Processed foods key to rising obesity 'Protein hunger' drive obesity study shows | Hacker News Reader

Processed foods key to rising obesity 'Protein hunger' drive obesity study shows

sciencedaily.com

20 pointspaulpauper13 comments

Most people aren't consuming nearly enough protein. The US recommended daily allowance for an adult male is only 56 grams per day, or 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56068/table/summarytab...

That is adequate to prevent acute nutritional deficiencies but is way too low for optimal health and athletic performance, especially if you're trying to recover from an injury or build muscle. Older people also need to consume more protein because our digestive systems get worse at taking in protein as we age.

https://peterattiamd.com/donlayman/

Most of us should be eating at least twice the RDA of protein. And not just any protein, but high quality protein with the right ratios of essential amino acids.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905294/

> Most of us should be eating at least twice the RDA of protein

We already do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/well/eat/how-much-protein...

> Most American adults eat about 100 grams of protein per day

I sincerely doubt this is true.

Author is conflicted in her goals http://www.sophieegan.com/

This is old, but

> Protein intake averaged...approximately 91 +/- 22 g/d in adults aged 19-30 y

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18469286/

Also

Men 20-50 averages more than 100g per day

https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400530/pdf/1112/Tabl...

The article is talking about time-of-day-dependent intake of protein affecting total daily calorie intake:

    "They then plotted energy intake versus the time of consumption and found that the pattern matched that predicted by the Protein Leverage Hypothesis. Those who consumed lower amounts of protein in their first meal of the day went on to increase their overall food intake in subsequent meals, whereas those who received the recommended amount of protein did not -- and, in fact, declined their food intake throughout the day."

It's like your body is extrapolating the amount of eating necessary for the day to get the needed total amount of protein based on the protein content in your first meal of the day.

Is there a safe upper limit for our kidneys and other organs?

You might start to get some kidney toxicity effects if you consume more than about 3 - 4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. In practice it's going to be difficult to get that much unless you're constantly pounding down supplements.

https://peterattiamd.com/strong-convictions-loosely-held-2/

“ Those who consumed lower amounts of protein in their first meal of the day went on to increase their overall food intake in subsequent meals, whereas those who received the recommended amount of protein did not -- and, in fact, declined their food intake throughout the day.”

I will wait to see the studies that validate this hypothesis. For now, I am skeptical.

I'm skeptical because most Americans (I realize this study was on Australians) already eat a decent amount of protein, and it's not coming from processes snack foods, it's from meat.

It’s the plasticizers and non-stick forever chemicals that are causing obesity and illness. The more processed the food, the more residues there are.

Is there any evidence for this? Processed foods contain all kinds of stuff. But I would gather frying an unprocessed egg in a teflon pan already collects similar amount of PFAS as some processed food product.

On the plastic packaging front I think you're right, although my local store packages all the unprocessed produce in plastic as well, so the phthalates might leach into unprocessed produce the same.

Of course the skin of the produce being intact might block some of these chemicals from penetrating the food completely. Which can't be said for any processed food.

For me it's hard to tell how much PFAS and Phthalates are where. I'm not convinced eating unprocessed solves this.

What processed foods usually do cause, which provably increases obesity and illness is insulin spikes. A smoothie will easily dump plenty of sugar in your bloodstream, while eating whole fruit won't.

Another problem is the nutritional value of produce. Most produce is transported way before it's ripe, the soil it's growing in is already depleted, the types of produce that are available are selected for looks over nutritional value.

If i buy tomatoes in Germany they're usually tasteless and/or sour. If I want to make a good pasta sauce I have to buy canned tomatoes from Italy. However the can has a plastic liner. While the tomatoes are packages in plastic.

Just from the taste I would surmise that the tomatoes that were canned when ripe in Italy will be better for me, but they did touch the plastic all the time from transport, to storage, to mouth.

But what about global warming?

Isn't rising sea levels more important than rising obesity levels?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com