Lynton:
>I am interested: just exactly how many calories should everybody eat?
>Lets have a few opinions on this...

Tom:
Long term, one needs to eat calories that approximate your energy
expenditure. Calories burned are measured using respirator
calorimeters, and/or the doubly-labelled water technique.

The calories one requires will vary by age, gender, body size,
activity level, and special health conditions. For the details,
check the references cited in part 1d of the article,
"Assessing Claims and Credibility in Raw and Alternative Diets", at:

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/claims-cred-1d.shtml

The reference list is at the end of the article. The section cited
above discusses how to use calories to assess raw diet gurus.

By the way, one of the standard refs cited in the above article
(National Research Council) suggests a range of energy intakes
from 1900-2900 calories per day for adults.

Tom Billings