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Protein and Propaganda
by Michael Dye
Protein is by far the most widely discussed and publicized nutritional
requirement of our body.
With all this information available about protein, you might assume that
people are pretty well informed on the subject.
Wrong.
The average American consumes over 100 grams of protein a day, three to
five times as much as experts now say is necessary. We all know that
protein is an essential nutrient, but what most of us have not been told is
that excessive amounts of indigestible protein can be hazardous to our
health.
The dangers of a high-protein diet are not commonly known by the general
public because we have been fed more misinformation and propaganda about
protein than any other category of nutrition. A combination of badly
outdated animal experiments and self-serving indoctrination disguised as
nutritional education has left most people badly misinformed about our
body's protein needs.
Several generations of school children and doctors were taught
incorrectly that we need meat, dairy and eggs for protein. The meat, dairy
and egg industries funded this "nutritional education" and it
became U.S. government policy. Much of the evidence used to
support the claim that animal products are ideal for meeting human protein
needs was based on a now discredited experiment on rats conducted in 1914.
Experts in the field of nutrition and medical science have drastically
changed their thinking about human protein needs since that infamous rat
study 80 years ago, but this updated knowledge has been very slow to reach
the public.
So, in an effort to fill this wide gap of information as concisely as
possible, here is a six-point summary of what we should know about protein.
Every one of these six points will come as a surprise to the average adult
whose knowledge about protein is limited to what was taught several decades
ago in school.
The medical and nutritional establishment has been slow to accept
evidence contrary to the status quo of self-serving "nutritional
education" promoted by major commercial influences, especially the
meat and dairy industry. But facing the facts has forced doctors and
nutritionists to steer more and more people away from animal products
(cholesterol, saturated fat, mucous, zero fiber, etc.) and to more fresh
fruits and vegetables. It has been interesting to observe over the years
how expert opinions and official policies have changed, sometimes
reluctantly, in the area of health and nutrition. For example, on the
subject of protein:
1) Modern research has shown that most people have more to be
concerned about medical problems caused by consuming too much protein,
rather than not getting enough. Protein is an extremely important
nutrient, but when we get too much protein, or protein that we cannot
digest, it causes problems. In Your Health, Your Choice, Dr. Ted
Morter, Jr. warns, "In our society, one of the principle sources of
physiological toxins is too much protein."
It may come as quite a shock to people trying to consume as much protein
as possible to read in major medical journals and scientific reports that
excess protein has been found to promote the growth of cancer cells and can
cause liver and kidney disorders, digestive problems, gout, arthritis,
calcium deficiencies (including osteoporosis) and other harmful mineral imbalances.
It has been known for decades that populations consuming high-protein,
meat-based diets have higher cancer rates and lower life-spans (averaging
as low as 30 to 40 years), compared to cultures subsisting on low-protein
vegetarian diets (with average life-spans as high as 90 to 100 years).
Numerous studies have found that animals and humans subjected to
high-protein diets have consistently developed higher rates of cancer. As
for humans, T. Colin Campbell, a Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell
University and the senior science advisor to the American Institute for
Cancer Research, says there is "a strong correlation between dietary
protein intake and cancer of the breast, prostate, pancreas and
colon." Likewise, Myron Winick, director of Columbia University's
Institute of Human Nutrition, has found strong evidence of "a
relationship between high-protein diets and cancer of the colon."
In Your Health, Your Choice, Dr. Morter writes, "The paradox
of protein is that it is not only essential but also potentially
health-destroying. Adequate amounts are vital to keeping your cells hale
and hearty and on the job; but unrelenting consumption of excess dietary
protein congests your cells and forces the pH of your life-sustaining
fluids down to cell-stifling, disease-producing levels. Cells overburdened
with protein become toxic."
Writing in the Sept. 3, 1982 issue of the New England Journal of
Medicine, researchers Dr. Barry Branner and Timothy Meyer state that
"undigested protein must be eliminated by the kidneys. This
unnecessary work stresses out the kidneys so much that gradually lesions
are developed and tissues begin to harden." In the colon, this excess
protein waste putrefies into toxic substances, some of which are absorbed
into the bloodstream. Dr. Willard Visek, Professor of Clinical Sciences at
the University of Illinois Medical School, warns, "A high protein diet
also breaks down the pancreas and lowers resistance to cancer as well as
contributes to the development of diabetes."
Anyone successfully indoctrinated by the meat and dairy industry's
nutritional education would be puzzled by the numerous studies finding
osteoporosis, a calcium deficiency that makes the bones porous and brittle,
is very prominent among people with high consumption of both protein and
calcium. For example, the March 1983 Journal of Clinical Nutrition
found that by age 65, the measurable bone loss of meat-eaters was five to
six times worse than of vegetarians. The Aug. 22, 1984 issue of the Medical
Tribune also found that vegetarians have "significantly stronger
bones."
African Bantu women average only 350 mg. of calcium per day (far below
the National Dairy Council recommendation of 1,200 mg.), but seldom break a
bone, and osteoporosis is practically non-existent, because they have a
low-protein diet. At the other extreme, Eskimos have the highest calcium
intake in the world (more than 2,000 mg. a day), but they suffer from one
of the highest rates of osteoporosis because their diet is also the highest
in protein.
The explanation for these findings is that meat consumption leaves an
acidic residue, and a diet of acid-forming foods requires the body to
balance its pH by withdrawing calcium (an alkaline mineral) from the bones
and teeth. So even if we consume sufficient calcium, a high-protein,
meat-based diet will cause calcium to be leached from our bones. Dr. John
McDougall reports on one long-term study finding that even with calcium
intakes as high as 1,400 mgs. a day, if the subjects consumed 75 grams of
protein daily, there was more calcium lost in their urine than absorbed
into their body. These results show that to avoid a calcium deficiency, it
may be more important to reduce protein intake than to increase calcium
consumption.
In his 1976 book, How to Get Well, Dr. Paavo
Airola, Ph.D., N.D., notes we "have been brought to believe that a
high protein diet is a must if you wish to attain a high level of health
and prevent disease. Health writers and 'experts' who advocated high
protein diets were misled by slanted research, which was financed by dairy
and meat industries, or by insufficient and outdated information. Most
recent research, worldwide, both scientific and empirical, shows more and
more convincingly that our past beliefs in regard to high requirements of
protein are out-dated and incorrect, and that the actual daily need for
protein in human nutrition is far below that which has long been considered
necessary. Researchers, working independently in many parts of the world,
arrived at the conclusion that our actual daily need of protein is only 25
to 35 grams (raw proteins being utilized twice as well as cooked)... But
what is even more important, the worldwide research brings almost daily
confirmation of the scientific premise... that proteins, essential and
important as they are, CAN BE EXTREMELY HARMFUL WHEN CONSUMED IN EXCESS OF
YOUR ACTUAL NEED." Dr. Airola continues: "The metabolism of
proteins consumed in excess of the actual need leaves toxic residues of
metabolic waste in tissues, causes autotoxemia, overacidity and nutritional
deficiencies, accumulation of uric acid and purines in the tissues,
intestinal putrefaction, and contributes to the development of many of our
most common and serious diseases, such as arthritis, kidney damage,
pyorrhea, schizophrenia, osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, and
cancer. A high protein diet also causes premature aging and lowers life
expectancy."
2) It is easier to meet our minimum daily protein requirements
than most people would imagine... with just fruits and vegetables.
Because much of what experts once believed about protein has been proven
incorrect, U.S. government recommendations on daily protein consumption
have been reduced from 118 grams to 46 to 56 grams in the 1980's to the
present level of 25 to 35 grams. Many nutritionists now feel that 20 grams
of protein a day is more than enough, and warn about the potential dangers
of consistently consuming much more than this amount. The average American
consumes a little over 100 grams of protein per day.
Drastically reduced recommendations for protein consumption are an
obvious indication that official information about protein taught to
everyone from school children to doctors was incorrect, but there has been
no major effort to inform the public that what we were taught has been
proven wrong. So there are large numbers of people with medical problems
caused by eating more than four or five times as much protein as necessary,
yet their misguided obsession is still to ensure that they get enough protein.
A good way of determining which foods provide sufficient protein is to
consider recommendations on the percentage of our total calorie intake that
should be made up of protein, and then determine which foods meet these
recommendations. These recommendations range from 2 1/2 to 8
percent. Reports in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition say
we should receive 2 1/2 percent of our daily calorie intake from
protein, and that many populations have lived in excellent health on that
amount. The World Health Organization established a figure of 4 1/2
percent. The Food and Nutrition Board recommends 6 percent, while the
National Research Council recommends 8 percent.
The 6 and 8 percent figures are more than what most people need, and the
higher percentages are intended as a margin of safety. But still, these
recommendations are met by most fruits and greatly exceeded by most
vegetables. For example, the percentage of calories provided by protein in
spinach is 49%; broccoli 45%; cauliflower 40%; lettuce 34%; peas 30%; green
beans 26%; cucumbers 24%; celery 21%; potatoes 11%; sweet potatoes 6%;
honeydew 10%; cantaloupe 9%; strawberry 8%; orange 8%; watermelon 8%; peach
6%; pear 5%; banana 5%; pineapple 3%; and apple 1%. Considering these
figures, any nutritionist would have to agree it is very easy for a
vegetarian to get sufficient protein.
Two reasons we have such low protein requirements, as noted by Harvey
and Marilyn Diamond in Fit for Life, are that, "the human body
recycles 70 percent of its proteinaceous waste," and our body loses
only about 23 grams of protein a day.
3) The need to consume foods or meals containing "complete
protein" is based on an erroneous and out-dated myth. Due to
lingering mis-information from a 1914 rat study, many people still believe
they must eat animal products to obtain "complete protein." And
for other people, this fallacy was replaced by a second inaccurate theory
that proper food combining is necessary to obtain "complete
protein" from vegetables. Both of these theories have been
unquestionably disproved, because we now know people can completely satisfy
their protein needs and all other nutritional requirements from raw fruits
and vegetables without worrying about proper food combining or adding
protein supplements or animal products to their diet.
In fact, the whole theory behind the need to consume "complete
protein" -- a belief once accepted as fact by medical and nutritional
experts -- is now disregarded. For example, Dr. Alfred Harper, Chairman of
Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and of the
Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, states,
"One of the biggest fallacies ever perpetuated is that there is any
need for so-called complete protein."
Protein is composed of amino acids, and these amino acids are literally
the building blocks of our body. There are eight essential amino acids we
need from food for our body to build "complete protein," and
every one of these amino acids can be found in fruits and vegetables.
(There is a total of 23 amino acids we need, but our body is able to
produce 15 of these, leaving eight that must be obtained from food.) There
are many vegetables and some fruits that contain all eight essential amino
acids, including carrots, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, corn,
cucumbers, eggplant, kale, okra, peas, potatoes, summer squash, sweet
potatoes, tomatoes and bananas.
But the reason we do not need all eight essential amino acids from one
food or from one meal is that our body stores amino acids for future use.
From the digestion of food and from recycling of proteinaceous wastes, our
body maintains an amino acid pool, which is circulated to cells throughout
the body by our blood and lymph systems. These cells and our liver are
constantly making deposits and withdrawals from this pool, based on the
supply and demand of specific amino acids.
The belief that animal protein is superior to vegetable protein dates
back to 1914 when two researchers named Osborn and Mendel found that rats
grew faster on animal protein than plant protein. From these findings,
meat, dairy and eggs were termed as "Class A" proteins, and
vegetable proteins were classified as an inferior "Class B." In
the mid-1940s, researchers found that ten essential amino acids are
required for a rat's diet, and that meat, dairy and eggs supplied all ten
of these amino acids, whereas wheat, rice and corn did not. The meat, dairy
and egg industries capitalized on both of these findings, with little
regard for the fact that nutritional requirements for rats are very
different than for humans.
It was discovered in 1952 that humans required only eight essential
amino acids, and that fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of all
of these. Later experiments also found that although animal protein does
speed the growth of rats, animal protein also leads to a shorter life-span
and higher rates of cancer and other diseases. There are also major
differences in the protein needs of humans and rats. Human breast milk is
composed of 5 percent protein, compared to 49 percent protein in rat milk.
To illustrate how ignorant "experts" can be, during the time that
high-protein diets were thought to be healthy, many experts felt it was a
mistake of nature that human females produced breast milk of only 5 percent
protein.
The "complete protein" myth was given another boost in 1971
when Frances Moore Lappe wrote Diet for a Small Planet. Lappe
discouraged meat eating, but promoted food combining with vegetable
proteins, such as beans and rice, to obtain all eight essential amino acids
in one meal. But by 1981, Lappe conducted additional research and realized
that combining vegetarian foods was not necessary to get proper protein. In
her tenth anniversary edition of Diet for a Small Planet, Lappe
admitted her blunder and acknowledged that food combining is not necessary
to obtain sufficient protein from a vegetarian diet. In fact, Dr. John
McDougall warns that efforts to combine foods for complete protein are not
only unnecessary, but dangerous, because "one who follows the advice
for protein combining can unintentionally design a diet containing an
excessive and therefore harmful amount of protein."
4) Protein is an essential part of our (living) body and there is
a difference between protein that has been cooked and protein in its raw
(living) form. We should realize that our body (which is made of
some 100 trillion living cells) is composed of 15 percent protein,
making protein the primary solid element in our body, and second only to
water, which composes 70 percent of our body. Protein is composed of amino
acids, and amino acids are made up of chains of atoms. These atoms that
make up amino acids that make up protein literally become the building
blocks for our body.
The problem is that cooking kills food and de-natures or re-arranges the
molecular structure of the protein, causing amino acids to become
coagulated, or fused together.
Dr. Norman W. Walker emphasizes there is a difference between atoms that
are alive and atoms that are dead. Dr. Walker says heat from cooking kills
and changes the vibration of the atoms that compose amino acids that
compose protein that compose our body. In a human body, Dr. Walker notes
that within six minutes after death, our atoms change their vibration and
are no longer in a live, organic form. So the difference between cooked and
raw protein is the difference between the life and death of the atoms that
make up 15 percent of our body.
Dr. Walker writes: "Just as life is dynamic, magnetic, organic, so
is death static, non-magnetic, inorganic. It takes life to beget life, and
this applies to the atoms in our food. When the atoms in amino acids are
live, organic atoms, they can function efficiently. When they are destroyed
by the killing of the animal and the cooking of the food, the vital factors
involving the atoms in the functions of the amino acids are lost."
You can see protein change its structure immediately when you drop an
egg into a hot frying pan. As soon as it hits the heat, the clear, runny,
jelly-like substance surrounding the egg yolk turns rubbery and white.
Protein is not the same substance before and after it has been cooked. In The
High Energy Diet video, Dr. Douglas Graham states "protein is
destroyed at 150 degrees." At this temperature, he says the chemical
bond and structure of protein is "denatured," and once this
happens, there is nothing we can do to "un-de-nature" protein.
But Dr. Graham sends a mixed message on the question of whether our body
can get absolutely no benefit from cooked protein, or whether we can
assimilate only a small amount of the protein in cooked food. He says both.
Shortly after saying protein is "denatured" and
"destroyed" by cooking, and that we "can't get any use out of
cooked food"... in the same video Dr. Graham states that "only a
small portion of that (cooked) protein is available to human beings."
In Living Health, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond send the same mixed
messages as to whether cooked protein is unusable or difficult to use. They
write that, "When cooked, amino acids fuse together, making the
protein unusable." The book also states, "Amino acids are
destroyed or converted to forms that are either extremely difficult or
impossible to digest."
So, we have three options on how we feel about the difference between
raw and cooked protein. We can believe that:
- our living cells
get no benefit whatsoever from the dead atoms and denatured protein of
cooked food;
- surely we must get
some small benefit from cooked protein, even if most of it ends up as
undigested protein that causes many medical problems (and even if we
don't understand how dead atoms can become the building blocks for our
living cells);
- or we can accept
orthodox medical and nutritional "wisdom" that still says
cooked, dead and denatured protein is just as healthy as living
protein from raw foods (and try not to think about the difference
between life and death in the food we put into our bodies).
The first position, which is advocated by Rev. George Malkmus, would be
considered the most radical by the medical and nutritional establishment.
(Remember, these experts are the same folks who -- not so long ago -- said
people couldn't get sufficient protein from fruits and vegetables, and once
recommended levels of protein now known to be a health hazard.)
The second position is a somewhat inconsistent compromise. But the third
position, which is currently official government policy, is actually the
hardest to defend. Perhaps when the evidence is more carefully considered,
this position will change, just as so many other official, orthodox
positions on nutrition have evolved. Evidence of the nutritional
superiority of raw foods has been available for decades, but information
that is contrary to commercial interests is slow to reach the public. For a
summary of this evidence:
- All animals in the
wild eat raw food, so wild animals kept in captivity have provided a
good means of comparing the merits of raw versus cooked food. In the
early 1900s, it was common for zoos, circuses, etc., to save money by
feeding captive animals restaurant scraps. But the mortality of these
animals was high and attempts at breeding them were not very
successful. When their diets were changed to natural, raw foods, the
health, life-span and breeding of the animals improved tremendously. A
study of this type at the Philadelphia Zoo was described in a 1923
book by Dr. H. Fox titled Disease in Captive Wild Animals and Birds.
- One of the
best-known studies of raw versus cooked foods with animals was a
10-year research project conducted by Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, using
900 cats. His study was published in 1946 in the American Journal
of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery. Dr. Pottenger fed all 900 cats
the same food, with the only difference being that one group received
it raw, while the others received it cooked.
The results dramatically revealed the advantages of raw foods over a
cooked diet. Cats that were fed raw, living food produced healthy
kittens year after year with no ill health or pre-mature deaths. But
cats fed the same food, only cooked, developed heart disease, cancer,
kidney and thyroid disease, pneumonia, paralysis, loss of teeth,
arthritis, birthing difficulties, diminished sexual interest,
diarrhea, irritability, liver problems and osteoporosis (the same
diseases common in our human cooked-food culture). The first
generation of kittens from cats fed cooked food were sick and
abnormal, the second generation were often born diseased or dead, and
by the third generation, the mothers were sterile.
- Much of the same
pattern can be shown in humans. In his 1988 book, Improving on
Pritikin, Ross Horne notes, "There is an association between
the cooking and processing of food and the incidence of cancer, and
conversely, it is a fact that cancer patients make the best recoveries
on completely raw vegetarian food... This shows that when vital organs
are at their lowest state of function, only raw foods make it possible
for them to provide the body chemistry to maintain health. It follows
then, that if raw food permits an otherwise ruined body to restore
itself to health, so must raw food provide the maximum benefit to
anybody -- sick or well."
In his 1980 book, The Health Revolution, Horne writes,
"Cooked protein is difficult to digest, and when incompletely
digested protein enters the colon it putrefies and ammonia is
formed." Horne quotes Dr. Willard Visek, Professor of Clinical
Sciences at the University of Illinois Medical School as saying,
"In the digestion of proteins, we are constantly exposed to large
amounts of ammonia in our intestinal tract. Ammonia behaves like
chemicals that cause cancer or promote its growth. It kills cells, it
increases virus infection, it affects the rate at which cells divide,
and it increases the mass of the lining of the intestines. What is
intriguing is that within the colon, the incidence of cancer parallels
the concentration of ammonia." Dr. Visek is quoted in The
Golden Seven Plus One, by Dr. C. Samuel West, as saying,
"Ammonia, which is produced in great amounts as a by-product of
meat metabolism, is highly carcinogenic and can cause cancer
development."
- Cooking food also
creates many types of mutagens, particularly with proteins.
"Mutagens are chemicals that can alter the DNA in the nucleus of
a living cell so increasing the risk of the cell becoming
cancerous," Horne explains. "Most mutagens seem to be formed
by an effect of cooking on proteins," according to Dr. Oliver
Alabaster, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Cancer
Research at the George Washington University, in his 1985 book, What
You Can Do to Prevent Cancer. Horne further quotes Alabaster's
book as stating, "Broiling hamburgers, beef, fish, chicken, or
any other meat, for that matter, will create mutagens, so it appears
to be an unavoidable consequence of cooking. Other mutagens are formed
by the action of cooking on carbohydrates. Even an action as innocent
as toasting bread has been shown to create mutagenic chemicals through
a process known as the browning reaction. This reaction also occurs
when potatoes and beef are fried, or when sugars are heated...
Fortunately, extracts of very few fruits and vegetables are mutagenic.
In fact, quite the contrary. Laboratory tests have demonstrated that a
number of substances in foods (including cabbage, broccoli, green
pepper, egg plant, shallots, pineapple, apples, ginger and mint leaf)
can actually inhibit the action of many mutagens."
- And the results of
personal experience from the many people who have switched to a mainly
raw foods, vegetarian diet are even more impressive than scientific
laboratory findings. Since Rev. George Malkmus healed his colon cancer
and other ailments 18 years ago by switching to a diet of raw fruits
and vegetables, he has led many others in the same direction. The
personal testimonials and letters of many of these people have
appeared in the pages of this newsletter... people who have recovered
from cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis,
obesity, abdominal pain and more. All this from something as simple as
a change to a vegetarian diet of mainly raw fruits and vegetables,
with an emphasis on freshly-extracted vegetable juice. (Juicing is
important because nutrients in raw vegetable juice can get to the
cellular level quicker and more efficiently with these nutrients
separated from the pulp, or fiber. This allows the time-consuming and
energy-consuming process of digestion to be avoided.)
But George Malkmus was not the first -- nor will he be the last --
person to get great results from converting people to raw foods. The
results obtained by Rev. Malkmus and Hallelujah Acres are
very consistent with others who have placed an emphasis on nutrition from
raw foods and freshly-extracted vegetable juice. Dr. Norman Walker was
seriously ill in his early 40s, but healed himself with the juices of raw
vegetables, and lived to be over 100 years old, writing his last book when
he had passed the century mark. And since the 1920s, the Gerson Therapy
developed by Dr. Max Gerson has obtained results with fresh vegetable
juices that have been unparalleled by orthodox medical practice.
"Incurable" diseases are being healed at the Gerson Clinic, such
as lung cancer, spreading melanoma, lymphoma, bone cancer, colon cancer,
breast cancer, brain cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer, multiple
sclerosis, severe asthma, emphysema, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, lupus
and more.
So, whether you consider scientific analysis or real-life experience,
there is strong evidence of the superiority of raw protein over cooked
protein. Scientific analysis of the distinction between the life and death
of atoms that become the building blocks of our body, the denaturing of
protein and the mutagens caused by cooking protein helps to explain
personal experiences of the many medical problems caused by excessive
amounts of indigestible, cooked protein, as well as the great results
people have seen by switching to a raw foods diet.
5) Cooked meat is not a good source of protein. The reason
cooked meat is not a good source of protein for humans is both because it
is cooked and because it is meat. Actually, cooked
meat is not a good source of protein for any animal (as laboratory tests
have shown).
And meat in any form is not good for humans. As noted by the Diamonds in
Living Health, we do not have a digestive system designed to
assimilate protein from flesh: We do not have the teeth of a carnivore nor
the saliva. Our alkaline saliva is designed to digest complex carbohydrates
from plant food, whereas saliva of a carnivore is so acidic that it can
actually dissolve bones. Humans do not have the ability to deal with the
cholesterol or uric acid from meat. The digestive tracts of carnivores are
short, about three times the length of their torso, allowing quick
elimination of decomposing and putrefying flesh. All herbivores have long
intestines, 8 to 12 times the length of their torso, to provide a long
transit time to digest and extract the nutrients from plant foods.
And all protein ultimately comes from plants. The question is whether we
get this protein directly from plants, or whether we try to get it
secondhand from animals who have gotten it from plants.
6) Eating meat -- or protein in general -- does not give you strength,
energy or stamina. One of the easiest ways to dispel the theory
that meat is required for strength is to look at the animal kingdom. It is
herbivores such as cattle, oxen, horses and elephants that have been known
for strength and endurance. What carnivore has ever had the strength or
endurance to be used as a beast of burden? The strongest animal on earth,
for its size, is the silver-back gorilla, which is three times the size of
man, but has 30 times our strength. These gorillas "eat nothing but
fruit and bamboo leaves and can turn your car over if they want to,"
the Diamonds note in Living Health. It would be hard to argue anyone
needs meat for strength.
And protein does not give us energy. Protein is for building cells. Fuel
for providing our cells with energy comes from the glucose and
carbohydrates of fruits and vegetables.
As pointed out by John Robbins in Diet
for a New America, many studies have shown that protein consumption
is no higher during hard work and exercise than during rest. Robbins
writes, "True, we need protein to replace enzymes, rebuild blood
cells, grow hair, produce antibodies, and to fulfill certain other specific
tasks... (But) study after study has found that protein combustion is no
higher during exercise than under resting conditions. This is why
(vegetarian) Dave Scott can set world records for the triathlon without
consuming lots of protein. And why Sixto Linares can swim 4.8 miles, cycle
185 miles, and run 52.4 miles in a single day without meat, dairy products,
eggs, or any kind of protein supplement in his diet. The popular idea that
we need extra protein if we are working hard turns out to be simply another
part of the whole mythology of protein, the 'beef gives us strength' conditioning
foisted upon us by those who profit from our meat habit." To
demonstrate how well-founded this position is in current scientific
knowledge, Robbins quotes the National Academy of Science as saying,
"There is little evidence that muscular activity increases the need
for protein."
Protein requires more energy to digest than any other type of food. In Your
Health, Your Choice, Dr. Ted Morter, Jr. writes: "Protein is a
negative energy food. Protein is credited with being an energy-producer.
However, energy is used to digest it, and energy is needed to neutralize
the excess acid ash it leaves. Protein uses more energy than it generates.
It is a negative energy source."
A 1978 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association
warns athletes against taking protein supplements, noting, "Athletes
need the same amount of protein foods as nonathletes. Protein does not
increase strength. Indeed, it often takes greater energy to digest and
metabolize the excess of protein."
Most athletes are not aware of this information on protein, but there
have been attempts to make this warning known. For example, George Beinhorn
wrote in the April 1975 issue of Bike World, "Excess protein
saps energy from working muscles... It has also been discovered that too
much protein is actually toxic. In layman's terms, it is poisonous...
Protein has enjoyed a wonderful reputation among athletes. Phrases like
'protein power,' 'protein for energy,' 'protein pills for the training
athlete'... are all false and misleading."
Robbins gives additional evidence for this claim in Realities for the
90's by naming some of the world's greatest athletes, all holders of
world records in their field, who happen to be vegetarians: Dave Scott,
six-time winner of the Ironman Triathlon (and the only man two win it more
than twice); Sixto Linares, world record holder in the 24-hour triathlon;
Paavo Nurmi, 20 world records and nine Olympic medals in distance running;
Robert Sweetgall, world's premier ultra-distance walker; Murray Rose, world
records in the 400 and 1500-meter freestyle; Estelle Gray and Cheryl Marek,
world record in cross-country tandem cycling; Henry Aaron, all-time major
league home run champion; Stan Price, world record holder in the bench
press; Andreas Cahling, Mr. International body building champion; Roy
Hilligan, Mr. America body building champion; Ridgely Abele, eight national
championships in karate; and Dan Millman, world champion gymnast... all
vegetarians.
That's a list that would surprise the average American, based on what we
have been taught to believe about protein and meat.
In summary, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that
practically everything we have been told about protein is wrong. We don't
need as much protein as we have been taught and consuming too much protein
is hazardous to our health. We don't need to eat "complete
protein." Our body needs protein from raw foods, because the building
blocks for our living cells need to be living instead of dead. Cooked
protein contains mutagens that are hazardous to our health, and some
nutritional experts say cooked protein is impossible or very difficult to
digest. Cooked meat is not a good source of protein. And protein has
nothing to do with strength, energy or stamina.
But protein is important. And our best source of protein is from the
same raw fruits and vegetables that provide all the other nutrients --
vitamins, minerals, enzymes and carbohydrates -- we need. The best way to
get all these nutrients, including protein, is to eat a well-balanced
variety of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. The percentage of calories
made up by protein in most fruits and vegetables is equal to or surpasses
that of human breast milk, which is designed to meet human protein needs at
our time of fastest growth. So don't let anybody tell you that you can't
get enough protein from fruits and vegetables.
When you consider the health problems caused by consuming too much
indigestible (cooked) protein, it should drive home the point that our body
is a living organism made up of living cells, and protein composes 15
percent of our body, therefore the protein we take in should be living
rather than dead. Consuming a high quantity of dead, cooked protein is
similar to taking mega-doses of synthetic vitamins that we cannot
assimilate. We would do better to focus on the quality, rather than
quantity, of nutrients, and ensure that the protein (and other nutrients)
we consume is in a natural, living form that our body can assimilate at the
cellular level and use to build healthy new living cells.
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