Hi Mike, > 1) The wheat gluten is very different from our body protein and the immune > system can recognize it easily. But eating several meals a day containing > wheat just overworks the immune system which falls in tolerance and stops > fighting. (If I am mistaken correct me but this is the way I understood the > theory presented by Burger.) > 2) Meat protein is naturally occurring and larger amino acids may have been > present in our body due to occasional misdigestion. As long as those cases > are rare, no problem. But overeating domesticated meat everyday for month > or years, and those are the cases tumors showed up, also leads to an > tolerance of the immune system. So foreign amino acid chains are not > transported out of the body but stored which might cause cancer. The > tolerance might be reached even easier because of similarity to body > protein. That is way I understood Burger. With this kind of reasoning, all proteins would become carcinogenic... > So, if big enough cows milk protein parts can pass the intestines > to make trouble why not meat protein parts? Of course they do. I simply don't think that the largest proteins can pass, but partially digested proteins can certainly pass the intestine wall. But: 1) Cow's milk is certainly close to mother's milk, and yet causes allergies 2) Beef protein is close to our own protein and causes much less allergies So I think there is very little evidence that meat protein can harm the body. Our immune system is pretty well fine-tuned, to the point that finding compatible donors for organ transplants is sometimes difficult. If a *human* organ is rejected by our immune system, I don't see why beef protein could be stored by our cells and tolerated until they induce cancer. Anyway, even if it did, I don't think there is any problem if you rotate your foods. I personally rotate between beef, lamb, chicken, different kinds of fish, and vegetable "proteins" (like nuts, avocados, and occasionally sprouts). So, I might be exposed to beef protein for one week, but then, since I spend more than 1 month without beef, my immune system has enough time to clear the remaining proteins that might still be around. And non-mammal protein (chicken, fish, etc) is certainly much more different from our own than beef protein. Best wishes, Jean-Louis [log in to unmask]