Arizona republican., 1912-06-23
MARKET BILL
 OF AMERICA
Records Show That People of This Country Consume More Food Per Capita Than Those of Any Other Nation

in round figures $S.00O 000. GOO d year to feed the American people, an amount just about equal to the an- HUdl value of all the products of Uncle Sans six and a half million farms. There is no question that at the present time the average Ameri- can eats more food of a higher qual- ity and a greater variety than the citi- zen of any other country. There is no question. either. that he spends far more for his food supply than the resi- dent of any other land, and that the growth of his food budget has been far more rapid than the increase of his wages. great as these have been in many cases.
 For several years the bureau of la hor here collected information on the expenditure for food in the homes of over two thousand wOrkingmen in diff ferent parts of the country with the incomes of about the average for their class. The growing pressure of the cost of living problem may be seen in the steady increase in the outlay of these families for food from 1897, when it was a trifle less than $500 a year, to 1907 the last year for which statis- tics were published. when it had ad Nanced to $375. Since 1907 there has been a 10 per cent further advance in food prices, so that the cost to the average workingman's household for food alone now is presumably $40 a year. Applying this to the whole cOun- try would give the sum of S7,300,000 as a food budget to which should be added the surplus outlay Of the 10 per cent of the nations households that spend double this amount in furnish ing their tables. which would give a total of slightly over eight billions.
 That this estimate is roughly accu- rate is shown by the fact that it ap- proximates so closely the total value of food supplies produced in the cOun try. While it is true that S3S5, ,000, 900 worth of fOOdstuffs were sold to for eign nations in 1911, at the same time S353 100000 was spent for food sup plies brought from abroad. leaving to Uncle Sam's credit only the meager balance Of $32 .000, 900 on this score. In ten years our exports of foodstuffs have fallen off over 50 per cent. while imports under the same heading have increased % per cent. If this move ment continues at the same rate as in the past it will be only two years more before Uncle Sam who once proudly boaste1i of feeding the world" win have to call upon other nations to help feed his own people.
 While the manner in which the S400 expended by the family of the aver age American toiler is distributed va ries greatly in different parts of the country. it is possible to give reason ably accurate estimates of some of the chief items contributing to the total.
 It is Q familiar fact, for example, that Americans are the greatest meat eaters of the world. In a great num- Der of American families meat forms some part of every meal, and even in the poorest homes it appears on the table for dinner at least, whereas a family Or the same relative social stratum in many European countries would not expect to eat meat oftener than once a week. In the course of 8 year the average American family con- sumes an amount of beef representing the equivalent of a yearling steer and the pork product of an average sized pig, besides smaller quantities of poul- try and mutton. In very few families probably does the amount of the an- nual meat bill fall below S150. In ad- dition it takes the output of one milch COW to supply each family with it's milk butter and cheese. The expense of this feature of the American diet amounts to about $55 a year for the average family, an investment in dairy cattle of nearly a billion dollars being required to supply this demand. With the Western range fast disappearing, and the consumption of all these prod- ucts increasing at a rapid rate with the growth of city population, it is small wonder that the price of all meats have gone soaring and that we expect only about a third as much of theseI products as We did five years ago
 If eacn family in the United States were able to keep a flock of dozen chickens. these would just about supply the average demand for poultry and eggs Of the latter the average con- sumption is a little more than two a day for each household. Many of these are used in the manufacture of Varl- ous food products and do not figure directly in the marketing bills in which these items probably amount to s10 to SIP a year.
 Since bread is the staff of life, and bread to the American means wheat almost exclusively, it is perhaps not surprising, that we consumed approxi- matelv 561 100000 bushels of wheat last year, according to offical estl- mates This means that seven barrels of flour were used by the average American family. Purchased in this form and prepared for consumption in the home in accordance with the cus- tom that prevailed genera tion ago this would have meant an expenditure per family of slightly over $50 ln less than half the homes of the coun- try is bread baked at the present day however and the custom of patroniz- ing the corner bakery inevitably in creases the expenditure on this ac- count to Q considerable extent.
 Next to meat bread, milk. butter an, eggs. it is probable that sugar anC coffee are articles of more nearly uni versal consumption in the United Statec t1ap any others