We don’t need nearly as much protein as we consume

What the body really needs is not processed foods, which are loaded with salt, sugar, and fat [0, 1]. Processed foods are what the world's largest food corporations need you to buy in order to generate profits that feed their businesses.

What the body needs is fresh foods - fruits, vegetables, grains, pulses, nuts and meat.

[0] https://www.penguin.com.au/books/salt-sugar-fat-978144813387...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATmXufOvIk

But protein is the macro nutritient which is least likely to get you fat, too much fat, you will gain fat if you don't work out and are in a calorie surplus, same for carbs. Too much protein is hard to achieve consistently and will give you flatulence, but not much else.

Too many scenarios and factors to sum up all in a one size fits all statement.

If someone is trying to lose weight, protein intake should be bit higher, to preserve the muscle tissue.

> A 2014 analysis of 36 papers found that protein supplements have no impact on lean mass and muscle strength during the first few weeks of resistance training in untrained individuals.

Seems like any difference you would see with a couple few weeks of training would be a rounding error? In my experience, any noticeable differences in muscle mass require months of training.

It makes the case that roughly 15% of calories is what we should be eating, which is the proportion in the average diet. The basis for this is the protein leverage hypothesis, which states that when protein falls below roughly 15% of our diet, we overeat to compensate. 15% of daily calories corresponds to 1.2g/kg/d, substantially more than the suggested 0.75g/kg/d from the BBC article.

I'm not sure that it's correct to say we eat too much protein for our level of exercise. It seems like it might be more accurate to say we exercise too little for our natural level of protein consumption.

That's all I really need to know. Of the big 3 macros, I "trust" carbs the least, then fat, then protein. There's bad carbs - sugars and simple starches, and bad fats - trans fats and long saturated fats, with cholesterol being iffy, but are there "bad proteins" outside of their associated fats?

Well, I learned recently I have low B12 levels via a blood test. B12 is found in meats, fish, and dairy. We'll see if supplementation reduces my carnivore desires.

Just a single data point but it seemed salient for the discussion.

According to some studies I should be fat or my muscles would grow as if I Was eating half the protein which is not the case.

This article is a convoluted joke, just like the rest of the nutritional science field. In few other fields can you find so many contradictory theories. Mainly due to the poor research methodologies.

> In the early 20th Century, Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson spent a collective five years eating just meat. This meant that his diet consisted of around 80% fat and 20% protein. Twenty years later, he did the same as part of a year-long experiment at the New York City’s Bellevue Hospital in 1928.

> Stefansson wanted to disprove those who argued that humans cannot survive if they only eat meat. But unfortunately for him, in both settings he very quickly became ill when he was eating lean meats without any fat. He developed "protein poisoning”, nicknamed “rabbit starvation”. His symptoms disappeared after he lowered his protein intake and he raised his fat intake. In fact, after returning to New York City and to a typical US diet with more normal levels of protein, he reportedly found his health deteriorating and returned to a low-carb, high fat, and high protein diet until his death aged 83.

This doesn't seem like an anecdote about too much protein, it seems like an anecdote about too little fat. Wikipedia's article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning confirms that this is the right interpretation, and mentions (as this article does, later) that there is no point at which you can get poisoned by too much protein consumption, as long as you are also consuming enough fat.

Wikipedia goes into more detail about the experiment at Bellevue. The two types of diets he was on were a) all meat, with fat and b) all lean meat (analogous to eating solely rabbits, which are naturally lean and have little fat, hence the name). Diet A was fine; diet B was not.

The article's phrasing "a typical US diet with more normal levels of protein" implies that the levels were higher than his previous diet, which caused him problems again. It seems pretty implausible for the standard US diet of the '20s and '30s to be higher-protein than either of these all-meat diets! And the article does mention he returned to a "high protein" diet. It seems like the more reasonable reading is that the important part was that his diet was "low-carb, high fat," which the typical US diet was and is not.

"Most experts agree with Tipton that protein is best consumed in food instead of supplements. But there are some exceptions, such as athletes who find it difficult to hit their daily protein targets, points out Graeme Close, professor of human physiology at Liverpool John Moores University. “I believe most need more than the recommended daily allowance, and there’s good evidence to support this,” he says. In this case, he says, a shake can be useful.

Another demographic who can benefit from extra protein? The elderly. That’s because as we age, we need more protein to retain muscle mass. But we also tend to eat less protein as we get older because our taste-buds begin to prefer sweet over savoury."

In my opinion there is no such thing as too much protein. You should have an estimate of how much calories you burn each day and eat accordingly. Supplements, like shakes, are just easier to consume since they're liquids, and some people have low appetite.

Most people should eat more protein and vegetables, but ditch any refined sugars, oils, processed food, and cook their meals instead of eating garbage snacks.