Evidently, the American meat appetite as well as the American sugar tooth is enormously exaggerated. It is somewhat encouraging, however, to note that the eating habits of the American people are changing. Within a generation, and especially since the World War, there has been a notable change in the national bill of fare. More cereals are consumed than formerly, but the greatest per capita increase is shown in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and especially greenstuffs, such as lettuce, spinach, kale, and other greens. This increase in the use of certain foods is not due to the fact that the American appetite is increasing or the American stomach enlarging, but to the spread among the people of scientific information concerning nutrition. Through experiments upon rats and various other animals, including man himself, fundamental principles have been discovered and a real science of nutrition has been developed, the axioms, formulae, and basic ideas of which are as clearly established as are those of geometry and chemistry. We are no longer left to be led astray by guess-work or fancy in supplying our nutritive needs, and have verified the truth so aptly expressed by that shrewd old Roman philosopher, Seneca, who said, "There is nothing against which we ought to be more on our guard than, like a flock of sheep, following the crowd of those who preceded us." This change in the eating habits of the American people has been brought about by disillusionment respecting the importance of meats. Fifty years ago, every physiologist taught that the liberal consumption of meat was essential. This idea was based, first, upon the supposition that protein, the chief constituent of lean meat, is the most important source of energy; and, second, the belief that food of animal origin is better adapted to human sustenance than plant foods, through having undergone a process of refinement and concentration in the transformation from plant to animal. Modern studies of nutrition have shown that both these ideas are without scientific basis. Unfortunately for the nut-growing industry, and still more unfortunately for the American people, the claims of nuts to consideration in this re-adjustment of the bill of fare have been generally overlooked, and it seems evident that the only hope for the nut industry lies in the creation of a larger demand for these nutrients from the plant world by acquainting the public with their superlative merits. Of course, room must be made for the increased intake of nuts by lessened consumption of something which nuts may advantageously replace in the bill of fare. Most nuts consist almost exclusively of proteins and fat. Proteins and fats likewise are almost the sole constituents of meat. Nuts are thus the vegetable analogues of meat and are competitors for a place on the bill of fare.