What is your source of proteins?
What is your source of proteins?
Ron, I was emailed the following from the Rip Esselstyn emersion group:
Can I get enough protein eating a plant-based diet?
Not only will you get all the protein you need, for the first time in your life you won't suffer from an excess of it. Ample amounts of protein are thriving in whole, natural plant-based foods. For example, spinach is 51 percent protein; mushrooms, 35 percent; beans, 26 percent; oatmeal, 16 percent; whole wheat pasta, 15 percent; corn, 12 percent; and potatoes, 11 percent.
What's more, our body needs less protein than you may think. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the average 150-pound male requires only 22.5 grams of protein daily based on a 2,000 calorie a day diet, which means about 4.5 percent of calories should come . (WHO recommends pregnant women get 6 percent of calories from protein.) Other nutritional organizations recommend as little as 2.5 percent of daily calories come from protein while the U.S. Food and Nutrition Boards recommended daily allowance is 6 percent after a built-in safety margin; most Americans however, are taking in 20 percent or more.
Doctors from my father to Dean Ornish to Joel Fuhrman, author of the best selling Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (Little, Brown), all suggest that getting an adequate amount of protein should be the least of your calories. Look around you and tell me the last time you saw someone who was hospitalized for a protein deficiency. Or look around in nature, where you will notice that the largest and strongest animals, such as elephants, gorillas, hippos, and bison, are all plant eaters.
Also, the type of protein you consume is as important as the amount. If you are taking in most of your protein from animal-based foods, you're getting not only too much protein, but also an acid-producing form that wreaks havoc on your system.
Why is protein so potentially harmful? Because your body can store carbohydrates and fats, but not protein. So if the protein content of your diet exceeds the amount you need, not only will your liver and kidneys become overburdened, but you will start leaching calcium from your bones to neutralize the excess animal protein that becomes acidic in the human body.
That's why, in the case of protein, the adage "less is more" definitely applies. The average American consumes well over 100 grams daily-a dangerous amount. But if you eat a plant-strong diet, you'll be getting neither too much nor too little protein, but an amount that's just right.
Are plant proteins complete proteins?
Plant proteins are as complete as complete can be.
The myth that they're not, or are of a lesser quality than animal proteins, dates back to experiments preformed on rats in the early 1900s. Forget the fact that rats aren't humans, have different nutritional requirements, and need more protein than humans to support their furry little bodies. The meat, dairy, and egg industries have marketed the **** out of this ancient research, and even in the year 2009 most every Dick, Tom and Jane thinks the only way to get complete protein is through meat, eggs, or dairy.
In reality, proteins are composed of chains of roughly twenty different amino acids. Of those, eight are found outside our body and must be absorbed from our food. These eight are the "essential" amino acids. The remaining acids are 渡onessential because they can be synthesized by our bodies themselves.
Plants supply all the essential and nonessential amino acids. All of them. While some plants may be low in (not missing) one amino acid and other plants may be higher in another, your brilliant body sorts it all out and, at the end of the day, complements your amino-acid profile so it is perfectly balanced. In so doing, it creates a high-quality protein that is healthier, safer, and better than animal protein.
Thus, there is absolutely no need to combine certain plant proteins at each meal in an attempt to achieve an optimal amino acid balance. Unfortunately, the protein-combination myth continues to be perpetuated by any number of respected organizations. But the American Dietetic Association gets it right. Its position statement reads: "Plant sources of protein alone can provide adequate amounts of the essential and non-essential amino acids, assuming that dietary protein sources from plants are reasonably varied and that caloric intake is sufficient to meet energy needs. Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, seeds, and nuts all contain essential and non-essential amino acids."
