Last week I came across this Wall Street Journal article by Mark Schatzker, a journalist who has a book coming out next week called The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor.
The book will explore the connection between foods’ natural flavor and their nutritional benefits, including the ways in which modern agriculture has depleted our food of both. But one particular part of the WSJ article really caught my attention. In describing how the human body naturally uses taste and smell to identify nutrients, Schatzker wrote:
. . . perhaps the most striking proof of such nutritional wisdom comes from a 1939 study in which a group of toddlers were put in charge of feeding themselves. They were offered 34 nutritionally diverse whole foods, including water, potatoes, beef, bone jelly, carrots, chicken, grains, bananas and milk. What each child ate, and how much, was entirely up to him or her.
The results were astonishing. Instead of binging on the sweetest foods, the toddlers were drawn to the foods that best nourished them. They ate more protein during growth spurts and more carbs and fat during periods of peak activity. After an outbreak of mononucleosis, curiously, they consumed more raw beef, carrots and beets. One child with a severe vitamin D deficiency even drank cod liver oil of his own volition until he was cured. By the end of the experiment, one doctor was so impressed with the toddlers’ health that he described them as “the finest group of specimens” he’d ever seen in their age group.
As someone who’s written about nothing but kids and food for five solid years, I found this passage really intriguing. First of all, I was surprised I’d never heard of this study before, given how unique its design and how its astonishing findings. And second, as a parent, I wondered if the results could possibly be valid.
Now don’t get me wrong — I’m a firm believer in the wisdom of the body. After once having surgery and losing a lot of blood, I craved salty foods intensely. When I was nursing both of my kids, it seemed I couldn’t get enough protein; I wanted to eat eggs, cheese and cottage cheese almost every morning. And anyone who’s been pregnant knows the power of food cravings, which likely do have some benefit for the growing baby.
At the same time, though, if the body always craves what it needs, then my produce-avoidant son should be wanting to eat fruits and vegetables 24/7 — yet that’s not the case at all. Perhaps the thesis of Schatzker’s book is that in today’s society, the artificial flavors of hyper-processed foods have overridden these natural cravings. But that idea doesn’t really hold up in my house, were those foods are kept to a minimum.
So I decided to dig deeper into this 1939 study of toddlers given complete food autonomy. What I found was a 2006 Canadian Medical Association Journal article describing the study, which was conducted by a Chicago pediatrician named Clara Davis. According to the CMAJ article:
Davis convinced unmarried teenage mothers and widows who could no longer support their families to place their infants in what amounted to an eating-experiment orphanage set up in Chicago. An eventual total of 15 children participated; the 2 boys who were studied the longest were followed over a 4 1/2-year period: that is to say, the amount of every single thing eaten or spilled at every single meal over the first 4 1/2 years of their eating life was assiduously recorded. To this was added records of changes in height and weight, the nature of bowel movements, and regular bone radiographs and blood tests. Davis reported that the experiment had generated somewhere between 36 000 and 37 500 (she was inconsistent on the figure) daily food records.
That’s really incredible. But the article goes on to note that Davis’s scholarly paper documenting her findings was:
. . . .in many ways an embarrassment. What Davis did was to tell what she found. There are absolutely no graphs, no charts, no individual breakdowns of any sorts for any of the children. It’s a summary paper of an Everest of data with next-to-no data in it.
It’s not that she never published statistics; a 1928 paper,5 which she wrote when only 3 children were in the experiment for about a year, includes several graphics. But 3 boys is less an experiment than an extended anecdote.
Why, then, you may ask, is the CMAJ article such an empty plate? Davis never said, but my theory is that . . . .she had been overwhelmed by the immensity of her data set.
Yes, it’s possible Davis was overwhelmed by her data. But it’s also possible she didn’t have the data to support her surprising findings. Unfortunately, though, we’ll never know, because, according to the 2006 article, “sometime between 1959 (when Davis died) and 2000, all of those boxes of data from her experiment were pitched.”
Schatzker may have more information about the 1939 toddler study in The Dorito Effect, which I’m looking forward to reading at any rate. If he does, I’ll certainly share the information here. But, in the meantime, what do you think? As parents, do you think it’s plausible that toddlers, if left entirely to their own devices, would instinctively choose the diet that’s nutritionally ideal for them? Or do you think there would be kids who, even if presented only with a healthful array of foods (as Davis’s study subjects were), would still lean heavily on some food groups and ignore others to their nutritional detriment?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below.
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mommm!!!! says
I’m actually not surprised. Keep in mind that heavily processed and hyper flavor foods didn’t exist back then. We have no idea just how many chemicals are actually in processed foods as well no idea exactly what each individual chemical does.
And I’ve been trying to convey this for a very long time (even in old posts here)….but the artificial hyper flavorings in processed foods, in my opinion, are just as bad as all the other chemicals and just as bad as the copious amounts of sugar added to these products. It’s not a one and done effect. It conditions the taste buds over time and it’s a compounding effect.
I was where you are about 5 years ago, where I thought if I could just keep these products to a minimum it would fine. Moderation, right? But really what happens is it just keeps reinforcing bad habits and the battle in the kitchen about what food my kid is going to eat. They go to school with a packed lunch and trade things away for the processed garbage. They come home and sneak something foul right before dinner because it’s there. It’s like living with a heroin addict and keeping just ONE packet of heroin in your house and expecting that person to never go near it when they aren’t supposed to. Would you do that? Obviously not. So I stopped buying that crap altogether a few years ago. If I didn’t make it myself, as far as sweets or junk food goes (think chips or cookies) it’s simply not in my house. Processed food…now….consists of certified organic cereal. And that’s it. Easter comes…I make everything edible that goes in that basket. Christmas comes….same thing with the exception of a box of chocolates in the stockings.
My kid had a science project at school where we had to bring processed foods to school (goldfish crackers, doritos, fruit snacks, luck charms, etc) so they could light them on fire in class. I had to go buy something because there was literally nothing in the house that qualified. My kid and I had a real eye opener that day because neither of us missed any of it all this time and we were like “wow”. lol!