QUOTE : In 1983, I moved to San Francisco for my pediatric endocrine fellowship. I had no idea what awaited me in the pediatric ICU: three toddlers, eighteen months old, all on ventilators in congestive heart failure because their parents had placed them on a macrobiotic diet. These ostensibly well-meaning parents were trying to prevent their children from succumbing to the “toxins” associated with meats, oils, and dairy products, so instead they fed their tots grains, cereals, vegetables, and, of course, tater tots. As a result, their hearts ballooned and couldn’t pump from the lack of iron, vitamin D, and calcium.