Elsie Widdowson; Wartime Nutrition Expert

Elsie Widdowson, 93, whose nutritional research guided the British government’s food rationing during World War II. Born in London, Widdowson studied chemistry at Imperial College, which awarded her a doctorate. She earned a second doctorate at the Courtauld Institute of Biochemistry. In the 1930s, Widdowson teamed with one of her tutors, R.A. McCance, to show that nutritional tables then in worldwide use were substantially wrong. The two scientists worked together for 60 years, gradually changing the way the world assessed nutritional values and dietary deficiencies. Their discoveries about the effect on humans of inadequate salt and water greatly assisted the Allies’ North African campaign in World War II. The scientists developed comprehensive food composition tables that became the world standards. Using themselves and colleagues as guinea pigs, they experimented with a minimal diet based on readily available bread, cabbage and potatoes that would maintain fitness--the key guide for British rationing. At war’s end, she advised on the diet for emaciated survivors of Nazi death camps. On June 14 in Cambridge, England.