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Supplementary Values Among Foods

II. Growth and Reproduction on White Bread with Various Supplements

(From the Nutrition Laboratory, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City)

On a diet composed of dried bread 70% and dried whole milk 30% there was normal growth, excellent health, and good reproduction, only one of the five females failing to bear offspring. Four females produced 81 young within the period of the experiment but lactation was poor and only five young were successfully weaned.

Similar results were obtained with dried bread 70% and dried egg powder 30%. There was good reproduction, four females bearing 68 young, 12 of which were successfully weaned and placed on the diet of their mothers at the age of 28 days. Half of them made normal gains for periods of three to six months, but the other half all showed signs of general weakness, nasal hemorrages and rickets, and three of these died within six weeks.

Results with bread 90% and milk 10% were similar to those with bread 70% and carrot 30%. Growth was poorer than with egg or 30% milk, and only one mother on the carrot diet bore young. These were successfully weaned and placed on the carrot diet, making good growth for the two months during which they were under observation.

Neither the bread and almond nor bread and spinach diets were able to maintain the animals in health in spite of good food consumption. At the end of 6 or 8 months most of them had a weight which they should have reached in the second month. There was no reproduction.

The poorest records of all were made with bread and lean beef, in spite of an initial period of three to five weeks during which all grew at a rate very nearly if not quite normal. The initial gain was followed by a decline after which there was maintenance of a fairly constant weight on a lower level for a considerable time. After the decline in weight occurred, the addition of butterfat equal to 9% of the weight of the bread or of calcium lactate equal to 2.6% of the weight of the bread, had little effect on growth, but that of cod liver oil equal to 2% was slightly beneficial. The animals were in miserable condition, and so crippled that they could not move about in their cages. Of the 13 animals used, only 8 were alive at the end of eight months.

The best health, best growth and best reproduction occurred on bread 70% and milk 30% and on bread 70% and egg 30%. In the second generation there were more young successfully weaned on the bread and egg diet. No marked differences in result can be attributed to differences in the composition of the white bread.

Such studies serve as a means of discovering supplementary relation ships among foods which it is essential to understand if we are to make intelligent use of assortments of food in human nutrition, and are being continued in this laboratory.