Jim Swayze wrote:

>Ken > Beef muscle is a foreign protein.   Is that automatically unhealthy ?
>
>I beg to differ that beef muscle is a foreign protein.  The body of every human being on earth knows well what to do with it.  And, no, it's not automatically unhealthy.  But too much of it can be -- you only need between about 60 and 100 grams of protein a day.  Also it can be unhealthy if it's from a grain-fed, hormone-laced, overweight, bloated cow.
>
>

The problem is with the term "foreign protein."  That term has a precise
immunological meaning, which is, very simply "not self."  In the
scientific sense of the term, then, beef protein is unquestionably
foreign to the human body.  For that matter, the proteins from another
human being are identified as foreign by the immune system, which is why
the rejection of transplanted organs or tissues is a problem that must
be handled.

On this list, we have an idiosyncratic use of the term "foreign
protein," which originated, I think, with Ray Audette's use of the term
in _Neanderthin_.  In this idiosyncratic sense, we call a protein
"foreign" if it was foreign to what we believe to have been the actual
paleolithic menu.  The matter is further clouded by the fact that Ray
uses that term in the context of a speculative immunological theory that
what's bad about "foreign" (in the idiosyncratic sense) proteins is that
they cause *auto-immune* diseases, which he believes obesity and heart
disease (for example) to be.  This phenomenon of molecular mimicry is
well documented; the speculative part is the notion that it's the root
of all or most of the diseases of civilization.

Anyway, the bottom line is that *all* food proteins are "foreign" unless
you are practicing auto-cannibalism.  Although that would certainly be a
novel approach to nutrition ("You are what you eat, and you eat what you
are!"), I think I lack the discipline to follow it for very long.

Todd Moody
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