Interim report of the Prison Diets Committee.

Egypt. Wizārat al-Dākhilīyah. Prisons Department. Prison Diets Committee.

Date:: 1917

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Interim report of the Prison Diets Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

30/78 (page 20)

pe The factors for the reduction of actual protein to available protein are : for meat, 95 percent; millet bread, *81 per cent:(this figure is adopted as being the minimum for wheat flour bread); lentils, 70 per cent; beans, 70 per cent; rice, 82 per cent (these may be regarded as the maximum values for unground materials) The avaiable value for carbohydrate is 95 per cent. Taste C.—Basis of Calculation adopted. Per Cent | Per Cent | Per Cent Protein. Fat. harkens Milletiubroat= es.) ace 6°3 1:5 47 Meat (without bone) 2( 4 — Lentils sickens cotton’ « (ate asia ten 2 57 Beans ... gs onl etorotoeat CAO 2 oT Rice (polished)... <vestusps 6°8 0°4 79°4 The details are taken from Hutchipson’s “Food and the Principles of Dietetics.” In regard to millet bread, the analysis made by M. Pappel, of the Department of Public Health, has been adopted. The amount of protein in beans of the same variety is very variable in different samples. It is thereforé possible that the estimate of 25 per cent of protein may be in excess of the actual content of the beans supplied to the prisons. The 20 per cent of protein in meat includes gelatine. TABLE D.—-Comparison of Diets Nos. II and III. Diet No. III. | Diet No. II. Difference. Protein (available) 220-3... she 95°6 82 + 13°6 Fat Rs Sar roe ee ee 43°2 | +:-3°1 Carbohydrates). tfc bee Ghee 521 52673 We: 5°3 Heat value in kilogram. calories} 2,911 2,546 + 65 It may be noted in regard to the-figures in Table D that a difference of 65 calories in energy value is so small that the two diets may be looked upon as of equal value from this standpoint. The chief difference is in the amount of protein, the excess in Diet No. III coming entirely from animal sources. If, as appears to be the case, both classes of prisoners have been maintained in a state “of good health on the diets given, the fact suggests either that the amount of labour actually performed (i.e. the expended energy) is not very different in the two cases, or that the capacity for extra work without any indications of ill-health is connected with the larger amount of protein in Diet No. III, or lastly, that Diet No. III is sufficient for that class of work, Diet No. II being in excess of the minimum require- ments of the class of prisoners to which it is supplied. It is also clear that prisoners doing a fair amount of work can be maintained in a condition of good health on a diet containing no more than 82 grammes of protein (= 12-7 grammes of nitrogen) daily. My aim in making these remarks is to suggest that, provided a fair increase in the energy value of the hard-labour diet were made, a slight diminution in the amount of protein would be permissible. Adopting Diet No. IT as the basis of a revised hard-labour diet, it is clearly impossible to raise the protein content by 13:6 grammes (the difference between Nos. II and II]) without, at the same time, largely increasing the total heat value, because to obtain this quantity of protein from vegetable sources a disproportionate amount of starch must be added. This amount of protein (13-6 grammes) can be obtained by adding to Diet No. II 156 grammes | (50 dirhems) of bread and 31-2 grammes (10 dirhems) of lentils. * This was written before McKay’s experimental results were available to me. He finds that no more than 55 per cent of millet protein is normally absorbed. See Appendix VI, p. 45, in the diets finally recomended the figure 55 per cent has been taken as the basis of calculation.