Animal protein-rich diets could be as harmful to health as smoking
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The benefits of being at one's peak strength are innumerable, but a fourfold increase in cancer risk is startling.
I assume a healthy balance would be to obtain a greater percentage of our intake from vegetable sources. But most of us are wired by evolution to enjoy the taste of animal protein much more than other sources.
Perhaps a foray into endurance sports is in order.
Get a George Foreman grill. Eat mor seafood. Shrimp and veggies go great together.
Also, veggies are just an excuse to eat garlic. Put garlic in your meat. Put garlic in your ice cream. Take garlic pills. And eat blueberries and broccoli if you're worried about cancer. Garlic is nature's formaldehyde.
My doctor has always told me a daily serving of meat is about the size of a deck of playing cards. Shrimp help's me maximize the flavor and fat in that serving. That's about how much shrimp I mix into my giant bowl full of veggies and it fills me up and tastes delicious.
Switching from a low-protein to high-protein diet has had the most dramatic positive effect on my health and fitness I've seen in my short 35 years on this earth.
For most of my life I basically got no real protein in my diet -- cereal for breakfast, pasta for dinner, etc. I was always just a bit out of shape, and no matter how much time I spent at the gym I saw minimal improvements.
A few years ago I was inspired by a weightloss thread on reddit and "rebooted" my eating and fitness. Started running, dumped my carb-heavy diet and moved to a high-protein diet -- Greek yogurt, lots of chicken, cheese, etc.
I've lost 30 lbs and am seriously in better shape than I've ever been. My exercise level went up, sure, but the dramatic change came from my diet reboot.
So frankly, even if this were true, I'd rather live the life I've got now than go back to the low-protein lethargy of my 20s.
http://www.naturalmedicineconsultations.com/45-your-brain-ne...
The fats are so important and good to your body and brain, that when you eat a lots of healthy fats (and I mean lots) your body and your brain are "high", feeling well, thinking better and increasing your physical performance.
Eating lots of fats and vegetables, medium to high in proteins, and low on carbs (or zero if possible) its the best and healthiest way to live.
An healthy diet is of course as important, but really can't say I experienced that much of a difference between low-carbs/low-fats/low-calories diets, in terms of effectiveness (they all work, if you exercise and stick to them) and general well-being.
You know both of your examples contain protein right? Pasta contains plenty of protein. Potatoes contain plenty of protein. This bizarre notion that the only way to get protein is from meat is complete nonsense.
Pasta = Around 13g protein per 100g (371 calories)
Potatoes = Around 2g protein per 100g (77 calories)
The chicken contains twice as much, for not far off 50% less calories. Add in the fact that the chicken will probably also make you feel fuller for longer - chicken is near enough 0% carbs, versus the pastas 25% carbs, makes eating a chicken breast seem like a more logical choice than a bowl full of pasta to me.
You'd need to eat a hell of a lot of potatoes to get a decent quantity of protein and don't even start me on the modern monstrosity that is cereal.
Most of the protein in the pasta comes from animals anyway...a key ingredient being egg, after all.
why do you think this matters. their study studies the relation between protein and longevity.
> People that are actually eating paleo aren't just eating any animal protein. And that makes a big difference.
the article indicates that the causal link is related to IGF-1 levels. what does protein "quality" have to do with this, or longevity in general?
The article states:
Teasing out the health effects of individual nutrients is notoriously difficult. The apparently harmful effects of a high-protein diet might be down to one or more other substances in meat, or driven by lifestyle factors that are more common in regular red meat eaters versus vegetarians. Other factors can skew results too: a person on the study who got ill might have gone off their food, and seen a proportional rise in the amount of calories they get from protein. In that case, it would be the illness driving the diet, not the other way round.
And a lot Americans who consume red meat prepare it in a way that are known to form heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known to cause cancer in animals.
Maybe the type of animal protein doesn't matter but if you don't look specifically at these issues you're apt to reach conclusions that are way too broad (ie animal proteins are bad). I don't think it's sensible to sound the alarm about animal protein before you have a study that factors for which animal proteins are being consumed.
One interesting thing to ponder in light of this study is the Okinawa region of Japan. It has a very high age expectancy (one of the highest in the world) and I believe a much higher than average protein intake, a lot of which comes from seafood. So I think it's folly to just look at protein intake without looking at the source of the protein and the overall composition of the diet. Things are usually more complex than we'd like them to be.
It's entirely possible that the negative association with protein has a lot more to do with the over-consumption of certain types of meat.
If you live off of nothing but bacon as your source of protein, I'd argue the sodium and cholesterol in your average variety processed bacon are likely to be very dangerous for your health long term. Versus getting your protein from high quality whey or salmon. Did this study control for the source of the protein?
Pork fat is among the healthiest of all animal fats (and better than pretty much everything except avocado and olive oil). You can see its chemistry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lard
The link between dietary cholesterol and blood serum cholesterol is not well established. And sodium is typically not bad for you unless you have complicating issues.
Salmon is great for you, especially if it's wild and therefore not fed crap. The research (e.g. http://www.jle.com/e-docs/00/04/61/1C/article.phtml) is beginning to show that our omega-6 to omega-3 ratio has gotten out of whack.
Simply put: we're eating too much crap with cheap, processed, plant oil derived omega-6 that blows away the amount of omega-3 we are eating.
Eat more pork fat, eat more butter, eat more salmon, eat more tuna. For plants, eat more olive oil, coconut oil, and avocados. Stop eating stuff that comes in shrink wrap.
A beef steak and a salmon steak are not the same.
Animals that evolved to eat grains, such as chickens, convert calories much more efficiently.
Unless the cost of beef can be adjusted to include all the negative externalities that its production entails (topsoil loss, water and air pollution from fertilizers, pesticides, manure, and diesel fuel, antibiotic resistant super-bugs, public health threats from unsanitary slaughterhouse practices, etc) then meat producers and consumers will benefit from cheaper prices while the environment suffers.
Only if you consider the truth ridiculous. It's simple biological physics. There are inefficiencies in energy transfer.
Btw, 60% of the Amazon deforestation is caused by cattle ranching.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_pr...
http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world...
Though on the hunting angle, deer would probably be the largest animal you can hunt, then there'd be goats, wild pigs and of course rabbits and possums which you can eat (our possums are different from North American ones).
Edit: also just thought I'd throw in I've got nothing against Canada, you guys and the US, are to us, like we are to Australia (if that makes sense)
This study from Europe in contrast is the real deal: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/03/eat-burger-wo...
"In fact, the study shows that not eating red meat is a risk factor for an early demise."
Grass fed red meat is very healthy for humans. This is just pure scientific fact.
There's also this: http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/06/25/jennifer-sygo-we-all...
-Muscle tone requires more protein.
-Protein consumption is one of the very best ways to sate hunger, thereby reducing consumption of fat and carbohydrates.
-It takes more work for the body to convert amino acids to glucose and ATP, so the by the time it finishes your 'net calorie' is less than actually consumed.
-Unused protein is often excreted rather than stored in adipose cells (fat).
In short, protein is good for you. Both animal and plant protein. And while your minimum functions don't require all that much, you should probably be eating more. Poor conducted correlation studies don't change that.
"Most U. S. beef cattle are implanted with synthetic hormones in feedlots prior to slaughter. On January 1, 1989 the European Economic Community (EEC) placed a ban on hormone-treated U. S. meat, preventing U. S. meat products from being sold in any European nations. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has challenged the ban and accused the EEC of unfair trade practices, but the action of European governments raises some important questions about American meat."
Comments here do a good job pointing out the shortcomings of the study.
Milk protein has known detrimental health effects, and probably dominates the effects described here. (But since they don't even make the distinction, how would we know?) I have yet to see convincing evidence that protein from e.g. muscle is problematic for cancer risk or cardiovascular health at reasonable levels of intake, and I won't be holding my breath waiting for that to show up.
But whereas middle-aged people who consumed a lot of animal protein tended to die younger from cancer, diabetes and other diseases, the same diet seemed to protect people's health in old age.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20030317/high-protein-diets-c...
So you lost weight and feel better on a low carb high protein diet? Good for you! Some of us inherit high cholesterol, diabetes and kidney disease, along with other reasons to keep to a diet high in fiber and low in animal protein, especially beef.
Is explained in any way why it should be so ?
And I assume that this study is serious and other factors are accounted for, since it's likely that people with a lower animal protein intake have a more balanced diet overall, with an higher intake of fruits and vegetables and a lower intake of saturated fats...
And, although it doesn't say it, by the time you're 65 and if you have been eating healthy all of that time, developing cancer from a proten-rich diet is mitigated by the fact that you only maintain that diet for your remaining 15-25 years, not for the 65 leading up to then.
Eat more natural, thats the only real thing. It doesnt matter if its meat or fats or vegetables or whatever. If its processed its made with the only purpose to taste good so it would be easy to sell.