The Minnesota Experiment.

An admirable read and post catherinecherub, thank you.

I've often thought, if I'd been old enough to join the war effort and was a conciousness objector, I'd volunteer to go to the front line accepting any command that would involve assisting those poor guys who were prepared to kill or be killed.
I've never read of any conscientious objectors volunteering to involve themselves in any project at all.
I like to think there were surely some, who willingly committed themselves in dangerous tasks to assist the war effort.

I admire Marshall Sutton for his honesty and participation in the Project.

It's just such a pity the project came too late to help the survivors of the concentration camps.
But at least something positive emerged from it by way of the guide book the researchers released in their 1946 guide book for aid workers.

An excellent read

willie.

I don't think that when they set up the experiment that they knew about true horror of the concentration camps. The experiment was designed to work out how to reefed the civilian populations of Europe who had been subsisting on semi-starvation diets . The food was designed to reflect the diet of the population in war torn central Europe mostly potatoes, turnips, swedes, dark bread, and macaroni , very little protein and fat.
a interesting (and easy to read) paper here:
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1347.full
Apparently A Keys became worried about the ethical implications of his study
“Mrs. Keys said that Dr. Keys went through terrible times during the experiment as we lost weight and became gaunt and so on. And he would come home and say, ‘What am I doing to these young men? I had no idea it was going to be this hard.’ but most of the participants said that if the clocks were turned back then they would make the same decision to take part.
There's a longish talk by another ex participant here: http://www.epi.umn.edu/cvdepi/video.asp?id=4047