Now, there is a common notion, only partly correct, that the yellow color of butter is an index of the vitamin A content of the butter. When the yellow color of butter is provided by nonnutritious (though noninjurious) coal tar dye added by the butter maker, without informing the consumer, it is a means of deception. The amount of vitamin D in natural milk and butter is of less significance in our national nutrition. Our major supply of this important food element must come from other food sources, plus exposure to the sun.

Fourth, the science of nutrition, chemistry and biochemistry, as well as the industrial skills have now recahed a point where the vitamins A and D can be concentrated from natural sources-for example, fish livers and when added to margarine, rendered as stable or more stable than are these vitamins in butter. The Food and Drug Department have established those standards.

The usual absence or low content of vitamin A in the margarine offered to the American consumer at the time of our present Federal and State margarine legislation was enacted was the chief scientific argument advanced in favor of this legislation. That argument is invalid today.

Five. So far as we know now, apart from carotene, color and flavor in butter and in margarine play no essential role in digestion, nutrition and metabolism, except as related to food habits. But in food habits, color and flavor can not be entirely ignored. As stated before, the yellow color of the summer butter can be duplicated in winter butter and in margarine by coal tar dyes, proven harmless to man. The chemicals responsible for the essential flavor of typical good fresh butter are known in part. Some of them can be made and added to margarine just as they are probably added to some butter. So far as we know, such color and flavor in butter or in margarine give these foods no increased nutritional value, but to our fellow citizens of today, on account of our past and present food habits, they do contribute to the pleasure of eating, and this, in turn, acts favorably on the digestion and on the absorption of foods.

I recently picked up a copy of a butter trade journal where several of these so-called artificial butter flavors were advertised to the butter trade and the butter industry. For what purpose, I wonder?

Sixth. What I have said so far I think is true. It has been substantiated by other qualified individuals and organizations.

Mr. Chairman, I would like at this point to submit for the record four such documents, not from individuals, but from responsible organizations; namely, the report on margarine by the New York Academy of Medicine; secondly, the Government nutrition chart of a year ago where as one of the foods margarine is listed side by side with butter as one of the seven foods that we should partake of to a certain extent every day; thirdly, I should like to list the report on margarine by the Council on Foods of the American Medical Association,1 and lastly, the report and recommendations of the National Nutrition Conference here in Washington in 1941, of which conference I was incidentally a member but I took no part in their report on margarine. What I am dealing with are substantial facts and they are probably within the knowledge of the honorable members of this committee.

1 Made a part of the committee records since this document cannot be reproduced here.

I have no personal financial interest in the several measures of this bill. It is not my desire to advise you to take an unwise step. I think it is a fact that our present restrictive and prohibitive margarine laws-I mean the Federal ones-were enacted under pressure from the fear that the growing production of margarine for human food would work injury to the dairy industry. If I saw any truth or sense in this argument, I would oppose this bill, for cows' milk, when clean, is such a good human food that I want its production and consumption expanded, not curtailed.

I will oppose any and all legislation that will or might restrict milk production, milk distribution, and milk consumption, or in any way add financial hazards to that important food industry.

But butter is not milk. The dairy industry is bigger than the butter trade. I said that I had no personal economic interest in this bill. But I have a profound public interest in it because it touches, through the pocketbook, the state of health of our financially less fortunate citizens, and if enacted into law, it may lead to a better state of health, through better nutrition, of our Nation as a whole, by increasing the consumption of whole milk instead of merely the fat in the milk.

May I have a couple of minutes to develop these two points?

I have elsewhere discussed the several obstacles in the past toward the optimum diet for all people in our land with its abundance of good foods. These obstacles are many. There is neither time nor occasion to discuss all of them here. I brought with me for the members of this committee copies of my recent paper on this aspect of our national nutrition problem, should you want them.

One of these obstacles is poverty. There is no question but that poverty is one factor in the malnutrition found among our financially less fortunate fellow citizens. These people would be better off in health did they buy and eat 2 pounds of good margarine in the place of 1 pound of good butter, or 1 pound of good margarine and 2 quarts of fresh whole milk, as may be done at approximately the same cost. All special taxes on foods are by economic necessity added to the basic cost of production and distribution of these foods, and hence finally to the retail cost of the good food to be consumed.

I have said elsewhere publicly, and I say to you now: The present special taxes, national and State, on margarine so far as they are not actually prohibitory, are taxes on an important food item of our less fortunate fellow men. They are special taxes on the poor, on the "forgotten man," and contribute to whatever poor state of health from poor diets there may be present among these people.

The Federal tax of 10 cents per pound on colored margarine is, of course, prohibitive. I can see no justification for preventing a good food from being marketed in the form regarded by our fellow citizens as most attractive. This tax was not intended to produce-it does not produce-revenue. According to my information, the present annual tax of $6 on retailers of margarine was not intended to produce revenue, and has not produced revenue worth mentioning. It is in my judgment a nuisance tax intended to discourage the sale and the consumption of a good food. I am reliably informed that more than half of all the retail food distributors in our country do not take out the license. Their customers cannot get margarine.

The production and consumption of butter and of liquid or frozen cream in this country leaves an enormous quantity of skim milk and buttermilk as byproducts. Because of the common notion that the main food value of milk for man is in the cream and the butter, the notion that skim milk is good food only for chickens, hogs, and calves, huge quantities of this precious food does not reach the human stomach. It is now proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that skim milk and buttermilk, because of their contents of proteins, inorganic salts, and vitamins-other than A and D-are just as valuable, of high biologic value, if not more valuable, in man's dietary than is butter and cream. The consumption of butter-butter being 80 percent fat-contributes more to the production and waste of skim milk than does the production and consumption of cream-cream being only about 20 percent fat. On the basis of our present knowledge of good foods and human nutrition, my assertion that, under present conditions, the consumption of all the milk we produce or can produce as whole milk-fresh, evaporated, condensed, or powdered-would add to our reserves and safety in national nutrition and national health, cannot be controverted... To be sure, all milk is not clean and wholesome. To be sure, a few people cannot eat cows' milk in any form without becoming sick. But such difficulties and exceptions apply also to many of our other good and natural foods,

Therefore, if the production and consumption of more good margarine should decrease the production and consumption of butter, decrease the waste of skim milk, and increase the consumption of whole milk, national nutrition would be the gainer, and the dairy farmer would suffer no loss.

I want to make this point clear so that there will be no misunder- · standing. I do not advocate any decrease in the production and consumption of good butter. I do advocate that skim milk resulting therefrom ought to reach the human stomach and, of course, I do not advocate legislation toward requiring even that point. This should come through education and understanding.

Good butter and good margarine are both good foods. They are not chemically identical, but they are nutritiously equivalent. Each can and should stand on its own merit. The facts that these two good foods are chemically different provides no sound basis for legal discrimination against one in favor of the other. Meat is a good food, oatmeal is a good food. But these two good foods differ in chemical composition. Lard, olive oil, beef fat, and butter differ chemically. But they are all good foods for man. It would be absurd to pass discriminatory laws against olive oil, beef fat, and lard, on the basis that these three fats differ chemically from butter. The present discriminatory laws against margarine are equally absurd and myopic.

These facts and arguments in favor of this bill apply with equal force in peace and war. I like to point out that the estimate by the United States Department of Agriculture and the United States Public Health Service of the number of Americans 40,000,000-having an inadequate diet was based on peacetime conditions. The poor, in the sense of marginal or submarginal income, have always been with us. They probably will be with us.

I am through, and I thank you for your attention and your patience. Should I have, in your opinion, left any point obscure, or made any

assertion without adequate foundation, I will try to answer such questions as you may put to me.

(The documents previously referred to are as follows:)

[Document No. 1]

MARGARINE FROM A REPORT ON BUTTER SUBSTITUTES BY THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH RELATIONS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE

In order that the health of the population may not be impaired because of the shortage of butter and the consequent adoption of a diet insufficient in fats and fat soluble vitamins, the public health relations committee of the New York Academy of Medicine recommends that the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of oleomargarine be encouraged and suggests specifically:

(1) That the regulations set by the Federal Security Administrator in 1941 be amended to make it mandatory that all oleomargarines be fortified with vitamin A at a uniform level of 9,000 United States Pharmacopoeia units per pound of finished product;

(2) That the War Production Board be requested to allow the use of fats and oils for the manufacture of oleomargarine in such quantities as would offset the necessary withdrawal of butter from civilian use;

(3) That Federal and State laws which restrict the manufacture and distribution of oleomargarine be suspended for the duration of the butter crisis;

(4) That the public be instructed that oleomargarine, fortified by vitamin A, is nutritionally equal to butter; and

(5) That this matter be brought to the attention of the President of the United States, the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States and his technical assistant on civilian requirements, and the commissioner of agriculture and markets of New York State.

The committee on public health relations has been requested to report on oleomargarine-the present status of its production and of its adequacy as a partial replacement for butter during the present crisis.

The use of oleomargarine in this country goes back for well over half a century. Congress enacted legislation bearing on the subject as far back as 1886, two decades prior to the first Food and Drugs Act. Every State (particularly the dairy States) has added restrictive provisions of one kind or another, such as taxes ranging from 5 to 15 cents a pound and license fees for manufacturers and venders, and in some instances licenses are necessary for restaurants, hotels, and boarding houses serving margarine to their patrons. The United States Census of Manufactures of 1939 reports a considerable decline in the output of margarine. This decline applied to all types of margarine, whether made solely of vegetable oils or of mixtures of animal and vegetable oils and fats. As of January 1, 1943, however, by order of the War Production Board margarine manufacturers who previously were allowed to use only 110 percent of their average consumption of fats and oils in 1940 and 1941, were permitted to raise that figure to 180 percent. There has been a great deal of misinformation concerning the product. The motivation has been on purely economic grounds. The committee has looked into the matter solely from a nutritional and social viewpoint, without regard to the economic aspects of the situation.

From a nutritional viewpoint, when it is fortified with vitamin A in the required amount, oleomargarine is the equal of butter, containing the same amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrates, and calories per unit of weight. Moreover, since the minimum vitamin A content of enriched oleomargarine is fixed, and the amount of this vitamin in butter may range from 500 to 20,000 units per pound, enriched oleomargarine is a more dependable source of vitamin A than is butter. Since it is a cheaper product than butter, fortified oleomargarine constitutes a good vehicle for the distribution of vitamin A and fats to low-income groups and should therefore be made available to them.

Under the standards set by the Food and Drug Administration, oleomargarine is as clean and sanitary a food as butter. The two products are likewise equal in digestibility. Their relative palatability is a matter of individual taste.

[Document No. 2]

[Reprinted from the Journal of the American Medical Association August 22, 1942, vol. 119, pp. 1425-1427]

COUNCIL ON FOODS AND NUTRITION.

The council has authorized publication of the following report.

FRANKLIN C. BING, Secretary.

THE COMPARATIVE NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF BUTTER AND OLEOMARGARINE For many years the average annual per capita consumption of table fats in this country has been 20 pounds. During the past 30 years the per capita consumption of butter has varied from 13.9 to 18.7 pounds and oleomargarine from 1.1 to 3.4 pounds. These are average figures, and many people never consume oleomargarine while others may use mostly oleomargarine with little or no butter.

Regardless of the nutritional significance of these food products, we must admit that their consumption is based to a very large extent on custom, habit, and income. No one food is indispensable in the diet, and we can cite many areas in the world where neither butter nor oleomargarine is consumed. In the United States, however, butter has been a favorite food through many generations. A large percentage of the early farm homes were equipped with churns in order to convert cream into butter, which was less perishable. The factory production of butter and oleomargarine is a more modern development.

The nutritionists are interested in adequate nutrition for all individuals. They are not concerned about what specific foods supply the essential nutrients, but they are interested in the possible ill effects of sudden shifts from one type of food to another. Butter has already been involved in one of these problems. The rapid increase in ophthalmia in Denmark in 1917 due to a sudden decrease in butterfat consumption, which has been so clearly described by Bloch1 is familiar to most of us. Owing to our increased knowledge of nutrition and the availability of concentrated food products, such sudden changes can be averted more easily today than ever before; but we must still be alert for new changes.

In light of these past experiences we are continually being asked whether an increased consumption of oleomargarine will have a detrimental effect on the health of our Nation. A United States patent for making oleomargarine was issued in 1873. In 1886 an act of Congress legalized the manufacture of oleomargarine and placed a stamp tax of 2 cents a pound on all oleomargarine. The Federal law has been changed six times by amendment. In 1902 the tax of 2 cents a pound was reduced to 0.25 cent on oleomargarine free from artificial coloration that causes it to look like butter of any shade of yellow. If artificial color was used to give the product a yellow color, the tax was 10 cents a pound. In 1931 this tax was changed to make all oleomargarine that was yellow subject to the 10-cent tax. At present every State except Arizona has some kind of oleomargarine legislation, but there is great variation among the States. Regardless of the motive behind many of these laws, it is very significant from a nutritional point of view that the Federal Government made it possible for the consumer to distinguish between butter and oleomargarine. In 1902 the importance of the distinction was not clear, but by 1913 it was evident that vegetable cils and many of the animal fats used in making oleomargarine were devoid of vitamin A, while butter was a rich source of this vitamin. Thus any substitution of oleomargarine for butter would directly decrease the vitamin A intake. However, today, as a result of the availability of vitamin A concentrates, it is possible to fortify the oleomargarine so that its vitamin A content may equal that of a high-grade butter. At present about 85 percent of the oleomargarine is fortified.

The kind of fat used in making oleomargarine has also changed during the past few years and will probably continue to change, depending on the avail

1 1 Bloch, C. E.: Blindness and Other Diseases in Children Arising from Deficient Nutrition (lack of fat soluble a factor), Am. J. Dis. Chil. 27: 139 (February) 1924.