Nevin Stewart Scrimshaw (January 20, 1918 – February 8, 2013) was an American food scientist and Institute Professor

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at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scrimshaw was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During the course of his long career he developed nutritional supplements for alleviating protein,

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, and iron deficiencies in the developing world. His pioneering and extensive publications in the area of human nutrition and food science include over 20 books and monographs and hundreds of scholarly articles. Scrimshaw also founded the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, and the Nevin Scrimshaw International Nutrition Foundation. He was awarded the Bolton L. Corson Medal in 1976 and the World Food Prize in 1991. Scrimshaw spent the last years of his life on a farm in Thornton, New Hampshire, where he died at 95.

Life

Scrimshaw came from New England, and spent the 1930s and 1940s there studying nutrition, especially protein combining, alongside his wife and fellow scientist, Mary Goodrich. In the 1950s and 1960s, they lived in

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

and India. They designed meals using local vegetables to fight against the scourge of

kwashiorkor Kwashiorkor ( , ) is a form of severe protein malnutrition characterized by edema and an enlarged liver with fatty infiltrates. It is thought to be caused by sufficient calorie intake, but with insufficient protein consumption (or lack of goo ...

. In Guatemala they used the combination of cottonseed flour with maize, while in India they combined peanut flour with wheat. His daughter is medical anthropologist and academic administrator

Susan C. Scrimshaw Susan Crosby Scrimshaw is an American scholar of medical anthropology and university administrator. She served as president of Simmons University, The Sage Colleges, and dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois Chicago. ...

Works

* 1968: (with John Everett Gordon) ''Malnutrition, learning and behavior'', MIT Press * 1968: (with Carl E. Taylor and John Everett Gordon) ''Interactions of nutrition and infection'', World Health Organization Monograph #57 * 1971: (with Alan Berg & David L. Call) ''Nutrition, national planning and development'', MIT Press * 1971: (editor with Aaron M. Altschul) ''Amino acid fortification of protein foods'', MIT Press * 1974: (editor with Moises Behar) ''Nutrition and agricultural development: significance and potential for the tropics'', Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, Plenum Press * 1975: (with Max Milner &

Daniel I. C. Wang Daniel I-Chyau Wang (；March 12, 1936 – August 29, 2020)https://news.mit.edu/2020/daniel-wang-professor-dies-0902) was an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wang received the SB (1959) and SM (1961) from ...

) ''Protein resources and technology'', Avi Publishing * 1982: (with Mitchel B. Wallerstein) ''Nutrition policy implementation: issues and experience'', Plenum Press

Awards and honours

* American Medical Association/Joseph B. Goldberger Award in Clinical Nutrition, 1969 * Institute of Food Technologists

Bor S. Luh International Award The Bor S. Luh International Award has been awarded every year since 1956. Before 2005, this award was named the International Award. It is given to an individual or institution that had outstanding efforts in one of the following areas in food t ...

, 1969 (known then as the IFT International Award)Institute of Food Technologists
List of IFT past award winners
Retrieved 29 May 2012. * member,

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, 1971 * American Society for Nutrition/Conrad Elvehjem Award for Public Service in Nutrition, 1976 * Bolton S. Corson Medal, 1976 * Fellow of the American Institute of Nutrition, 1985 * Bristol-Myers Award for Distinguished Achievements in Nutrition Research, 1988 * World Food Prize, 1991

References

External links

Works by and about Nevin S. Scrimshaw
on WorldCat {{DEFAULTSORT:Scrimshaw, Nevin S. 1918 births 2013 deaths American food scientists Harvard University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Tufts University faculty People from Massachusetts Scientists from Milwaukee People from New York (state) Academic staff of United Nations University University of Rochester alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Auxologists People from Thornton, New Hampshire Agriculture and food award winners Members of the National Academy of Medicine

Life

Works

Awards and honours

References

Further reading

External links