The diet was usually
below eight-hundred calories daily, of which protein and fat were less
than fifty calories.
Captives, who were able to earn a pittance by hard labor on labor
details or on the farm, could supplement their diet with an occasional
banana, egg, a few peanuts, or a few mongo beans.
A few captives raised small gardens growing vegetables for their own
use. As they ripened, the produce had to be carefully watched to
prevent theft. Some captives trapped stray dogs, some ate lizards,
grasshoppers and even earthworms.
With food from every available source, the daily diet rarely reached
one thousand calories. Fat and salt were almost never available.
Slow Starvation: Starvation, the scourge of the Orient for centuries,
devastated the captives held by the Japanese; it was not a starvation
bred of poverty, but starvation bred of brutality, sadism and neglect.
Murder would have been more humane; execution more legal. A slow,
tortured death, however, was more in keeping with the desire of the
Japanese to make the "Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor pay dearly
for having challenged 'Dai Nippon.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87