On Mon, 13 Sep 1999, Catherine Tressider wrote:

> << That's 212 pounds of meat, which comes to about
>  .58 pounds per day.  It may be low by your standards and mine,
>  but by the standards of most of the world I think it's quite
>  opulent. >>
>
> I agree that by world standards that is opulent indeed.  Also, I read
> somewhere (sorry, can't recall where at the moment) that the right amount of
> meat a person should eat depends on the Lean Body Mass, which is different
> for everyone.

Actually, this remains a disputed point, one that Amadeus and I
have kicked around more than once on this list.  The formula that
you mention above is similar to that used by Barry Sears and the
Eades, both of whom rely on the work of J. Lemon to reach their
conclusions.  Lemon's claim is that ideal protein intake is a
function of LBM and activity levels.  The intake level that you
described, about .5g protein per pound of LBM, is what Lemon
considers adequate for a person whose activity levels are
relatively low.  For a highly active person (a professional
athlete in training, for example) he recommends twice that.
Others fall in between, depending on their activity levels.

Amadeus has frequently cited research (from German sources, I
believe) that indicate that the body cannot utilize more than
about 40g of protein for anabolic (cell growth and repair)
purposes, so that it is therefore useless to consume more.  It
has recently occurred to me that this claim actually coincides
rather closely with something else that Lemon asserts, namely
that we cannot utilize more than about 35g of protein *at a
meal*.  That is, according to Lemon, when we eat more than 35g of
protein at a sitting, our insulin response to the protein begins
to resemble our insulin response to carbs.  This is presumably
because we can't utilize the protein directly and must therefore
store it as fat.

If all of this is correct (and I am by no means certain of it)
then the most protein that a person could utilize in a day would
be about 175g, in 5 feedings of 35g over a 16 hour period,
allowing 4 hours between feedings.  For this one would need
something like 25 ounces of meat (assuming that all protein is
coming from meat, which is really not warranted), at about 7g
protein per ounce.

Working backwards, the average that Ray posted comes to about 65g
of protein per day.  This would be adequate protein for a
relatively inactive person whose LBM is 130 pounds.  To get a
rouch idea, if this were a man or woman at 15% body fat, he or
she would weigh about 153 lbs.  I don't have statistics, but my
sense is that this LBM value is on the small side for American
men and on the large side for American women.  As an overall
average, it might not be bad.

Todd Moody
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