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Wilbur Olin Atwater
(3 May 1844 - 22 Sep 1907)
Atwater studied the
metabolism of mammals and was the first director
of the first state agricultural experimental laboratory
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“Food may be
defined as material
which, when taken into the body, serves to either form tissue or yield
energy, or both. This definition includes all the ordinary food
materials, since they both build tissue and yield energy. It includes
sugar and starch, because they yield energy and form fatty tissue. It
includes alcohol, because the latter is burned to yield energy, though
it does not build tissue. It excludes creatin, creatininin, and other
so-called nitrogeneous extractives of meat, and likewise thein or
caffein of tea and coffee, because they neither build tissue nor yield
energy, although they may, at times, be useful aids to nutrition.” (1905)
— Wilbur Olin Atwater

