Excessive food a waste of energy
It is not the quantity of food that is eaten, but the quantity of food that will give the greatest vitality and capacity to do things, that should determine our dietary standards. It is reasonable to assume that this amount would be the least quantity that would maintain activity without using up the food material stored in the body. All food taken in excess of the amount actually required must be cast from the body at a tremendous expense of energy. To do a given amount of work, or to add one pound of muscular tissue to the body, requires a definite quantity of energy-yielding or tissue-building material, but if more food is taken than the body can use, the excess ferments in the stomach and in the alimentary tract, producing poisonous products which are absorbed into the blood. These poisonous products cause a great number of human ills. The process of eliminating these poisons we call "dis-ease."
Former dietary standards cut in half
The assumption that the correct amount of food that should be taken by the body is the least quantity that will maintain normal body-functions, has been amply proved by recent scientific investigations to be correct. Many years of experience on the part of the writer have shown that to make food remedial and curative, the old dietary standards must be, roughly speaking, cut in half.
TRUE FOOD REQUIREMENTS
Quantity of food required for various occupations
The degree of energy required by the body depends very largely upon the amount of work or activity it undergoes, hence the amount of food required to supply this activity cannot be accurately prescribed when the degree of required energy is unknown. However, there is a certain amount of work performed by the beating of the heart and in the maintenance of body-heat which can be fairly well estimated. The quantity of energy-yielding food required, each twenty-four hours, for the maintenance of the activities of life is about one vieno for every ten pounds of body-weight. For a man at steady muscular work, such as a carpenter or a farmer, this quantity should be about doubled. The quantity required by a man of sedentary habits, but who takes regular exercise for an hour or two each day, is about half way between these two amounts. Thus, a man weighing one hundred forty pounds would require one and one-half vienos for each ten pounds, or twenty-one vienos of food each day. These weights apply only to people of normal flesh, who desire neither to gain nor to lose.
The fact that either fat or carbohydrates can be used as a source of muscular energy may be taken advantage of in prescribing dietaries for persons whose digestive organs are so impaired that they cannot digest a normal quantity of either of these nutrients, but who could digest a small quantity of either. This does not mean, however, that the proportion of fat and of carbohydrates in the food can be disregarded. The digestive processes involved are radically different, hence a suitable proportion of carbohydrates and fats should always be maintained.
Proportion of fat required under ordinary conditions
With a view to guiding in a general way those who wish to adopt a standard of diet for ordinary use, and who consult tables in which fats and carbohydrates are listed separately, I might state that the fat should form about one-eighth the total source of energy, or one-sixteenth the weight of all water-free (solid) food eaten.