How to Live: Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science

“It appears from the table given below that the cost of 2,500 calories in the wholesale market varies from $.04 in the case of boiled rice to $.61 for shad. About half of the dishes can be obtained at wholesale at a price less than $.25 for 2,500 calories, or less than a cent per hundred calories, a cost which is the standard striven for in school lunches. The table is given on the next page.

“It would be interesting to know whether the cost of food for the adult as determined in this fashion was $.25, $.50 or $1.00 per day. Wherever the higher values are reached it is certain that extravagant profits are paid to middlemen or great waste exists in the kitchen.

“The theme might still further be elaborated, but the essential data for those interested in food economics can be obtained from the table itself. Wholesale prices are used for the reason that retail prices are subject to great variation. The fluctuation of retail prices does not make it feasible to give their equivalents for the wholesale list, but the relationship can be judged by noting the equivalents for the extremes. In this table, for example, the retail price of 2500 calories of rice would be about 13 cents as against 4 cents wholesale, and for shad about $1.50, retail as against 61 cents wholesale.”

The tailor (sedentary occupation) showed the following heat production and calorific requirement:

These figures show the wide variation in food requirements according to age, weight and occupation.

Francis G. Benedict and his co-workers at the Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Prof. Graham Lusk of Cornell University, have also made a large number of experiments to ascertain what is termed the basal metabolism or heat production of the body at perfect rest, and also that under varying degrees of activity. The results are closely in agreement with the above.

The experiments furnished a severe test of the claims of the flesh-abstainers. Two comparisons were planned, one between flesh-eating athletes and flesh-abstaining athletes, and the other between flesh-eating athletes and flesh-abstaining sedentary workers. The results would indicate that the users of low-protein and the non-flesh dietaries have far greater endurance than those who are accustomed to the ordinary American diet.

The comparison for arm holding shows a great superiority on the side of the flesh-abstainers. Only 2 of the 15 flesh-eaters succeeded in holding their arms out over a quarter of an hour, whereas 22 of the 32 abstainers surpassed that limit. None of the flesh-eaters reached half an hour, but 15 of the 32 abstainers exceeded that limit. Of these 9 exceeded an hour, 4 exceeded 2 hours and 1 exceeded 3 hours.

In respect to deep knee bending, if we take the number 325 for reference, we find that, of the 9 flesh-eaters only 3 surpassed this figure, while of the 21 abstainers, 17 surpassed it. Only 1 of the 9 flesh-eaters reached 1,000 as against 6 of the 21 abstainers. None of the former surpassed 2,000 as against 2 of the latter.

Similar results have been found in other investigations. It is probable that the inferiority of meat-eaters in staying power is due primarily to high protein, not to meat per se.

The object of the first half of the experiment was to test the claims which have been made as to the effects upon endurance of thorough mastication combined with implicit obedience to appetite. Our conclusion in brief is that these claims, so far as they relate to endurance, are justified.

The method may be briefly expressed in two rules.

During the second half of the experiment the two rules above mentioned were continued in force, but a third rule was added, namely, when the appetite was in doubt, to give the benefit of that doubt to low-protein and non-flesh foods. In other words, the influence of suggestion was invoked to hasten the change which had been inaugurated by arousing the natural appetite. Suggestion was introduced merely because the experiment was limited in time. In no case was it allowed to override the dictates of appetite.

During the first four weeks, the men consumed an average of from 2,760 to 3,030 calories per day, of which 120 to 240 were in the flesh foods, such as meats, poultry, fish and shell-fish, and that 2.4 to 2.7 calories of protein were ingested for each pound of body-weight. Translating Professor Chittenden’s figures for the physiological requirement of ingested protein, we find it to be from 1.3 to 1.7 calories per pound of body-weight. Thus the men were at this time consuming nearly double the Chittenden allowance. During the last four weeks of the experiment all these magnitudes were lower. The per capita calories ranged from 2,220 to 2,620, of which only 40 were in flesh foods, and the protein had fallen to 1.4 to 1.9 calories per pound of body-weight, which corresponds closely to the Chittenden standard.

Gymnasium tests were made at the beginning, middle and end of the experiment. These tests were of two kinds—tests of strength and tests of endurance.

It is fortunate that the strength of the men remained so nearly stationary; for it demonstrates the more clearly that the increase in endurance which will be shown below was an increase in endurance per se, and not in any degree due to an increase in strength. Strength and endurance are entirely distinct and should be separately measured. The strength of a muscle is measured by the utmost force which it can exert once; its endurance by the number of times it can repeat a given exertion well within its strength.

After much consideration and consultation it was decided not to place reliance on the ordinary ergographs as a means of measuring endurance. Instead, seven simple gymnastic tests of physical endurance were employed, and one of mental endurance. The seven physical tests were:

(2) Deep knee bending, or squatting as far as possible and rising to the standing posture, repeating as often as possible.

(3) While lying on the back, raising the legs from the floor to a vertical position and lowering them again, repeating to the point of physical exhaustion.

(4) Raising a 5-lb. dumb-bell (with the triceps) in each hand from the shoulder up to the highest point above the head, repeating to the point of physical exhaustion.

(5) Holding the arms from the sides horizontally for as long a time as possible.

(6) Raising a dumb-bell (with the biceps) in one hand from a position in which the arm hangs down, up to the shoulder and lowering it again, repeating the motion to the point of physical exhaustion. This test was taken with four successive dumb-bells of decreasing weight, viz., 50, 25, 10 and 5 lbs. respectively.

(7) Running on the gymnasium track at a speed to suit the subject, to as great a distance as possible.

The figures of this table show an undoubted increase in endurance, both for the first half and more especially for the whole period of the experiment.

Three methods of estimating the increase of endurance between January and June were used. These may be put together in the following table:

The second line shows the average improvement in tests in which there is no doubt that the figure is at least not too high, though it may be too low. The average of these is 89 per cent., and is therefore certainly too low an estimate of the average improvement for the eight men who improved at all.

The third line shows the increase of pure endurance (that is, endurance considered apart from strength) for the five men for whom the figures were available. The average of these is 116 per cent.

We are quite safe in saying, therefore, that the average improvement of the eight men who improved was 90 per cent.

That we are correct in ascribing the results, especially in endurance, to dietetic causes alone, cannot reasonably be doubted when it is considered that no other factors of known significance were allowed to aid in this result.

While the results of the present experiment lean toward “vegetarianism,” they are only incidentally related to its propaganda. Meat was by no means excluded; on the contrary, the subjects were urged to eat it if their appetite distinctly preferred it to other foods.

Nor is it necessary that meat should be permanently abjured, even when it ceases to become a daily necessity. The safer course, at least, is to indulge the craving whenever one is “meat hungry,” even if, as in many cases, this be not oftener than once in several months. The rule of selection employed in the experiment was merely to give the benefit of the doubt to the non-flesh food; but even a slight preference for flesh foods was to be followed.

REFERENCES

Adami, J. G.: Autointoxication and Sub-Infection, British Medical Journal, January 24, 1914, p. 177; Jour. A. M. A., XII, No. 9, p. 701.

Benedict, F. G., and Carpenter, Thorne M.: The Metabolism and Energy Transformation of Healthy Man During Rest, Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., 1910.

Benedict, F. G.: The Nutritive Requirements of the Body, Amer. Jour. of Physiology, 1906, XVI, pp. 409–437.

Benedict, F. G., and Smith, H. M.: The Influences of Athletic Training upon Basal Metabolism, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sc., 1915, I, p. 102.

Benedict, F. G., and Emmes, L. E.: A Comparison of the Basal Metabolism of Normal Men and Women, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sc., 1915, I, p. 104.

Benedict, F. G., and Cathcart, Edward P.: Muscular Work, Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., 1913.

Bryce, Alexander: Modern Theories of Diet, New York, Longmans, Green & Company, 1912; London, Edward Arnold, 1912.

Cannon, Walter B.: Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, D. Appleton & Company, New York and London, 1915.

Chittenden, Russell H.: Physiological Economy in Nutrition, Frederick A. Stokes & Company, New York, 1904.

Chittenden, Russell H.: The Nutrition of Man, Frederick A. Stokes & Company, New York, 1907.

Editorial: Newer Aspects of Metabolism, Jour. A. M. A., 1915, LXIV, p. 1327.

Fisher, Irving: A Graphic Method in Practical Dietetics, Jour. A. M. A., 1907, XLVIII, pp. 1316–1324.

Fisher, Irving: The Effect of Diet on Endurance, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1907, XIII, pp. 1–46.

Fisk, Eugene Lyman: A Sensible Diet for the Average Man and Woman, New York Medical Journal, July 4, 1914.

Gephart, F. C., and Lusk, Graham: Analysis and Cost of Ready-to-Serve Foods, Press of the American Medical Association, Chicago, 1915.

Gouraud, F. X.: What Shall I Eat? Rebman Company, New York, 1911.

Higgins, Robert: Is Man Poltophagic or Psomophagic? The Lancet, London, 1905, I, pp. 1334–1337.

Hindhede, M.: What to Eat and Why, Ewart, Seymour & Company, Ltd., London, 1914.

Hutchison, Robert: Food and the Principles of Dietetics, William Wood & Company, New York, 1911, third edition.

Kinne, Helen, and Cooley, Anna M.: Foods and Household Management, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914.

Lusk, Graham: The Elements of the Science of Nutrition, W. B. Saunders & Company, Philadelphia and London, 1909, second edition.

Mendel, Lafayette B.: The Relation of Foodstuffs to Alimentary Functions, Amer. Jour. of Med. Sciences, 1909, CXXXVIII, pp. 522–526.

Pavlov, I. P.: The Work of the Digestive Glands, Charles Griffin & Company, Ltd., London, 1910, second English edition, translated by W. H. Thompson.

Rose, Mary Swartz: A Laboratory Hand-Book for Dietetics, Macmillan & Company, New York and London, 1914.

Sherman, H. C.: Chemistry of Food and Nutrition, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913.

Sherman, H. C.: Food Products, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1914.

Stiles, Percy Goldthwaite: Nutritional Physiology, N. B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia and London, 1912.

Tigerstedt, Robert: A Text-Book of Human Physiology, D. Appleton & Company, New York and London, 1906, third German edition, translated by John N. Murlin.

Taylor, Alonzo Englebert: Digestion and Metabolism, Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia and New York, 1912.

Von Noorden, Carl: Metabolism and Practical Medicine, William Heinemann, London, 1907.

How many people after age 35 have a conformation of body that is in accord with proper ideals of health and symmetry? The average individual, as age progresses, gains weight until he reaches old age, when the weight usually decreases.

This movement of weight is so universal that it has been accepted as normal, or physiological, whereas it is not normal, and is the result of disease-producing and life-shortening influences.

MEN—OVER AVERAGE WEIGHTS

The heaviest mortality (75 per cent. above the standard), is found among those aged 40 to 44 who are 50 to 80 pounds overweight.