(1) States included: N.C., S.C., Ga., Tenn., Ala., Miss., Ark., La., Okla. and Texas

(2) Whether home fed or sold for cash.

Source: Compiled and computed from various

government publications.

The National Cooperative Milk

Producers' Federation November 8, 1943

Factory consumption of primary animal and vegetable fats and oils in soap

Total..

1,394, 538 1, 475, 756 1, 468, 535 1, 653, 704 1, 722, 634 2, 143, 857 1,871, 039

804, 276

Coconut oil.

307, 376

124

252, 241

242,982

388, 912

Corn oil..

2, 527

140, 487

2,392

42,990

Soybean oil.

Olive oil..

17, 612

24, 737

31, 510

317 1,590

Palm kernel oil.

2, 825

29, 498

Palm oil.

78,453

655

102, 146

Babassu oil.

84, 934

129, 871

8,993

55, 802

14,308

8,342

8, 289

Rapeseed oil.

37, 633

41, 221

29,753

7,771

Linseed oil

China wood or tung.

2

Source: Animal and Vegetable Fats and Oils-Bureau of the Census.

STATEMENT OF DR. C. A. ELVEHJEM, PROFESSOR OF BIOCHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON, WIS.

For many years the average per capita consumption of table fats in this country has been 20 pounds. During the past 30 years the average consumption has varied from 13.9 to 18.7 pounds for butter and 1.1 to 3.4 pounds for oleomargarine. These are average figures and it is important to recognize that many people never consume oleomargarine and others may use very little or no butter.

Regardless of the nutritional significance of these food products their consumption is based to a large extent on custom, habit, and income. No one food is indispensable in the diet and we can sight many areas in the world where neither butter nor oleomargarine is consumed. However, in the United States butter has been a favorite food through many generations.

As a nutritionist I am interested in adequate nutrition for all individuals. Strictly speaking then, we are not concerned about what specific foods supply the essential nutrients but we are interested in the possible ill effects of sudden shifts from one type of food to another. A sudden shift from butter to oleomargarine in Denmark during the last war precipitated a serious vitamin A deficiency in many of the children in that country. Fortunately today we know how to overcome that deficiency by making available more vitamin A

either in separate foods or by fortifying the oleomargarine with vitamin A concentrates.

However, I want to emphasize that it has taken 30 years of intensive research to accumulate sufficient knowledge to solve this one difficulty. Although I have mentioned that the nutritionist is not specifically interested in what foods are consumed it is true that sudden shifts in food products may bring about indirect economic effects which may influence nutrition. Thus any change which influences the price of milk, and the price of milk is based on the price of butter fat, naturally will effect the production of milk and any decrease in milk production will have a serious effect upon nutrition, because we rely on milk to supply so many nutrients in our average diet. However, these indirect effects must be considered by economists and related workers.

Therefore, I wish to limit my discussion to our present knowledge of the relative nutritive value of oleomargarine and butter. This subject has received careful consideration by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council and I am willing to accept the statement made on page 18 of "A Report on Margarine," National Research Council, Reprint and Circular Series, No. 118, August 1943, namely: "The present available scientific evidence indicates that when fortified margarine is used in place of butter as a source of fat in a mixed diet, no nutritional differences can be observed. Although important differences can be demonstrated between different fats in special experimental diets, these differences are unimportant when a customary mixed diet is used. The above statement can only be made in respect to fortified margarine and it should be emphasized that all margarine should be fortified."

However, I do want to emphasize that part of this paragraph which states that important differences can be demonstrated between different fats in special experimental diets and that as long as such. differences can be obtained the public has a right to demand that butter and oleomargarine be dispensed to the consumer in such a way that each can be readily identified. Whether such differentiation should be made through means of a tax or by other methods I cannot answer but I do want to make the plea that whenever changes are made, methods of identification should not be lost.

It is true that the Food and Drug Administration has set up effective standards for oleomargarine but what about the oleomargarine used locally in individual States and what about the oleomargarine after it is removed from the label package? When I am served a pat of bread spread I have the right to be able to determine readily whether that material is butter or oleomargarine.

It is true that at the present time the evidence indicates that the nutritional differences between butter and oleomargarine do not appear to be of importance in the average diet for the average individual but the experimental work has not been extensive enough to give us a complete picture. Since most of these studies have been. made during the past 10 years and since many of them have been made in our laboratory I have had an opportunity to follow the results very closely. The fact that most of the work has been done during the past 10 years indicates that we are in a few field and that we, of necessity, must accept the preliminary findings with some reservations.

For many years it was impossible to study carefully the differences in various fats because the other neessary components of the diet were unknown. In 1932 we demonstrated in our laboratory that rats placed on whole cows milk, mineralized with iron, copper, and manganese, grew very well and used the milk solids very efficiently. Until this fact was established reliable results could not be obtained because the animal would suffer from a deficiency of one of the minerals. Naturally one of the first things we did was to remove the fat from the milk and then feed skim milk fortified with minerals plus the fat soluble vitamins which were removed with the cream. We soon found that under these conditions the animal could not utilize the milk sugar. In other words, nature intended that milk sugar be consumed in milk containing 3 to 4 percent fat. When we added other fats back to the skim milk we found that most of them were as effective as butter for this purpose. Perhaps Nature was not as critical as we had expected. However, in these early studies we were only interested in the utilization of the milk sugar and did not pay much attention to the performance of the rat.

When we made additional observations we found that a rat always grew better and showed a finer hair coat (an indication of optimum nutrition in the rat) when butterfat was used than when vegetable fats were given. Like most experimental work we found many variations and encountered difficulties which we tried to overcome but such conditions are always true when one embarks on a new field of study. In some cases the skim milk which we used retained too much fat. Sometimes there was variation in the rats and in other cases we had not learned how to adjust the vitamin intake properly. But in spite of all these difficulties results with hundreds of rats showed that the animals receiving the butterfat were always superior.

About 2 years ago we learned how to supply all the requirements of the rat in a purified diet. This was most helpful because we could now alter the various constituents of the diet more readily. We soon found that as we increased the amount of milk sugar or lactose in the diet greater differences could be obtained between butterfat and vegetable oils. Today under these controlled conditions the differences are so reproducible that any competent biochemist should be able to get similar results.

We recognized from the beginning that our studies were more applicable to infant feeding when the diet is composed largely of milk than to the average adult diets which contains a mixture of different carbohydrates. Therefore, as soon as possible we devised a purified diet in which the carbohydrate part of the diet was made up of those carbohydrates usually found in the average American diet. When this was done no significant differences were obtained between butterfat and vegetable oils. Furthermore, when we tested a few commercially produced oleomargarines on such a diet there was no difference between the growth obtained when oleomargarine was used and when butterfat was used. However, when lactose was used differences were observed between certain samples of oleomargarine and butter. Thus it is clear that oleomargarine does have a different physiological effect from butter and that this effect is most pronounced when the diet is high in lactose.

92417-43-24

These later experiments were used as a basis for the conclusions made in the National Research Council report. That is why the statement is limited by the words "the present available scientific evidence."

Much more work is needed, especially with different animals, including man, and with different types of butter and oleomargarines.

Our work has been criticized on the basis that we did not consider the carbohydrate content of our diet. Of course, we didn't consider the carbohydrate content of our diet in our early studies but we did do so as soon as it was experimentally possible. We were the first to point out the effect of carbohydrates and we have published new facts as fast as they have become available. As far as I know, Dr. Carlson, who has criticized our work severely, has not published any studies carried out by himself on this subject and has not given any constructive criticism for improving the work. He has referred to the California work in which emphasis is placed on the flavor and taste of the butter. I know of no experimental work in which the food consumption of the rat has been increased by improving the taste or the flavor of the diet. Retarded growth has been obtained when the diet has been badly off flavor. Therefore, the better growth obtained with butterfat cannot be based on the assumption that the rats liked it better.

Preliminary work in our laboratory indicates that the differences are still obtainable between butter and vegetable oils on lactose diets even if the flavor is removed from butter and a similar flavor is added back to the vegetable oils.

Some of the differences obtained with various fats in the diet can undoubtedly be traced to their effect on the bacterial flora in the intestinal tract. This is a very new subject but it may play a very important role in the future studies in both nutrition and medicine. As we learn more about this relationship it may be very important to determine whether an individuals diet contains animal fats or vegetable fats.

It has been stated that the science of nutrition, chemistry, and biochemistry, as well as the industrial skills have now reached a point where the vitamins A and D can be concentrated from natural sources and when added to oleomargine rendered as stable or more stable as these vitamins in butter. This cannot be said about our newer knowledge of the differences between butter and vegetable oils and until we do have such skill, methods of distinguishing between butter and oleomargarine should be made available.

I agree that every effort should be made to allow free choice of food products for all groups of our population. This is especially true for our lower income groups in the case of fat. In general, elomargarine can be purchased at a lower price than butter and therefore oleomargarine may be an important article in the diet under these conditions. However, this does not counteract my statement that every individual should be able to distinguish between the two products.

The best example can perhaps be taken from the automobile industry. Before the restriction on the production of automobiles, car A could be purchased for $700, while car B might cost $3,000. We could reach our destination in either car but some individuals would prefer the cheaper car, others would prefer the more expensive one. It is true that either car would be a better means of transportation than walking, and that is why bread spreads at different costs should be avail