Skip to main content

Vintage Starvation Diet is Still Around

Some readers know I love the Golden Era (c. 1920-1963): I swing dance, live in a hundred-year-old house, and grow old garden roses. A recent acquaintance even asked me if I drove a Studebaker. I just finished a book that combined my interests in history and health: The Great Starvation Experiment by Todd Tucker. In 1944-45, a group of 36 American men, all conscientious objectors, volunteered for a year-long study on starvation. Ancel Keys (of lipid hypothesis fame) ran the tightly controlled experiment.

Dr. Michael Eades blogged about the book awhile back and noted the macronutrient balance of a typical subject:
The men in this study consumed macronutrients in the following amounts daily: protein 100 gm, fat 30 gm, and carbohydrate 225 gm. If you express these intakes as percentages, you come up with 25.5% protein, 17.2% fat and 57.3% carbohydrate.

Average energy intake of the subjects in the experiment: 1570 calories per day. (emphasis mine)


The men also had to walk 22 miles each week. The experiment was designed to simulate conditions in famine areas of Europe, with foods like cabbage, pea soup, potatoes, whole wheat bread, and very little meat. Indeed, the men looked like concentration camp victims at the end of the starvation phase. They lost some of their coordination, concentration, interest in anything but food, and of course much of their strength, energy and spirit. At one point, two of the pacifists got into a fistfight over a piece of macaroni in the lunch line. Yet even the end of the war in Europe--an event that had Americans literally dancing in the street--didn't excite them. Their lack of reaction reminded me of pictures of the thin, solemn prisoners at liberated concentration camps.

Is it fair to say this isn't a good diet for health and fitness, both mental and physical? Can I get an amen?

I'd heard that after the war, the information on concentration camp diets--the diet that kept prisoners alive and working but hungry and weary--was for sale and became the basis for modern diet programs. (The starvation study wasn't fully written up and published until 1950.) I don't know if that's true, but out of curiosity, I checked a few popular diet plans of today. The following quotes are from WebMD.com (who doesn't necessarily endorse the diets). Compare the calories and carb, protein and fat composition with the starvation diet, noted above.

Jenny Craig
Nutritionally, they reflect the 2005 federal guidelines and USDA food pyramid, and contain 50% to 60% carbohydrate, 20% to 25% protein, and 20% to 25% fat.
The article also mentions "tiny portions" and "physical activity."

Nutrisystem:
Women follow a 1,200-calorie plan and men are allowed 1,500 calories per day....The diet is made up of 55% carbohydrates, 25% protein, and 20% fat....Exercise is recommended.
LA Weight Loss:
The LA Weight Loss Centers plan is in line with national recommendations of approximately 50%-55% carbohydrates, 25%-30% protein, and 20%-25% fat. Emphasis is on moderation and portion control.

Here's a sample meal plan for a 1,500-calorie diet...
Dr. Andrew Weil:
Eat less, exercise more....Carbohydrates...50-60% of your calories...Fats up to 30%...Protein...should be limited to 10-20%.
These plans look a lot like the Great Starvation Experiment. And note that LA Weight Loss and Jenny Craig state that they follow the USDA food pyramid (our national guidelines. Did anyone in the USDA read the study the government funded?) As you might guess, the USDA recommends that for losing weight...eat fewer calories.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...
24 comments
Read more

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these  from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese  with no emulsifiers  Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...
24 comments
Read more

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...
18 comments
Read more

In Defense of Fast Food

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...
17 comments
Read more