Philip A. Grossi, M.D.

I am again revisiting Ancel Keys' Minnesota study of 32 men who were semi-starved for six months ,i e, ate 50 per cent of the calories consumed in the three month control period. What were the effects on thinking about food?

• General interest in food was increased as evidenced by increased talking and thinking about food.
• The subjects studied cookbooks, collected recipes, and looked at menus.
• Increased food cravings
• More time considering how to allot the day's food and food dislikes disappeared.
• They became more possessive of food and demanded that food and drink be hot.
• They either ate slowly or gulped down their food ravenously; but, in any case they ate their food to the last morsel.
• There was an increase in drinking of coffee and tea and gum chewing.
• There was an increase in smoking.
• There was an increase in nail-biting.
• There was a notable change in spending habits from overspending of frivolous objects to obsessive saving of money.

The semi-starvation again produced substantial changes in attitudes toward food as it produced physical and psychological changes.  Next we will see the changes on social interactions.