McCarrison regards loss of appetite as an evidence of food deficiency. We noted in a previous chapter that animals fed on a mineral-free diet soon refused their food and had to be force fed. Experimenters who have, themselves, gone on a deficient diet, a white-bread diet for example, note the same thing. McCarrison says "It seems to me that loss of appetite' is one of the most fundamental signs of vitamin deprivation. It is a protective sign; the first signal of impending disaster. It should at once excite suspicion as to the quality of the food in any patient who may exhibit it."

The head of a boarding school for children here informs me that children come to the school, thin, pale and without appetite and that on the abundance of fruits and green vegetables, they receive at the school, they gain weight, become normal in color and develop good appetites. I have seen the same thing occur many times in my own practice when mothers have brought their puny children to me with the wail that the children will not eat--"I have to make him (or her) eat." If a child is obviously undernourished and refuses food, it must be because its protective instincts have rebelled against more of the deficient food. Only a well nourished child can have a truly normal (or natural) food-demand. A finicky appetite should cause parents to become suspicious of the child's eating.

McClendon noted among American soldiers in the trenches, that when their rations were restricted to eggs, sugar, chocolate and dried milk made into a sort of biscuit, a craving for fresh foods became overpowering within two or three days and caused them to refuse their rations. He considers that in a state of nature this craving has tremendous survival value for man and animal.

Children do not have to be forced to eat that which is wholesome and good, if they have been fed properly from the start and have not had their appetite and sense of taste spoiled by sugar, salt, pepper, spices, etc. Too many children have their appetites for plain food spoiled by the vulgar habit of seasoning their foods and cultivating in them the same perversions of the sense of taste and the same abnormal cravings that are seen in adults. Jam or jelly is put on their bread or crackers, sugar is put into their milk, sweet cookies are fed to them often, they are given candy or ice cream or little knick-nacks between meals, or they are given sugar out of the sugar bowl. Mayonnaise or other such slop is smeared over their food. Their appetites become so cloyed and their sense of taste so perverted that they no longer enjoy simple foods. When they grow older their perverted taste and jaded appetites and overstimulated bodies will demand tobacco, alcohol, and petting; also sex-slush in their movies and novels.

Children are victims of the fallacy that they require lots of fats and sugars and starches, which has evolved the present onesided and deficient diet. This diet is virtually robbed of mineral salts and vitamins and then doctors and parents add a few teaspoonfuls of tomato juice, or orange juice and nauseous cod-liver oil to this diet, to make up for its deficiencies. Cod-liver oil and other fatty emulsions added to a diet already over-burdened with fat only helps to make the child sick.