From: abulsari@aton.abo.fi
Subject: The protein myth
Myth: protein
Organization: Abo Akademi University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 07:45:08 GMT


I got this from Michael Traub. This post is somewhat long.

	The  sixth key  to living  health is  the protein  myth.
Have  you ever  heard it  said that if you tell a big-enough lie
loud enough and long enough, sooner or later people will believe
you? Welcome to  the wonderful world of protein.   No bigger lie
has ever  been told  than the  one that  human beings  require a
high-protein diet to maintain optimum health and well-being.

	Chances  are you're  pretty  conscious  of your  protein
intake.  Why is  that? Some people are looking  for an increased
level of  energy.  Some  think they  need protein  to help  with
endurance.  Some  eat it for  strong bones.  Excess  protein has
the exact opposite effect in every one of those cases.

	Let's find a model of how  much protein you might really
need.  When  do you think  people are  in most need  of protein?
Probably when  they're infants.   Mother Nature  has provided  a
food, mother's milk, that supplies the infant with everything it
needs.  Guess how much of mother's milk is protein - 50 percent,
25 percent, 10  percent? Too high in every  case.  Mother's milk
is  2.38 percent  protein  at birth  and reduces  to  1.2 -  1.6
percent protein in six months.  That's  all.  So where do we get
the idea that humans need massive amounts of protein?

	No one  really has  any idea how  much protein  we need.
After ten years  of studying human protein  ingestion needs, Dr.
Mark Hegstead,  past professor of  nutrition at  Harvard Medical
School, confirmed the fact that most  human beings seem to adapt
to whatever protein  intake is available to  them.  In addition,
even people  like Frances  Lappe', who wrote  "Diet for  a Small
Planet",  which for  almost  a decade  promoted  the concept  of
combining vegetables  in order  to get  all the  essential amino
acids, now says that she was  incorrect, that people do not have
to combine  their proteins,  that if you  eat a  fairly balanced
vegetarian diet,  you will  get all the  protein you  need.  The
National Academy of  Sciences says that the  adult American male
needs  fifty-six grams  of protein  a day.   In a  repot by  the
International Union of  Nutritional Sciences, we find  that each
country has adult male daily protein requirements that vary from
39 to 110 grams per day.  So  really has any idea? Why would you
need all that protein? Presumably to replace what you lose.  But
you only lose a tiny amount  through excretion and respiration a
day.  So where do they get those numbers?

	We called the National Academy of Sciences and asked how
they arrived at  the figure of fifty-six grams.   In fact, their
own  literature says  we only  need thirty,  but they  recommend
fifty-six.   Now  they  also  say  that  excess  protein  intake
overworks the urinary tract and causes  fatigue.  So why do they
recommend even more  than they say we need?  We're still waiting
for a  good answer.  They simpy  told us they used  to recommend
eighty grams, but  when they decided to lower it,  they were met
with a huge public  outcry.  From whom? Did you or  I call in to
complain? Not likely.  The outcry came from vested interests who
earn their livelihood through the sale of high-protein foods and
products.

	What's the greatest marketing plan on earth? It's making
people think they'll  die unless they use  your product.  That's
exactly  what has  happened with  protein.   Let's analyze  this
correctly.   What  about the  idea  that  you need  protein  for
energy?  What does  your  body use  for  energy?  First it  uses
glucose  from fruits,  vegetables  and  sprouts.  Then  it  uses
starch.  Then  it uses  fat.  The  last thing  it ever  uses for
energy is protein.   So much for that myth.  How  about the idea
that protein helps  build the endurance? Wrong.   Excess protein
provides the  body with  excess nitrogen  which causes  fatigue.
Body builders all pumped up with protein are not known for their
marathon-running  abilities.   They're too  tired.   Well,  what
about  protein building  strong bones?  Wrong  again.  It's  the
opposite.   Too much  protein has  been  linked continuously  to
osteoporosis,  the  softening  and   weakening  of  bones.   The
strongest bones on the planet belong to vegetarians.

	I could give  you a hundred reasons why  eating meat for
protein is  one of the  worst things you  could do.  One  of the
by-products of protein metabolism is  ammonia, for example.  Let
me mention two points in  particular.  First, meat contains high
levels of uric  acid.  Uric acid is  one of the body's  waste or
excretory products resulting from the work of living cells.  The
kidneys extract uric acid from the bloodstream and send it on to
the bladder to  be passed out with  the urea as urine.   If uric
acid is not promptly and thoroughly  removed from the blood, the
excess builds  up in the  tissues of  the body, to  later create
gout and  bladder stones, not  to mention  what it does  to your
kidneys.  People  with leukemia are  usually found to  have very
high  levels of  uric acid  in their  bloodstream.  The  average
piece of meat has fourteen grains [sic] of uric acid.  Your body
can only  eliminate about 8  grains of uric  acid in a  day.  In
addition, do you know what gives meat its taste? Uric acid, from
that now dead  animal you're consuming.  If you  doubt this, try
eating kosher-style  meat before it's  spiced.  As the  blood is
drained out,  so is most  of the  uric acid.  Meat  without uric
acid has no flavor.  Is that what  you want to put in your body,
the acid normally eliminated in the urine of an animal?

	Moreover, meat  is teeming  with putrefactive  bacteria.
In case  you're wondering what  putrefactive bacteria  are, they
are colon germs.  As Dr.  Jay Milton Hoffman explained it in his
book, "The Missing Link in the  Medical Curriculum Which Is Food
Chemistry in Its Relationship to Body Chemistry, page 135: "When
the animal  is alive,  the osmotic  process in  the colon  keeps
putrefactive bacteria  from getting into  the animal.   When the
animal  is dead  the osmotic  process is  gone and  putrefactive
bacteria  swarm through  the walls  of  the colon  and into  the
flesh.  They  tenderize the meat." You  notice meat has  to age.
What ages or softens the flesh are the putrefactive bacteria.

	Other experts say of the bacteria in meat: "The bacteria
in meats  are identical  in character with  those of  manure and
more numerous  in some  meats than in  fresh manure.   All meats
become infected with manure germs in the process of slaughtering
and  the  number  increases  the longer  the  meat  is  kept  in
storage." Is that what you want to eat?

	If  you  absolutely must  eat  meat,  this is  what  you
should.   First,  get it  from  a  source that  guarantees  it's
pasture grazed,  that is,  a source  that guarantees  it doesn't
have  growth hormones  or  DES.   Second, drastically  cut  your
intake.  Make your new maximum one serving of meat per day.

	I'm not saying  that simply by not eating  meat you will
be healthy, nor  am I saying if  you do eat meat,  you cannot be
healthy.  Neither of  these two statements would  be true.  Many
meat eaters are  healthier than vegetarians simply  because some
vegetarians have  a tendency to believe  that if they  don't eat
meat, they can eat anything  else.  I'm certainly not advocating
that.

	But you  should know  you can  be healthier  and happier
than you are now  by deciding you no longer want  to eat off the
flesh  and  skin   of  other  living  beings.    You  know  what
Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac
Newton,  Voltaire, Henry  David  Thoreau,  George Bernard  Shaw,
Benjamin  Franklin,  Thomas  Edison,   Dr.   Albert  Schweitzer,
Mahatma Gandhi have in common? They were all vegetarians.  Not a
bad group of people to model, right?

	Are dairy  products any  better? In  some ways,  they're
even worse.   Every animal  has milk with  the right  balance of
elements  for  that  animal.   Many  problems  can  result  from
drinking  the  milk  of  other  animals,  including  cows.   For
example, powerful growth hormones in  cow's milk are designed to
raise a calf from ninety pounds at birth to a thousand pounds at
physical  maturity two  years  later.   By comparison,  a  human
infant  is born  at six  to  eight pounds  and reaches  physical
maturity at one  hundred to two hundred  pounds twenty-one years
later.  There is great controversy as  to the effect this has on
our population.  Dr.  William Ellis,  a great authority on dairy
products and how they affect  the human bloodstream, states that
if  you want  allergies,  drink milk.   If  you  want a  clogged
system, drink milk.   The reason, he states, is  that few adults
can  properly  metabolize  the  protein   in  cow's  milk.   The
principal protein in cow's milk is casein, which is what a cow's
metabolism needs for proper health.  However, casein is not what
humans properly  need.  According to  his studies,  both infants
and adults  have a  great deal  of difficulty  digesting casein.
His studies show  that, at least in infants, 50  percent or more
of  the  casein  is  not  digested.   These  partially  digested
proteins often enter  the bloodstream and irritate  the tissues,
creating susceptibility to allergins.  Eventually, the liver has
to remove all these partially digested cow proteins, and that in
turn  places  an  unnecessarily  heavy   burden  on  the  entire
excretory system, and on the  liver in particular.  By contrast,
lactalbumin,  the primary  protein in  human milk,  is easy  for
humans  to digest.   As  for drinking  milk  for calcium,  Ellis
states that  after doing blood tests  on over 25,000  people, he
found that those who drink three,  four, or five glasses of milk
a day had the lowest level of calcium.

	According to  Ellis, if  you're concerned  about getting
enough calcium,  simply eat plenty  of green  vegetables, sesame
butters, or  nuts - all of  which are extremely rich  in calcium
and easy for the body to use.  Also, it's important to note that
if  you consume  too much  calcium,  it can  accumulate in  your
kidneys  and  form kidney  stones.   Thus,  to keep  your  blood
concentration relatively low, your body rejects about 80 percent
of the  calcium you eat.  However,  if you are  concerned, there
are sources other than milk.  For example, turnip greens, weight
for weight, contain twice as much calcium as milk.  According to
many  experts,   most  people's   concerns  about   calcium  are
unwarranted, anyway.

	What's the main effect of milk on the body? It becomes a
clogging, mucus-forming mass  that hardens and clogs  and sticks
to everything inside the small  intestine, making the body's job
that  much  more   difficult.   How  about  cheese?   It's  just
concentrated milk.   Remember, it takes  four to five  quarts of
milk to  make one  pound of  cheese.  The  fat content  alone is
enough reason to limit its intake.  If you really desire cheese,
cut up a small amount in a  big salad.  That way you have plenty
of water-rich food  to counteract some of  the clogging effects.
For some, giving  up cheese sounds awful.  I know  you love your
pizza and brie.  Yoghurt? It's just as bad.  Ice cream? It's not
something that will  support you in being your  best.  You don't
have to  give up that wonderful  taste or texture,  though.  You
can put frozen bananas through a juicer to create something that
tastes and feels just like ice cream but is totally nurturing to
your body.  What about cottage cheese?  Do you know what a large
number of dairies use to thicken  their cottage cheese and cause
it to  stick together? Plaster  of Paris (calcium  sulfate).  No
kidding.  It's  allowed within  federal standards,  although its
use is against the law in  California.  (However, if the cottage
cheese is made in a state where it is allowed, it can be shipped
to California and sold there.) Can  you imagine trying to create
a clean, free-  flowing bloodstream -- and then  filling it with
Plaster of Paris?

	Why haven't we  heard these things about  dairy products
before?  For  many   reasons,  some  having  to   do  with  past
conditioning and  belief systems.  Another might  have something
to do with the fact that we (the federal government) spend about
2.5  billion dollars  per year  to handle  dairy surpluses.   In
fact, according  to The  New York  Times (11/18/83),  the newest
strategy  is a  government ad  campaign to  push the  additional
consumption of milk products, even though such ads are in direct
opposition  to  other  government campaigns  that  warn  of  the
hazards of  consuming too much  fat.  Government  warehouses now
bulge with 1.3 billion pounds of  dried milk, 400 billion pounds
of butter, and  900 million pounds of cheese.  By  the way, this
is not meant as an attack on  the dairy industry.  I think dairy
farmers  are some  of  the  hardest-working individuals  in  our
culture.  But  that does not  mean that  I will continue  to use
their product if I find it does  not support me in being my best
physically.

	I used to be just the way  you may be now.  Pizza was my
favorite food.  I didn't think I could  give it up.  But since I
have, I've felt so much better there's not a chance in a million
I'll ever  go back.  Trying to  describe the difference  is like
trying to describe the smell of a  rose to someone who has never
smelled one.  Maybe you should try smelling that rose before you
make a  judgment about  it.  Try  eliminating milk  and limiting
your intake of other dairy products for thirty days and judge by
the results you feel in your body.