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You should be going to see Wolverine or getting drunk like I’m about to do, but you should also read about the CIA’s recently-undone methods of "dietary manipulation." And if someone from the Washington Independent happened to write a piece about that…
Bradbury wrote in a May 10, 2005 memo, “[T]he recommended minimum calorie intake is 1,500 kcal/day, and in no event is the detainee allowed to receive less than 1,000 kcal/day.” While having his diet restricted, a detainee would be fed not solid food, but “commercial liquid diets (such as Ensure Plus).” The restricted diet, according to Bradbury’s memo, would be subject to “frequent medical monitoring,” and a detainee would be measured “weekly” to ensure that he did not lose more than “10 percent of his body weight,” which would trigger termination of the diet.
That caloric intake would be unacceptable for the Justice Department to administer to an inmate in a federal prison. The department’s Bureau of Prisons requires federal prisons to adhere to “the Daily Reference Intake (DRI) for nutrients published by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of the Sciences” in order to “ensure proper nutrition,” according to the bureau’s 2006 policy handbook. The National Academy of the Science’s Dietary Reference Intakes estimates nutritional requirements on a sliding scale depending on Body Mass Index and level of activity. But for adult men who stand just under five feet tall and who maintain a “sedentary” level of physical activity with a low body mass index, the minimum caloric requirement in the guideline is 1,848 calories. All other nutritional elements of the guideline require greater caloric intakes for adult men, ranging from 2,000 to 3,720 calories.
It’s not starvation, but it’s really severe. Anyway. Snikt.
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Well it would be starvation over an extended period of time. Note that they “predict” in some cases there might be weight loss of up to 10%/week. This is in a relatively physically inactive individual. Do the numbersand see how long that individual could be maintained. Say the guy weighs 150 lbs. After week 1: 135; after week 2: 122.5; after week 3: 110 lbs. After week 4: 99 lbs. Week 5: 90 lbs. To me that’s a starvation diet.
Now what might cause this weight loss in a sedentary individual? ENSURE is a liquid diet and thus much of the component is water. This substitutes for the additional water mass that would be tied to a solid diet. Much of the caloric content in ENSURE is soluble and likely not to be absorbed in the intestinal tract or stomach. It’ll be passed.
Second. Despite the sedentary conditions these individuals were undergoing sleep deprivation, stress, stress positions (requiring constant muscle work) and being place in extreme temperatures (either profuse sweating or shivering uses metabolic energy). They were burning lots of calories…more than a normal prisoner.
Third. The diets were often nauseating, or the stress resulted in vomiting. In some cases food was presented that wasn’t halal. While the Quran allows exceptions to eating halal foods, many of these men likely were not aware of that. Many may have simply stopped eating…evn on this meagre diet.
Saying that the caloric content of Ensure or similar products won’t be absorbed is incorrect.
If it’s vomited out it won’t be. And that’s besides the point. “Auschwitz prisoners with less physically demanding labor assignments received approximately 1,300 calories per day, while those engaged in hard labor received approximately 1,700.” (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/auconditions.html) 1500 kc/d is fucking torture for anyone, full stop.
I’m an age-37, 19 BMI guy. I eat very, very little compared to the overfed ratfuckers who put these policies into place. And I am pretty sure I put away ~2,200 kcal/day.
This is the sort of thing that starts me fantasizing about a new Nuremberg trials.