The Executioner's Diet

The Executioners’ Diet

By Michael Applebaum, MD, JD, FCLM

Call me old-fashioned.

I just don’t think it is right for our doctors, diet gurus, governments, pharmaceutical companies, publishers, etc., to be our executioners.

But that is what their diet advice does. It facilitates our deaths.

There is something about death by these entities that rankles me.

But, hey, that’s just me.

You might feel differently.

Here is how it works:

Diets are voluntary undertakings.
You can go on them.
You can go off them.
If a diet is possible, you have a chance of succeeding.
If a diet is impossible, you have no chance of succeeding.
Overweight or obese people live less long than the few remaining non-overweight/non-obese rest of us.
Shortening another’s life is a working definition of killing them.
If you remain overweight or obese because you failed on an impossible diet, your life is shortened.
If the impossible diet caused your weight loss failure, then the diet caused your shorter life.
If your life is shortened because of a diet, then the diet killed you.

I contend that expert diet advice kills.

I contend it kills because expert diet advice is impossible to follow.

I contend that expert diets are starvation diets, which are Dachau Diets (as I will soon demonstrate), which are the diets of WW II executioners.

I contend a lot.

I am a contentious guy.

When it comes to this, at least.

If you want to understand how diets kill, don’t look at the diet literature, look to the starvation literature.

Here are some numbers. The ones under "Wartime Diets and Rations" are from a book called The Biology of Human Starvation. Its chief author was Ancel Keys. It is a classic.

The first three columns of the table list the Calories that were consumed under various conditions. The conditions are in the first column.

The yellow boxes contain the Caloric intakes from two diet programs. One from Jorge Cruise and David L. Katz, MD. The other is from the Mayo Clinic.

The numbers in RED are the only instances when the unfortunate people living under the severe conditions of wartime diets and rations were fed fewer Calories than the diets recommended by Jorge Cruise, his MD advocate David Katz of Yale, and the Mayo Clinic.

In other words, except for the instances in RED, even under wartime conditions, POWs, other prisoners, the inmates of insane asylums and embattled civilians ate better than dieters following the diets of Jorge Cruise/David Katz and the Mayo Clinic.

I contend (there I go again), Cruise and Katz are representative of diet gurus and Mayo is representative of the medical establishment, pharmaceutical industry and governments (in addition to the USA, include Canada, UK and more).

That, at least, is my opinion.

To get the full impact of the data, I suggest subtracting 300 Calories from Cruise’s/Katz’s diet and Mayo’s diet to account for recommended daily exercise.

This results in the more real realization that on the Cruise/Katz diet, unless you weigh more than 250 pounds, you consume fewer Calories per day than an inmate of a Paris insane asylum in April of 1941.

Who is really insane here?

This also results in the more real realization that unless you weigh over 250 pounds and are a woman, you consume fewer Calories than an internee at the Dachau Concentration Camp in September of 1944. It also means that unless you are a man weighing over 300 pounds, you do not get to consume more Calories than the insane Parisian.

That just seems a bit extreme to me.

Who is really insane here?

Maybe I am.

Or maybe it is our diet leaders.

Or maybe it is the many who follow the advice of the experts and even more crazily, plunk down hard-earned dollars and cents to learn how to treat themselves just like prisoners in concentration camps or insane asylums (albeit in Paris).

You decide. Unless you are insane. Then please don't.

Here is the data. Conclude what you will.

My opinion is that our experts advocate the Executioners’ Diet and its various forms and unwitting people follow them.

But if you would rather that I not be the last word, seek a second opinion.

Consult with your plaintiff’s attorney if you have tried dieting and failed.

WARTIME DIETS AND RATIONS

Conditions	Date	Daily Average Kcal	Jorge Cruise
			Weight in Pounds	Daily Caloric Goal
French POWs Interned in Germany, WWI		2245		Men and Women
German Civilians, WWI	April 1916	2343
German Civilians, WWI	July 1916	2232.5	199	1,450
German Civilians, WWI	April 1917	1985.4	200 to 249	1,650
Russian and British POWs in Tost, Germany, WWII		1611	250 to 299	1,850
Paris Insane Asylum, April 1941		1436	300 or more	2,050
Paris Insane Asylum, September 1941		1759
Paris Insane Asylum, October 1941		1862
Paris Insane Asylum, December 1941		1740
Food Distributed in Netherlands - sedentary individuals			Mayo Clinic
	1941 II	1828	Your weight in pounds	Daily calorie goal
	1941 III	1852	Your weight in pounds	Women	Men
	1941 IV	1828	250 or less	1,200	1,400
	1942 I	1810	251 to 300	1,400	1,600
	1942 II	1699	301 or more	1,600	1,800
	1942 III	1750
	1942 IV	1876
	1943 I	1822
	1943 II	1724
	1943 III	1783
	1943 IV	1784
	1944 I	1656
	1944 II	1585
	1944 III	1529
Central Prison in Louvain, Belgium	pre-war	3370
	October 1940	1775
	March 1941	1860
	May 1941	1660
	July 1941	1647
Dachau, Germany Concentration Camp	September 1944	1017
	April 1945	533
Changi POW Camp, Singapore	March 1942	2060
	April 1942	2060
	May 1942	2263
	June 1942	2222
	July 1942	2315
	August 1942	2466
	September 1942	2548
Canadian POWs in Japanese POW Camp Near Hong Kong	1942
	January	898
	February	2010
	March	2138
	April	2613
	May	2468
	June	4895
	July	2151
	August	1981
	September	2068
	October	2753
	November	2430
	December	2980
	1943
	January	2766
	February	2946
	March	3067
	April	2989
	May	2864
	June	2332
	July	2326
	August	2412
	September	2548
	October	2487
	November	2566
	December	2804
	1944
	January	2546
	February	2729
	March	2006
	April	2275
	May	2173
	June	2327
	July	2431
	August	2071
	September	2350
	October	2069
	November	2278
	December	2411
	1945
	January	1921
	February	2147
	March	2211
	April	2209
	May	2306
	June	2197
	July	2161
Internees at Pootung Civil Assembly Center Outside Shanghai	1943
	February	2321
	September	2046
	October	2009
	November	1916
	December	2164
	1944
	January	2105
	February	2420
	March	2247
	April	1940
	May	1814
	June	1754
	July	1792
	August	1911
	September	1672
	October	1796
	November	1975
	December	2672
	1945
	January	2070
	February	2029
	March	2079
	April	2034
	May	2015
	June	1892
	July	2638