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Date: | Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:36:30 -0700 |
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Wes asked
> 1. According to several sources (that I've read), human
> mother's milk contains just 5% of its calories as protein.
> A human infant grows and develops rapidly aided by this
> small amount of protein. As adults, would it be safe to
> assume that we need no more than 5% of our daily calories
> as protein, and possibly even less (since we're not
> rapidly growing anymore)?
What I've read is that babies can get away with such a low amount
because a) they're getting perfectly tailored proteins, and b) they
have such porous guts that they absorb and can use nearly 100% of what
they ingest in the form of mother's milk. Adults are in a very
different boat. As you said, breast milk is a raw food; the cooked
proteins most adults eat can be damaged, so perhaps more is needed to
compensate. Also, adults have a less porous gut than babies have. So
maybe some folks do better with higher protein diets because they are
actually absorbing and benefiting from only a small percentage of what
they ingest.
> 2. A baby's natural diet (mother's milk) is raw. Would
> it be safe to assume that if a baby doesn't need to eat
> cooked food in order to thrive, then neither should we,
> as adults?
Although I am in favor of raw foodism myself, I don't think that this
argument is very sound. The baby/milk relationship is so special, so
tailor-made, that to compare it to any adult/food relationship is
unwise, in my opinion. Similar reasoning might lead one to think that
mother's milk is the perfect food for adults, but that is not the
case.
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