Historical Event
Date:
January 1, 1929
Short Description:
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Dr McClellan and Du Bois look at meat diets and kidney function and find nothing wrong.
Title:
Book:
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Prolonged Meat Diets with a Study of Kidney Function and Ketosis
Walter S. McClellan
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Important Text:
Two normal men volunteered to live solely on meat for one year, which gave us an unusual opportunity of studying the effects of this diet. The term “meat,” as used by us, included both the lean and the fat portions of animals. The subjects derived most of their calories from fat and the diet was quite different from what one, who uses the term “meat” as including chiefly lean muscle, would expect. Rubner called attention to the fact that a man cannot live on meat alone because of the physical limitation of the apparatus of mastication. He was evidently considering only lean meat as fat offers little difficulty. It is well known that the Eskimos have lived on an almost exclusive meat diet for generat.ions. Certain explorers in the North also have subsisted for long periods on meat. Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson in particular has demonstrated that it is feasible for travelers in the arctic region to “live off the country,” which means living on meat alone. The experiences of Stefansson and his companions have been given in his book “The Friendly Arctic”. He spent over 11 years in arctic exploration, during 9 years of which he lived almost exclusively on meat. Stimulated by this experience, Stefansson and Andersen, the latter a member of one of the expeditions, voluntarily agreed to eat nothing but meat for 1 year while they continued their usual activities in the temperate climate of New York.