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.