Show Notes
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment: What Hunger Does to the Human Mind Every few years, someone announces the solution to weight loss. Eat less. Fast longer. Cut carbs. Cut fat. Cut something. Naturally, the advice usually comes with a tone of moral certainty. If you are hungry, the implication goes, you simply lack discipline. However, long before social media, diet influencers, and the phrase food noise entered the modern vocabulary, scientists ran an extraordinary experiment that revealed something profound about hunger. Rather than speculate about appetite, they studied it directly. In the middle of World War II, researchers deliberately starved healthy young men. The results changed how we understand hunger forever.
Why the Experiment Happened During World War II, much of Europe faced severe food shortages. Cities were bombed, farms disrupted, and supply chains shattered. Consequently, millions of civilians were suffering from malnutrition and starvation. Yet another problem quickly emerged. Refeeding starving populations turned out to be complicated. If nourishment returned too quickly, dangerous metabolic complications could occur. Doctors needed to understand not only starvation but also recovery from starvation. Therefore, the U.S. government supported research designed to answer a simple but critical question: What happens to the human body and mind when calories are severely restricted for long periods? The scientist leading that effort was Dr. Ancel Keys at the University of Minnesota. Today, Keys is often remembered for his later work on diet and heart disease. Nevertheless, his wartime research produced one of the most remarkable studies ever conducted in nutrition science. The results were eventually published in a monumental two-volume work titled: “The Biology of Human Starvation.” This massive text, published in 1950, remains one of the most detailed examinations of hunger ever written. KEYS, ANCEL, JOSEF BROŽEK, AUSTIN HENSCHEL, OLAF MICKELSEN, HENRY LONGSTREET TAYLOR, Ernst Simonson, Angie Sturgeon Skinner, et al. The Biology of Human Starvation: Volume I. University of Minnesota Press, 1950. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv9b2tqv.
The Volunteers To conduct the study, Keys recruited 36 conscientious objectors. These men had refused military service during World War II for moral or religious reasons. Nonetheless, they still wanted to contribute to the war effort. Participating in this experiment became their way of helping. Importantly, the volunteers were healthy young men. They had normal body weight, good physical fitness, and no significant psychological problems. In other words, they were ideal research subjects. Furthermore, they understood the risks. They would experience months of severe caloric restriction. Even more remarkable, the experiment took place beneath the University of Minnesota football stadium, turning an athletic facility into one of the most important laboratories in nutrition history.
The Structure of the Experiment The study unfolded in three distinct phases. First came the baseline period. For several months, the men ate normally, consuming approximately 3,200 calories per day. Researchers measured body weight, metabolism, and psychological health to establish a stable starting point. Next came the central part of the experiment: six months of semi-starvation. During this period, calorie intake dropped to roughly 1,500 calories per day. That number may sound familiar because many modern diet programs recommend similar intake levels. The food itself resembled wartime rations. Participants ate simple meals consisting primarily of potatoes, bread, macaroni, turnips, and small amounts of dairy. Although the men remained physically active, their energy intake was cut in half. Finally, the experiment concluded with a refeeding phase designed to observe how the body recovers after prolonged starvation.
The Unexpected Psychological Effects Researchers expected weight loss. What surprised
More from Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson
With all the spices we have access to, it is amazing how bland recipes have become. I have many cookbooks, some from great chefs, television personalities, and friends. What I am always surprised by is how bland the food has become. People seem to think a bit of salt, pepper, maybe onions, and garlic provide the spices one needs. Perhaps it is because some associate spice with heat. Mostly because many have never experimented with some of those great warm spices available. A pinch of coriander, some freshly ground cumin, a little cardamom, or a touch of cinnamon can turn an ordinary dish into something remarkable. And the most astonishing part is that these spices financed voyages around the world, built cities, created fortunes, and caused people to kill one another. Without the spice trade, it is safe to say that the United States, as we know it, would be vastly different from what it is now. The money loaned to the United States, when we were a fledgling country, came from the wealthy spice merchants from what was considered one of the great hyperempires of the world, based in Amsterdam. But before we go to the birth of the United States, let me take you to the meatball.
Tea: The Drink That Built an Empire—and Helped Break One China had the tea. Britain had the appetite. John Hancock had a business to protect.
MesoAmerica and Chocolate In our series looking at foods that built civilizations, today we are going to stay in the Americas with chocolate. Chocolate has been used as currency, consumed by kings, incorporated into religious ceremonies, and prescribed as medicine. Today, it is a multibillion-dollar industry that wants you to believe that eating chocolate is an act of preventive cardiology. I mean, why not? They convinced us to give chocolate to people we love, eat it when we are happy, when we are sad, when only the dog understands us. Don’t feed chocolate to your dog. And we have done all this with a bitter seed that most of us would probably spit out if we tasted it straight from the tree.
I’ve been doing a series about foods that built civilizations. In this episode, we are talking about the potato. It is difficult to imagine that thousands of years ago, people constructed large buildings, managed rivers, built monuments, and created art. We have glimpses of these civilizations through stories, archaeology, and the structures they left behind, but much of their history has been lost. Imagine, we don’t even know where Cleopatra or Alexander the Great are buried, yet we know their stories. As European powers conquered Indigenous peoples, their languages, cultures, and oral traditions were suppressed. When a language disappears, so are the stories preserved within it. Our clues come from archaeology when we uncover a monument, a building, or an ancient settlement. In the Andes, the potatoes they cultivated were not the Russets, Yukon Golds, or fingerlings you find in the store today. Different colors, shapes, and textures. Adapted to survive the elevations, temperatures, and growing conditions. Biodiversity protected their food supply against frost, disease, and changing environmental conditions. If one variety failed, another might survive. The ancient wisdom of diversity that Andean farmers developed over thousands of years was lost when the potato eventually reached Ireland.
In our series about foods that built civilization, we talked a lot about grains, from wheat to corn to rice. Today, we are taking you to the ocean, with the civilizations that salmon built. From California to the interior of Alaska, salmon, a staple, allowed people to settle into villages, develop complex social networks, art, and trade routes. Those trade routes are as large as the ones in the Mediterranean. Some tribes built communal homes and developed complex art and language. Some were Seafaring tribes with canoes up to 60 feet long that traveled across oceans. All because there was a fish that would return in large numbers to streams and rivers, reliably, predictably. So predictable, the people could build their lives around salmon runs. So much so that some built a calendar not only with lunar cycles, but also with the return of the salmon. Civilizations have always gathered around food and water. The Mediterranean connected people who grew wheat and olives, giving people time to make wine, mine copper, build ships, trade with their neighbors, and occasionally go to war with them. Asia had rice and grain near the great river systems. The reliable calories from rice and grains allowed villages to become cities and to travel by water to trade. Today we are going to my home, from the Ventura River in California to my home state of Alaska.