David Allison

No one ever proved, demonstrated, or I think even claimed that that was the best amount or the upper limit, or it was just that's probably enough to maintain nitrogen balance, which probably means it's compatible with survival.

And if you think about the early days, that was pretty important.

Europe couldn't reliably feed its population until two things were entered into Europe.

One was guano, bat poop, fertilizer, and the other was potatoes.

And when after the Columbus hit Hispaniola, and eventually what came back was, among other things, guano and potatoes, suddenly Europe could feed its population.

But it took a while for the potatoes to catch on.

Louis XV actually wore a potato boutonniere to get people to think they were kind of safe.

Two Polish scientists in 1928 published a paper in which they had two young people.

They never said they were...

the young people, but I kind of suspected perhaps they were.

One man, one woman.

And for six months, they fed them nothing but potatoes, a little bit of fat to cook the potatoes in, and a little bit of fruit to avoid deficiencies.

So the only source of protein for practical purposes was the potato.

And what they showed was nitrogen balance was perfectly fine.

And despite sort of this quote unquote bad carbohydrate, at least some people think it's a bad carbohydrate, no one got diabetes.

They didn't gain weight.

How many calories did they eat a day?

Don't remember that, but they were sort of roughly normal weight thin people of the time.

So probably I would guess a little more than 2,000.

2,000, 2,500.