Excess protein consumption

Protein, protein, protein, be sure and eat your protein!  What is protein anyway?

Per the American Heritage Dictionary, protein is “Any of a group of complex organic macromolecules that contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and usually sulfur and are composed of one or more chains of amino acids. Proteins are fundamental components of all living cells and include many substances, such as enzymes, hormones, and antibodies that are necessary for the proper functioning of an organism. They are essential in the diet of animals for the growth and repair of tissue and can be obtained from foods such as meat, fish, eggs, milk, and legumes.”

What they don’t tell you, and what most people don’t know is that there is protein in fruits and vegetables, and that there is a difference in how our bodies handle protein from animal products and from plant products.

Many people are familiar with the Atkins diet, where you are supposed to eat lots of protein, and very little of everything else.  What research is revealing from the many people that have been on that diet is that “too much protein – especially animal protein – can impair our kidneys; leach calcium, zinc, vitamin B, iron and magnesium from our bodies, and cause osteoporosis, heart disease, cancer and obesity.” Quoted from Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.

The Acid part

How does this happen?  Don’t we need animal protein? Yes, we need protein.  Animal protein however is acidic.  If your body is acidic, it will cause you to leach calcium from your bones, causing osteoporosis (see Voice of Choices November, 2007 for more information on the chemistry behind osteoporosis), too much protein will also put stress on our kidneys (from the acid) and can cause many other health issues as well.

The Toxic part

In addition to the acid issue, if you aren’t eating organic grass-fed animals, then you are also getting anti-biotics, hormones, pesticides (from the food the animals are fed) and steroids, just to name a few of the toxic elements these poor animals are bombarded with, which makes this problem even worse.  These toxic elements are now being linked to estrogen build-up in children causing abnormal menstrual cycles, weight gain, cancer and a whole host of other illnesses.

So yes, you can have animal protein, but eat it in small portions and do your best to purchase it from a reputable source.  This is getting easier as more and more farms are jumping on the healthy band wagon as customers are demanding nothing in the animal but what it is supposed to eat – grass.  If you want to get optimum protein that is not acidic, eat your vegetables.  Vegetables are a good source of protein, fiber, anti-oxidants, etc.

How much protein do we need?  Well this varies on which book or study you read – but the recommendation from several books quoted in this article is 20- 25 grams a day.  The American diet contains much more than this in an average day.

So if you eat a typical hamburger – it is about 26 grams of protein – that is as much protein as you are supposed to have all day!  This is acidic in your body.  If you are eating similar meals and/or snacks, you could be easily be eating over 100 grams of protein a day.  How is your body supposed to process that?  If you are a marathon runner, then maybe you could handle that amount of protein because of the extensive exercise, but the majority of people do not exercise near that much.

If you ate 1 cup of fruit salad- 1 gram protein, 1 cup of potato salad – 7 grams protein, 2 rye crackers – 2 grams protein. These are 80% alkaline, helping to pull acid out of your body.  This is a nice balance and where we like to see people eating once they are less acidic.

If you had a vegetable salad, (2 cups) with lettuce, celery, green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber – 2 grams protein and some avocado – 4 grams protein

This would be 100% alkaline producing!  This is a great start to help your body flush acid out of your body and start on a healthy path to optimum health.

(All of these numbers are from Your Health, Your Choice by Dr. Ted Morter, pg 228)

From Your Health, Your Choice, by Dr. Ted Morter, gg 128 “A 1974 report in the Journal of Nutrition stated; “subject given 1,400 mg calcium suffered a mean calcium loss of 84 mg when fed 142g of protein, but showed a calcium retention of 10mg when fed 47g protein…. The report also noted that when fruit and vegetables were increased by 50% at the same time the subjects were given greater quantities of protein, the calcium balance didn’t improve.  In other words, if you subject your system to intolerably high amounts of protein, no matter how much fruits and vegetables you eat, your body still can’t function normally.”

To understand this even more, you might want to read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II. This book compiles several comprehensive studies over the past 20 years in more than 2,500 countries and conclusively shows the link between diet and disease.  Basically what he shows is that in China, the majority of people eat mostly grains and vegetables, and they have very small amounts of cases of disease among this population – while the more well off, “rich” people who eat more meat, have much higher cases of illnesses such as cancer, heart disease diabetes and obesity.

Now there are cases where people don’t get enough protein.  I was vegan for over 12 years and many of the vegans/vegetarians I knew didn’t eat properly – It seemed they used it as an excuse to eat junk food.  A true vegan diet has plenty of protein from quality fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, without the junk food.  I don’t necessarily think that everyone should be vegan – that would depend on so many factors including lifestyle, blood type, and their health history.  What I do know for a fact is that if people stopped eating excessive protein, and started incorporating more vegetables into their diet, they would definitely lose weight, and be on a path to better health.

One tool that you might try, as many of my customers have, is to either purchase or get from the library some vegetarian cookbooks.  There are also several vegetarian magazines and a plethora of recipes on-line. Find some that have recipes that sound good to you, look at the pictures and ingredients. Remember that you can always add small portions of meat at any point to most of these recipes and you can always modify the recipes to be more to your liking, like putting in red peppers instead of green ones.  But the idea is give you some inspiration of flavors and textures that you might want to try.  I know it takes time to get into this, but the pay off for you and your family is so big – how can you afford not to do it?

I hear it all the time – I don’t like vegetables – but when I go to parties and take vegetable lasagna, or garlic green beans, even kids like them and they are always gone.  And remember the last party you went to that had a veggie tray?  How fast the veggies went?  People will usually eat them, they just hate cutting them up.  Start making some routines habits where you cut up vegetables with your kids – put them in plastic bags or containers in your fridge and have some dipping sauce.  Set aside one hour a week – where you can cut up your veggies or at least wash them and have them available in the fridge for easy access.  I make a large salad every week, then eat on it each day at work.  I add different nuts or seeds, almond/soy cheese, dried fruit, and maybe some chopped left over chicken every so often.  I always leave the carrots and celery in small 4-5 inch sticks so that I can grab them on the run, when I don’t have time to eat the whole salad.

Hopefully, this will educate you to the dangers of too much protein and some ideas on how to incorporate more vegetables and less protein into your diet.