Excerpts: According to our studies at the Bureau of Home Economics, farm families as a whole appear to be the best fed population group in this country and village families, the poorest. The diets of 60 percent of farm families we have studied met or exceeded average minimum requirements in every nutrient. (See chart, Diet Rating and Income, p. 3). Only 40 percent of the village families fared as well, and in some sections of the country only 40 percent of city families. Gratifying though it is to know that farm families have the lowest proportion of poor diets of any population group, we must remember that 40 percent of the farm families studied had diets that failed in one or more respects to meet average minimum requirements, and hence those families are handicapped for vigorous living. We cannot be satisfied until 100 percent of farm families have diets that can be rated fair or good. It may help us solve the problem to ask how it happens that farm families fare better than village families in the proportion of diets that can be graded good or fair.
