On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
> I agree for the case of a healthy kidney.
> I wanted to leave open what "more work" for the kidney means.
Well, we can leave it open, but meanwhile we have no reason to
suppose that this is creating a problem. That is, at even twice
RDA levels the kidneys appear to be working well within their
tolerances.
> As long as you tolerate the less concentrated proteins well, it's easy to
> increase the protein intake way above RDA
> (as I tried with sunflowers for some time).
But there is reason to think that one would *not* tolerate these
protein sources at these intake levels. For example, suppose I
want to get 115g of protein from sunflower seeds. To do so I
have to eat about 500g of them. That will also give me about
2800 kcal of energy. So far, so good. But I will also have to
ingest about 165g of omega-6 fat, while also getting only .35g of
omega-3. The w6:w3 ratio is 471:1 -- not exactly balanced.
Other seeds would be similar in this respect.
So yes, I could conceivably get my 115g of protein from seeds,
but in doing so I would have to sustain a truly massive omega fat
imbalance. Or I could eat a comparable amount of lean meat and
get about 1000 kcal of energy with a fairly balanced EFA ratio.
> Do you have more detailed information how much of NO and arginine would be
> desireable? I plan to run a database query on arginine.
From what I have read, optimum intake is between 3 and 6
grams/day. You would get it from the seeds, since seeds tend to
be pretty good sources of arginine. Other plant proteins are not
so good.
> >.. It's also very interesting that to achieve a balance
> >of insulin and glucagon, a substantial amount of protein is
> >needed, a lot more than what is needed simply to achieve nitrogen
> >balance.
>
> I suggest to introduce prolonged hours without eating, particularly
> prolonging the nighttime. By haveing dinner not too late and/or haveg no or
> a nor carbohydrate breakfast.
> If you look at the long hours of glucagon time and the amount of calories
> burned in this time, it should be a relative easy way to
> 1. get rid of calories
> 2. promote good eicosanoids.
I interpret this as another of the "costs" of a low-protein diet:
one must introduce the discipline of fasting to achieve a result
comparable to what eating animal protein would bring about.
> I'll also take a closer look on the sulphur amino acids which are more in
> animal proteins. The ideal protein contained a small amount of egg, at last.
> I think because of the rich supply of these AAs.
Well, there's more to be said about specific aminos. Carnitine,
for example, is needed for getting fatty acids into the cell for
fuel. If you're getting your protein from something like
sunflower seeds then you're also getting almost all of your
energy from fat, so you need carnitine to utilize it. But
there's no carnitine in plant foods, so you must make it. But
you make carnitine from glucose, and in your seed-based diet you
won't be getting much of that either. So you will have to use up
some of that protein to make carnitine so that you can burn the
fats that you are relying on for energy. Or you can eat some
animal protein with the carnitine already in it.
> >By avoiding animal
> >protein, you probably avoid using much protein as fuel, but I'm
> >unaware that there is any known advantage to this avoidance.
>
> Blood acidity.
Eating animal protein does not change the acidity of blood.
> The lower density plant protein brings with it not only problematic stuff,
> but also some goodies like phytosterols vitamins.. a lot of beneficial
> substances. Which look to me as the reason for the benefits of the
> mediterranean diet (with more vegetables).
I have no argument with this. There really is no good reason for
anyone to choose a meat-only diet. Even a rather lowcarb diet
like the Lutz plan provides plenty of room for low-density plant
foods with phytonutrients.
> For SAD persons the situation is worse: they eat 1 or 2 RDAs of protein as
> meat, and the rest often as "calories only" food - like sweets.
> Such items tend to cause vitamin undersupply, particularly with folate,
> thiamin, Vitamins C and K.
Absolutely. We can all agree that this sort of diet is
disastrous, but it's not an argument against eating meat. It's
an argument against eating crap.
Furthermore, it's not clear that SAD even contains that much
meat. Allan and Lutz comment on this with some recent USDA
statistics. Most Americans eat something like cereal or a bagel
or muffin for breakfast. Not many eat meat, and even eggs are
far less common than they once were. A SAD lunch may contain a
small amount of meat, typically in the form of a sandwich on a
bulky roll, accompanied by some potato chips and a soda. If a
generous portion of meat is to be eaten, it will probably be at
dinner, and even then it may be a modest amount, served with a
large amount of pasta, or rice -- something like "Hamburger
Helper".
> >If we look at the whole picture concerning proteins, and not just
> >the nitrogen balance tests, it's clear that there are more
> >reasons to consume animal protein than there are reasons to avoid
> >it.
>
> Nutritionally you may be right.
Yes, I'm speaking nutritionally.
> > Even though we are equipped to survive in conditions of
> >extreme protein scarcity, it doesn't seem like a good idea to
> >inflict such conditions on ourselves.
>
> But at least from time to time should be beneficial.
> Like short famine periods, definetely paleo.
I don't have any particular opinion on whether it is beneficial
to experience periods of low protein intake. Perhaps so. I do
not believe that one has to get a certain number of grams of
protein every single day, week after week, month after month. I
am only extending Peter Brandt's point about the way in which
animal protein makes it easier for human beings to *thrive*. For
this I think we need more protein than what those nitrogen
balance tests suggest, and to get that much protein from plant
sources is problematic. But animal protein does the job very
nicely. I believe this explains why human populations have
always gone to whatever lengths were necessary to obtain animal
protein, even in environments where they could seemingly "get
by" without it.
Todd Moody
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