Of course, it is not my intention to induce people to live on potatoes alone, on whole-wheat or whole-rye bread alone, or on barley alone. These diets were necessary for the scientific determination of the values of the different foods. But when one can live on any one of these foods alone, a mixture of all is still more likely to give a well-balanced diet.
As a result of all my studies and experiments, I draw the conclusion, therefore, that the best diet should be composed mainly of whole-wheat or whole-rye bread, barley oats, potatoes, butter (or margarine), some green vegetables, and some fruit as a relish.
I have not been able to find that it makes any difference whether or not in addition we give a pint of milk. We have found that three of the very best foods we have are potatoes, barley and bran. But such food the Danes are foolish enough to give to the pigs and cows. When the pigs have wasted eighty per cent of the nutrients, and that the very best, for instance all the vitamins, then we eat the pigs.
My experiments were conducted with only two men at the same time. It would have been better, of course, to have had more men, but it is easier to catch a rat than a man for such purposes, not mentioning the difference in expenses.
HOW DENMARKS DESPERATE SITUATION WAS CONVERTED INTO HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.
In 1917 I got an unique chance. The Danish Sovereign asked me to plan, in conjunction with Prof. Mollgaard, the rationing for Denmark during the war blockade. This blockade was enforced in February, 1917. The Allies would not allow us to import food on account of a possible sale to starving Germany. We came into a dreadful situation, which perhaps would be difficult for you to understand. You may think that it would be easy for us to get food enough because we have a very large animal production, but you must not forget that more than half of this production is based on imported foods.
Denmark normally grows forty-four million bushels of rye, wheat and barley. It imports sixty million bushels, which makes a total consumption of one hundred and four million bushels.
The sixty million bushels were stopped, and through drought we lost twelve million bushels of our normal crop. We had only thirty-two and would need one hundred and four million bushels. The situation seemed desperate and it was no conclusion that the Germans were starving although they normally raised about twice as much rye and double as many potatoes per million inhabitants as Denmark.
It seemed desperate, but the solution was nevertheless extremely simple. The fact was that both people and pigs could not live. In Germany the pigs were allowed to live and therefore the people died. In Denmark we killed our pigs and lived directly on the pigs food their barley and potatoes. We took all the wheat bran from the cows and put it in our whole-rays bread. The half of our bread consisted of bran. Moreover, we took the grains from the distillers, which left us without brandy and whisky, while the English deprived us of our coffee. Some doctors were angry and wrote that Hindhede put the people on pig-food and chicken-food.
Yes, I did. It was my intention to put my people on pig-food, a natural diet, to show how foolishly we humans have lived.
The whole country was placed on a low-protein diet. Believers in high protein suggested that the resistance against disease would decrease. My expectations were to the contrary. Who won? Well, the result was a great victory for the low-protein diet. The state of health improved as never before. The doctors lost their business. The death rate went down during this period of rationing October 1st, 1917, to October 1st, 1918 to 104 per 1,000, the lowest known death rate of any European country at any time. The total deaths in our little country during this time was 6,306 lower than the year before the War, when the death rate had been the lowest ever known before in Denmark.
