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 A combination of badly outdated animal experiments and self-serving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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