Food Composition Table published in 1883, one of the earliest but unrefered in Japan

Abstract

Food composition table (published in 1883) was edited by Hayata and Yamaguchi under the supervision of Kango Shimada in the early days of Meiji era. They advdcated that the purposes of publishing this table were to recognize the nature of foods and to avoid suffering from diseases. This table contained 75 pages and the number of foods were 90. Though the items of analysis were water, minerals, lipids, protein, cellulose, starch, carbohydrates, nitrogen and so on, the description of energy and the methods of analysis were not shown. Although it was presumably one of the earliest food composition tables analyzing familiar foods in our daily life without foreigner's assistance in Japan, no one has ever referred to the existence of this table in our history of nurtition.