unquestioned leadership on scientific cattle breeding. A question graphically illustrated by this self-explanatory chart.
