CHAPTER VI 

 THE MERITS AND DEMERITS OF DIETARIES POOR IN PROTEIN 



IT is very generally admitted at the present time that life can 

 be maintained on a relatively low protein intake ; all the accumu- 

 lated evidence of experimental work on dietetics during recent 

 years would corroborate the findings of the earlier workers on 

 this point. Provided a certain minimum of protein be supplied, 

 accompanied by sufficient potential energy, a fairly active life 

 can be supported upon varying proportions of the three food 

 elements. 



This is no new discovery. As Spriggs points out, " Men have 

 existed in the past, in the vicissitudes of wealth and poverty, 

 freedom, and captivity, upon dietaries as varied in both quantity 

 and quality as will ever be designed by experimentalists. The 

 main object is, therefore, not to determine upon how much or how 

 little a man can live, but what are the proportions of the food- 

 stuffs upon which he is able to maintain the body in the highest 

 degree of efficiency." 



With regard to this latter point there is not the same agreement 

 of opinion. Chittenden and his followers would have us believe 

 that both the protein and potential energy of the usually accepted 

 standards can be diminished very considerably with great benefit 

 to the body, thus helping to increase man's greatest assets viz., 

 health, strength, capacity for work, and resistance to disease. 



He further suggests that any excess of protein food over what 

 may be regarded as the minimum amount on which nitrogenous 

 equilibrium can be established, is so much waste, entailing un- 

 necessary labour on the part of the organism, and at the same 

 time exposing the tissues and organs to the possible deleterious 

 action of this uncalled-for excess of nitrogenous waste products 

 prior to their elimination from the body. The excretion of these 

 bodies through the kidneys is supposed by Chittenden to be a 



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