If the fresh juices of vegetables are added to the refined foods the animals survive but do not regain their normal weight and strength nor their resistance to disease. These vegetable juices contain no fuel value. The animals are restored to normal vigor and health only after they are fed unrefined foods such as cabbage, spinach, celery, lettuce, whole grains, whole milk, etc. These foods are so low in caloric value as compared with the refined starches, sugars, proteins, etc., that orthodox scientists formerly regarded them as being practically valueless.

A pound of apples gives but 190 calories while a pound of watermelon only yields 50 calories, but either of these foods is superior to the refined high caloric foods.

McCullum's experiments have shown that some foods will sustain growth while others will not. It is assumed that those foods that sustain growth and development contain substances to which the term vitamin has been applied. These substances are found abundantly in spinach, lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, celery and milk. All of the refined foods already mentioned are absolutely lacking in this respect. They will neither sustain nor promote growth. Grass and grass seeds, oranges, lemons, grapefruits, tomatoes, in fact all fresh fruits and green vegetables, all of which are very low in caloric value, are rich in growth promoting elements.

Cereals and pastries are high in caloric value, but eating these in excess makes one not only look tired by actually be tired. An excess of sugar makes one lazy.

As many of the important elements of food are not oxidized in the body, a diet that is based on the assumed calorie requirements of the patient or of the non-patient, is likely to have these other elements ignored. The minerals and vitamins of foods are not employed in the production of heat and energy. Proteins, though oxidizable, therefore possessing calorie value, do not serve primarily as fuels in the body, but as building materials. Knowing the caloric value of a protein will give you no index to its amino acid content. Its building value is not measured by the amount of heat it produces when burned in the laboratory.

The assimilation and final oxidation of carbohydrates, for example, depends upon the presence of adequate amounts of other food factors that are associated with the metabolism of carbohydrates. If these are lacking in your diet, as they commonly are in conventional diets, carbohydrate metabolism will be crippled. The presence of certain vitamins is essential to proper utilization of carbohydrates.

A given amount of fat will produce a given amount of heat when burned in the laboratory. In the body, fat burns best and most efficiently in the presence of sugar. Under many conditions of the body, fat is poorly oxidized so that it does not yield the amount of heat listed in the calorie tables. In diabetes, for example, fat metabolism is very much crippled.

Measuring food value by calories ignores the body's mineral and vitamin needs. It gives no attention to the relative values of the various proteins, and overlooks the acid-alkali ratio of the diet. It wholly forgets the Law of the Minimum.

In determining the fuel value of foods, not only are the growth promoting substances wholly ignored but also those elements which, though absolutely worthless from the calorific standpoint, are absolutely essential to the regulation of the specific gravity of the blood, the functioning of the blood corpuscles, the contractility of the muscles, the preservation of tissue from decomposition, the chemical reaction of the secretions, for maintaining normal alkalinity of the blood and for use in preparing the cell wastes for elimination.

Iron and manganese, which are the oxidizing agents of the blood, have no caloric value. Flourine, which forms a hard protective shell around the teeth, and calcium, which forms a large percentage of the normal composition of bone, are wholly lacking in heat producing properties. Sodium, magnesium, sulphur, potassium and other elements that are used in the processes of assimilation and elimination cannot be substituted by calories.

Calories do not build bones and teeth nor do they neutralize the acidity of the end-products of metabolism, or preserve the alkalinity of the blood and lymph. It is precisely those foods that are least fitted to perform these functions that are richest in calories. Prof. Sherman says of the calorie: "In connection with such comparisons of food value, while of primary importance, is not alone a complete measure of its nutritive value, which will depend in part upon the amounts and forms of nitrogen, phosphorus, iron and various other essential elements furnished by food." We may add that the value of any food to the individual is partly determined by its digestibility and by the individual's present nutritive needs and powers of digestion and assimilation. It is obvious that no part of food that is not digested can be of use, however high its caloric or other value. Again food eaten, when not required or when the digestive apparatus is not prepared for the work of digestion can only produce harm.

A table giving the caloric values of different foods tells us merely how much heat can be produced in the laboratory by burning these foods. Such tables are fairly accurate indexes to the fuel values of the foods listed, but they are not an index to the nutritive values these foods have for you. You must digest them, absorb them, assimilate them and then metabolize them. If you fail to digest and absorb them, you certainly cannot assimilate and metabolize them. You can produce no heat by the oxidation of foods that pass out in the stools.

The amount of heat and energy required by various individuals varies so greatly with the conditions of sex, climate, occupation, age, size, temperament, etc., that food values based on the calorie standard are of no practical value. Aside from this, most of the heat produced in the body is used in maintaining normal body temperature and not for the production of energy. If health is destroyed, if the nutritive functions are impaired, to stoke up on fuel foods is not only valueless but is positively harmful. This is easily proven when we compare the results of such treatment with those obtained by the fast or by a low calorie diet which is rich in the organic mineral elements.

The burning of food in the body is a vital or physiological process and does not take place in a dead body. Food, to be burned in the body for the production of calories, is dependent upon the condition of the tissues that do the burning, a fact that is completely overlooked in feeding the sick. If the functions of the body are impaired this process is also impaired and foods that are high in fuel value cannot be properly cared for. The digestive and assimilative powers of the individual are ignored in fire-box dietetics. If energy is low, feed up the fires by shoveling in more coal.

To declare that man requires a given number of calories a day and to feed these, all the while ignoring the individual's condition, is the height of folly. In a state of nature, demand reaches forth to supply and satisfies itself. The calorie feeders force the supply even when there is no demand or when there is lack of ability to properly care for the supply. Along with this, their standard of measuring food values wholly ignores the most important elements of the food and the further fact that not all the food elements of the food that are combustible are burned in the body. Those proteins that are used in building new tissue are not used for the production of heat and energy, even if we assume that man derives his energy from food.

It should be easily seen that a system of feeding based on the caloric or fuel value of foods must inevitably lead to mischief. And this is exactly what it has done for it invariably causes patients to be stuffed with fuel foods that are deficient in the other and more vital elements. These patients are forced to eat beyond their digestive capacity in the effort to feed them the standard amount of calories. A standardized treatment without a standardized patient is a farce and a standardized patient is an impossibility.

Hospital diets, because they are based on calorie computations, are likely to be very inadequate diets, besides being poorly prepared. Hospital diets and many other prescribed diets are still based on the supposed calorie needs of the patients. The inactive person "needs" 2000 calories a day; a moderately active person "requires" 3000 to 4000 calories a day and the vigorously active person requires 6000 calories a day. Not only is this standard based on faulty experiments, but it fails to take into account differences in individual efficiency in utilizing the food eaten.

This rule-of-thumb method of prescribing diets does not take into account individual needs and capabilities. It is as ridiculous as to say that every man at the age of twenty should be able to run a hundred yards in ten seconds. Without a standardized humanity, and we certainly do not have one, there can be no standardized diets.

It is necessary that we lose our test-tube conception of dietetics and learn to feed human beings. Man is no chemical apparatus that can be manipulated as can such a device in the laboratory. Theoretically he may need a certain amount of protein or a given number of calories, or a certain minimum of vitamins: actually, he may not be able to digest and absorb anything. Feeding must be a personal, not a rule-of-thumb affair. Formula feeding is a fallacy.

Consider for a minute the lesson of the German Raider, The Crown Prince Wilhelm. The crew was fed on a large variety of high caloric foods such as:

Breakfast: Oatmeal with condensed milk, fried potatoes, white bread, oleomargarine, coffee, white sugar and cookies.

Dinner: Beef soup, pea soup, lentil soup, potato soup, pot roast, fried steak, roast beef, salt fish, canned vegetables, potatoes, white bread, cookies, soda crackers, white sugar, oleomargarine, coffee, and condensed milk.

Supper: Fried steak, corned beef hash, cold roast beef, beef stew, white bread, potatoes, white sugar, cookies, oleomargarine, coffee and condensed milk.

Nearly every one of these foods possess a high calorie value, but every one of them is lacking in the organic minerals and growth promoting factors. After two hundred and fifty-five days on a diet like this, the ship steamed into Norfolk with many of her crew dead, 110 ill on their bunks and many others about ready to break down. Their ailment, which was similar to beriberi or pellagra, was "cured" by a diet that possessed almost no fuel value whatsoever, but was rich in organic salts and vitamins.