🎧 The Department of Physiological Hygiene

The podcast explored Ancel Keys' Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Keys had already invented the K-ration and was yet to “discover” the Mediterranean diet. At the time, doctors knew little about the effects of prolonged malnutrition, and the Starvation Experiment was designed to find out and also how best to reverse starvation. It was a great and moving episode, with wonderful archive tape from the young men who volunteered. And Gladwell made it clear that such an experiment could not possibly be carried out today. All good stuff.

But what, actually, did Keys learn? How do you best reverse starvation? Not a word on that. Which leaves me wondering, what was the point? Of the podcast, not the experiment.