How much food do people need to avoid death by starvation?
The only reliable figures on famine I have come across were those of postwar Germany, where an extremely impressive British rationing authority was monitoring an extremely impressive German authority. There as elsewhere there were leakages and black markets. However, during the Berlin airlift, June 1948 to May 1949, there was total control of imports, exercised by a hostile Soviet regime. All the food was flown in by the RAF and USAAF who kept accurate figures. The health of the inhabitants was constantly monitored. On 1550 calories in Berlin, the health and weight seemed to remain constant over the whole period. The original data is readily accessible in the National Archives at Kew. It looks as though sedentary adults can drop to 1200 calories for long periods and to 1000 calories for some months without a very large increase in deaths. Your body closes down and you sleep a lot. Ask around your office and ask who actually loses weight on a 1200 calorie diet. Note that in the Bengal F
