Assume production of 100 nuts per tree per year; this is a number consistent with several published values. Therefore, the total number of coconuts available per year is: 33,792 trees x 100 nuts= 3,379,200 nuts tree-year year Now, lets look at how many coconuts will be. consumed per year according to the diet proposed by the author (table III of the report) assuming that women consume 2/3 and children 1/2 of the male diet and that the population will consist of 200 men, 200 women and 200 children. These population figures are not unreasonable for the population a few years after return. The results are given in Table 1. The total number of cocounts consumed according to theauthors diet is 2,879,600. is 85% of the total available production of 3,379,200 cocounts. leaves hardly anything for a copra crop. This. This To put it another way, they would have to plant 26% of the available land area to supply simply the dietary needs-nothing yet said about a cash copra crop! In summary the coconut diet is totally unrealistic. In fact if they were eating as many drinking cocounts as the author suggests and harvesting the remaining ones for copra it would be nearly impossible for a ‘coconut to fall to the ground and become a sprouting coconut. 2. A second way to look at this proposed coconut intake is from a dietary standpoint. On page 11 the daily intake based on the authors proposed diet is 2.05 kg/day for cocount meat and 2.6 kg/day of coconut fluid for a total consumption for coconut of 4.65 kg/day. For comparison, the average U.S. daily intake of all foods is 1.75 kg per day (from Supplement for 1975 to Agricultural Report No. 138, U.S.D.A., “Food,Consumption, Prices, Expenditures." January 1977) or 0.78 kg/day according to Bramlitts reference. — ee nearere ate