Nutrient-to-Calorie Ratios in Applied Nutrition

Abstract

This paper discusses the desirability of expressing the nutrient requirements of man and animals relative to their associated energy intake, and proposes a format for expressing a dietary standard for humans. Caloric needs are known to vary with size, activity, and productive performance. There is agreement that most of the nutrients quantitatively considered in diet or ration formulation should remain in balance with each other and with energy, for optimal food efficiency. Many nutritionists believe that it is not possible to state the requirements for individual nutrients without also specifying the amounts of others also to be ingested. In the case of nutrients that must be stored in the body, as during growth, the ratio to energy intake changes progressively to the final adult equilibrium status. In the case of the human, one adult, and 3 juvenile “diet” categories appear to be adequate, within each of which the interbalances between nutrients and that between nutrients and energy are constant. Within these 4 categories, adequate daily nutrition can be accomplished by adjustments in the intake of the diet as a whole.