ing Romans conquered and civilized our barbarian
ancestors and taught them agriculture, plant foods again became the
chief sources of nutriment, but a meat appetite had been developed and
is still characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race, while most of the rest
of the world are almost exclusively plant feeders. Four hundred millions
of Chinese eat so little meat that it is, in the case of south China,
not even mentioned in the national food budget. Sixty millions of
Japanese eat an average of 4 pounds per capita. Two hundred millions of
East Indians never taste meat. As a matter of fact, only Americans,
English, Germans and Scandinavians are large meat eaters.

Evidently, the American meat appetite as well as the American sugar
tooth is enormously exaggerated. It is somewhat encouraging, however, to
note that the eating habits of the American people are changing. Within
a generation, and especially since the World War, there has been a
notable change in the national bill of fare.

More cereals are consumed than formerly, but the greatest per capita
increase is shown in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and
especially greenstuffs, such as lettuce, spinach, kale, and other
greens. This increase in the use of certain foods is not due to the fact
that the American appetite is increasing or the American stomach
enlarging, but to the spread among the people of scientific information
concerning nutrition.

Through experiments upon rats and various other animals, including man
himself, fundamental principles have been discovered and a real science
of nutrition has been developed, the axioms, formulae, and basic ideas
of which are as clearly established as are those of geometry and
chemistry. We are no longer left to be led astray by guess-work or fancy
in supplying our nutritive needs, and have verified the truth so aptly
expressed by that shrewd old Roman philosopher, Seneca, who said, "There
is nothing against which we ought to be more on our guard than, like a
flock of sheep, following the crowd of those who preceded us."

This change in the eating habits of the American people has been brought
about by disillusionment respecting the importance of meats. Fifty years
ago, every physiologist taught that the liberal consumption of meat was
essential. This idea was based, first, upon the supposition that
protein, the chief constituent of lean meat, is the most important
source of energy; and, second, the belief that foo