The Starch Solution (14 page)

You are now helping billions of people beyond yourself. You are helping all of planet Earth.

Protest world hunger: Stop eating meat.

Protest environmental pollution: Stop eating dairy.

Protest destruction of the oceans: Stop eating fish.

H
ow much protein do we really need, and which types are best? These fundamental questions are at the core of endless debates about the best way to achieve enduring weight loss and optimal health.

For the past 150 years, the pendulum has swung to and fro, between recommendations that an ultra-high-protein regimen, or a diet low in protein, holds out the best promise for good health. Wrapped up in that discussion is a second question: Should you choose a diet rich in animal proteins or one based on vegetable sources?

While the debate rages on, a solid foundation of scientific evidence confirms the answer: A diet with adequate but not excessive protein, derived from plants, is best. But why let popular opinion stand in the way of facts? Pushing evidence aside, the meat- and cheese-craving public continues to invest great faith in the mythical benefit of a high-protein diet. Cadres of popular diet authors who promote that view continue to propagate the fallacy.

An inherent taste preference for meat and dairy is not the real driver behind the protein myth. Sure, many people think these animal foods taste good, though they would not like meat so much if salt, sugar, and spices (in the forms of steak, barbecue, and ketchup sauces, which are used to disguise meat’s bland taste) were taken away. Even more so than the seasonings that make it palatable, your appetite for animal protein has been influenced by billions of dollars spent by huge industrial machines to ensure your continued taste for beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, and cheese. Backing up industry muscle are government subsidies and advertising dollars, all working to convince you this stuff is healthy. Animal foods are big business, and proponents employ the same industry- and advertising-supported practices that have persuaded countless people to take up smoking against their best interest, and then made it nearly impossible for them to quit. How can the facts expect to win against those odds?

Protein intake, both the total amount and the source, varies widely around the world. People living in many rural Asian societies consume 40 to 60 grams of protein a day, mostly from rice, other starches, and vegetables.
¹
On the Western side of the globe, food choices typically are centered around meat and dairy, with these foods providing 100 to 160 grams of daily protein, two to four times that consumed by rural Asians. Dieters on a high-protein diet of meat and dairy (such as the Atkins diet) could be consuming 200 to 400 grams of protein a day, similar to what Eskimos survived on with a diet that was, of necessity, focused on marine animals.
²
In other words,
those consuming the most protein are taking in nearly 10 times as much as those who remain healthy on the lowest levels.

One of the earliest proponents of a high-protein diet was the distinguished German physiologist Dr. Carl Voit, who lived from 1831 until 1908.
^3
,
4
After studying laborers who consumed about 3,100 calories daily, he concluded that people ideally should strive for 118 grams of protein per day. That number became known as the Voit Standard, and while it is in the range of what people on a Western diet consume, it is about twice what is typical for healthy Asians.

How did Voit reach his conclusion? He figured that the laborers he observed were able to work hard and maximize their incomes by instinctively selecting a diet with the right amount of protein, from the best sources, to achieve optimal health and productivity. Other famous scientists of the time, both in Europe and America, made similar observations about the eating habits of workingmen with incomes that allowed them to afford meat. They came to similar conclusions, recommending diets of 100 to 189 grams of protein per day.
^1,3,4
This “science” was all based on the assumption that, given the opportunity, people innately make the right choices.

Of course these conclusions were based on observation and hypothesis, rather than a standard of research that would be acceptable today. No experiments were performed, and no comparison was made with the significant numbers of less wealthy Europeans and Americans leading healthy lives on low-protein diets based largely on plant foods.
^1,4
Likewise, the healthy, active lives of hundreds of millions of less affluent people laboring in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America—whose diets provided less than half the amount of protein recommended by Dr. Voit (and which contained almost no meat or dairy products)—were entirely overlooked when the suggested protein levels were established.

If you believe his research methods are reliable, try doing your own Voit-style study by observing the quality of food people select at your local grocery store and in restaurants. What do more than one billion people choose? Ice cream sandwiches, donuts, and candy bars at the store, and McDonald’s, Burger King, and Pizza Hut for a meal out.
Shall we assume these people have naturally gravitated toward the foods that best meet their nutritional needs? Should we base our national nutrition standards on the breakdown of the most popular foods consumed at these outlets? Our current epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer prove beyond a doubt that we are
not
predisposed to making food choices that are in our own best interest.

Most exasperating is that virtually all scientific research over the past century comes to a different conclusion from Dr. Voit’s. Yet elevated protein standards based on centuries-old biases continue to drive health recommendations even today.

Voit’s narrow-minded thinking in the late 1800s, echoed and amplified by his peers, should have been put to rest by 1904. That’s when Russell Henry Chittenden, who was a professor of physiological chemistry at Yale University, published his scientific findings on human protein needs in his classic book,
Physiological Economy in Nutrition
.
⁴

Professor Chittenden believed Dr. Voit had mixed up cause and effect: People did not become prosperous because they ate high-protein diets; rather, they ate meat and other expensive high-protein foods because they could afford them. Chittenden wrote, more than 100 years ago, “We are all creatures of habit, and our palates are pleasantly excited by the rich animal foods with their high content of proteid [protein], and we may well question whether our dietetic habits are not based more upon the dictates of our palates than upon scientific reasoning or true physiological needs.”

Chittenden reasoned that science ought to establish once and for all the minimum protein requirement for good health. He further suggested that consuming protein beyond that requirement could cause harm, especially to the liver and kidneys. As he explained, “Fats and carbohydrates when oxidized in the body are ultimately burned to simple gaseous
products…[and are] easily and quickly eliminated…proteid [protein] foods…when oxidized, yield a row of crystalline nitrogenous products which ultimately pass out of the body through the kidneys. [These nitrogen-based protein by-products]—frequently spoken of as toxins—float about through the body and may exercise more or less of a deleterious influence upon the system, or, being temporarily deposited, may exert some specific or local influence that calls for their speedy removal.”

With these few words, Professor Chittenden encapsulated the damaging effects of a diet based on meat, poultry, fish, and dairy products, consequences too few practicing doctors understand today. (You can read more about protein and other dietary toxins from animal foods in
Chapter 3
.)

Professor Chittenden himself served as the subject of his first experiment to establish a minimum protein requirement. For 9 months, he consumed one-third of the protein level recommended by Dr. Voit, during which time his weight dropped about 10 percent, from 143 to 128 pounds. Chittenden’s health remained excellent and he described his condition as having “greater freedom from fatigue and muscular soreness than in previous years of a fuller diet[ary].” He described how his previous knee arthritis disappeared, along with his periodically “sick headaches” and bilious attacks of abdominal pain. Chittenden maintained his normal mental and physical activity, all on about 40 grams of protein a day.

Chittenden went on to perform valid scientific studies by collecting daily dietary histories and urine analyses of his subjects (himself included) to understand protein utilization. Because he was contradicting the beliefs of his time, he conducted his experiments with extreme care. He organized three observational trials to test the adequacy of diets lower in protein than what was recommended at the time.

The first trial involved a group of five men connected with Yale University. These men led active lives but were not engaged in work with high demands on their muscles. On an average diet of 62 grams of protein daily for 6 months, the men all remained healthy and in positive nitrogen balance, an indication that they were taking in and absorbing adequate protein from their diet.

The second trial studied 13 male volunteers from the Hospital Corps of the US Army. These men were described as doing moderate work, with 1 day per week of vigorous activity at the gymnasium. The men remained in good health on an average 61 grams of protein daily.

Chittenden’s final trial involved eight Yale student athletes, some of them with exceptional performance records. The students ate an average of 64 grams of protein daily while maintaining their activities, and found that their athletic performance improved by a striking 35 percent.

Chittenden concluded in 1904 that 35 to 50 grams of protein per day allowed adults to maintain their health and physical fitness. Studies over the past century have consistently corroborated Professor Chittenden’s findings, yet you would hardly know it. Despite his groundbreaking studies, and later confirmation of them, people continue to believe that the more protein they eat, the better.

Professor Chittenden’s conclusions more than 100 years ago remain right on target. We need protein in our diet to build new cells, synthesize hormones, and repair damaged and worn-out tissues. But how much do we need? We lose about 3 grams of protein each day through shedding skin, sloughing intestine, and other miscellaneous losses.
⁵
Add to this loss other physiological requirements, such as growth and repairs, and the final tally shows, based on solid scientific research, a
total daily protein requirement of about 20 to 30 grams.
^6
,
7
Plant proteins easily meet that need.
¹

The US Department of Agriculture, the World Health Organization, and all other international health organizations recommend protein levels ranging from 33 to 71 grams a day for adult men and women, very close to Chittenden’s numbers. Yet even these policymakers, who are fully informed about our small protein need, remain confused about the issue of animal versus plant proteins.