Certainly one effect of the organization of these shops on the basis of nationality is to prevent the members of one group from gaining the advantage of dietetically better practices followed in other groups. The Lithuanian and Italian neighborhoods described happened to be in widely separated districts of the city, but often similar differences may be observed between two shops within the same block that serve different national groups. It is clear that the retail trade, being unstandardized, gives no help to the immigrant woman in the matter of efficient buying. There is as yet no fine art of service in this field based on careful accounting of cost and service. Obviously there is great waste in the number of stores, in the number of persons engaged in conducting them, in the needless duplication of even such meager equipment as is found in them. This waste will reflect itself in needlessly high prices which, while they mulct the buyer, bring the seller little gain. Evidently, then, little or no help is given through the system of retail trading to the foreign-born housewife in the matter of adapting the diet of her family to American or dietetic requirements. Yet food demands a large share of the income. In the latest report on the cost of living in the United States, in only 8 out of 45 cities were the food demands met by less than 40 per cent of the entire expenditure in the group whose incomes were between $900 and $1,200.[36] Those cities were: Pana, Illinois 39.4 Buffalo, New York 38.9 Wilmington, Delaware 38.9 Dover, New Jersey 38.8 Indianapolis, Indiana 37.6 Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota 37.6 Steubenville, Ohio 37.3 Fort Wayne, Indiana 35.6 The lowest proportion was in Fort Wayne, where over a third of the income was required for feeding the families in this income group. MODIFICATION OF DIET No extensive study of the dietary practices of the different groups, either here or in the old country, has been undertaken, but considerable evidence has been secured in substantiation of the fact that their old-country practices are being modified in this country. This is not being done consciously in response to dietetic requirements, but often blindly in response to what seem to be American customs or necessities. There has been some conflict of testimony with regard to the changes in the Czecho-Slovak and Croatian groups. The Italians are said by all to have made very slight changes in their diet in this country. The Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians, on the other hand, are said to have made very radical changes.