[Sidenote: Incorrect interpretation of scientific data]
The term "dietary standard," as it has been applied in the past, means
the quantity of the several nutrients that should be taken by the human
body under its varying conditions. During the past twenty-five years,
many investigations have been made in this country, Europe, and Japan,
regarding the amount of foods consumed by various groups of people. All
the facts gathered, which include more or less accurate records of the
foods eaten by many thousands of individuals under all circumstances
and conditions of life, are invaluable scientific data, but the
interpretation that has been placed upon these interesting observations
is one of the most conspicuous blunders made by the scientific world.
Whether this criticism should fall wholly upon the men of science, who
made these investigations, or upon the people who misinterpreted their
meaning, is perhaps an open question; but the fact remains that from the
general teachings in physiologies, and from popular bulletins published
by the National Government, very incorrect ideas have been widely spread
respecting the amount of food required to maintain life and health.
[Sidenote: Data of foods consumed daily by various people]
In order to give the reader some idea of the results obtained, when
data is kept each twenty-four hours, of the amount of food consumed
by various people on the conventional diets of civilization, I will
select at random some of the results that have been recorded in these
investigations, and will give in the Vieno System the approximate
results. (See "Vieno System of Food Measurement," Vol. III, p. 639):
_Decigrams_
_Nitrogen_
_Vienos Consumed_
California Football Team 66 375
New England Rowing Club 40 255
Wealthy Class in American Cities 30 250
U. S. Army Rations. 37 200
Farmers, Eastern U. S. 34 160
Skilled laborers, U. S. Cities. 40 220
Alabama Negroes 34 145
Japanese Peasants 20 100
[Sidenote: Atwater's Government Standards]
From such records Government standards have been roughly approximated.
The standards published by the Government, computed by Prof. Atwater,
and commonly known as the Atwater standards, are as follows, expressed
in vienos:
_Decigrams_
_Nitrogen_
_Vienos Consumed_
Man at hard muscular work 55 280
Man at hard work 41½ 240
Man at moderate work 34 200
Man at light muscular work 30½ 180
Man of sedentary habits 27 160
The Atwater standard for women is estimated to be four-fifths of the
amount of food required for a man under similar conditions.
[Sidenote: Faulty standards due to inexperience]
It is generally recognized by investigators that these so-called
standards are faulty, but by mutual agreement it seems that they have
been accepted as the best that could be given. They lack accuracy
because the men who prepared them lacked experience. Accuracy can
come only from experience gained in the practical work; that is, in
prescribing food, and combinations of food, for people under all the
varying conditions of age, climate, and activity, and having these
people report, at stated periods, the results of their dietetic
prescriptions.
[Sidenote: Importance of correct dietary standards]
The average person eats what is set before him and asks no question
about nitrogen and energy; nevertheless, advice so universally
distributed as the Government Dietary Standards must exert much
influence and have a considerable effect upon the habits of the people.
Obviously the correctness of these standards is of vital importance to
the health and the welfare of the nation.
[Sidenote: What a dietary standard should contain]
A dietary standard should tell the quantity and the proportion of food
required to keep the human body in its very best working state. The
great error committed by the man who planned the above-named standards
has been that he assumed that an average of what a man _does_ eat is a
criterion of what he _should_ eat in order to maintain the best mental
and physical condition. A greater error could not have been made. _Our
feeding instincts have been lost in the chaos of civilization._ Both our
appetite and our food have been perverted. We have been trained to want
or to crave intoxicants, stimulants and sedatives; we have learned to
relish things that have no food value, and we have grown to dislike the
best food that nature produces, and to accept many of her worst. Dietary
standards, therefore, made up from the conventional eating habits of
the people, merely endorse their errors and pass them on to future
generations. The work, therefore, of the true scientist is to point out
these errors and to prescribe a remedy.
[Sidenote: We are creatures of many (bad) habits]
Man is a creature of habits, and civilized man is a creature of a great
many bad habits. The argument that the average amount of food eaten is
the amount that should be eaten falls under suspicion at once when we
consider the fact that by a similar line of reasoning we could prove
that the use of tobacco is necessary because the majority of men use it,
or that slender waists are necessary to good social standing because a
few million women so consider them.
[Sidenote: American prosperity not due to rich diet]
The idea has been spread far and wide that the diet of the American
working man, which is the richest in proteid of any race in the world,
is responsible for the greater economic thrift of the American people.
It is a matter of history that rich diet is always associated with
prosperity, but the theory that the diet is the cause of the prosperity
is an egregious error. Meat and rich foods gain a hold upon the appetite
as do alcohol and narcotics. When nations or cities become wealthy,
intemperance in eating is the usual result, but this in nowise indicates
that a heavy consumption of food is the cause of a nation's greatness.
History recites many instances of the rise and growth of a people to
power and prosperity, together with the consequent adoption of excessive
and luxurious habits of eating and drinking, only to be followed by
physical deterioration.
[Sidenote: Excessive food a waste of energy]
It is not the quantity of food that is eaten, but the quantity of food
that will give the greatest vitality and capacity to do things, that
should determine our dietary standards. It is reasonable to assume that
this amount would be the least quantity that would maintain activity
without using up the food material stored in the body. All food taken
in excess of the amount actually required must be cast from the body at
a tremendous expense of energy. To do a given amount of work, or to add
one pound of muscular tissue to the body, requires a definite quantity
of energy-yielding or tissue-building material, but if more food is
taken than the body can use, the excess ferments in the stomach and in
the alimentary tract, producing poisonous products which are absorbed
into the blood. These poisonous products cause a great number of human
ills. The process of eliminating these poisons we call "dis-ease."
[Sidenote: Former dietary standards cut in half]
The assumption that the correct amount of food that should be taken by
the body is the least quantity that will maintain normal body-functions,
has been amply proved by recent scientific investigations to be correct.
Many years of experience on the part of the writer have shown that to
make food remedial and curative, the old dietary standards must be,
roughly speaking, cut in half.