9 ms·

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

56 points by hiddencache 5y ago

throwaway59553 5y ago
How is the title accurate, when in the middle of the article there's this: "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.
- geofft 5y ago
  I don't understand why this is downvoted - not only is this correct, it's also in accordance with the experts quoted in the article. > Fortunately, it’s difficult to have too much protein. While we do have an upper limit of protein intake, it’s “virtually impossible” to reach, says Tipton.
lambdaba 5y ago
This isn't really about protein, just how ultra-processed, high-carb candy bars are masquerading as protein. Good quality protein is necessary and healthy, and as we age we actually need more of it, not less.
- xenocratus 5y ago
  Not doubting, just curious: do you have a source (on the "need more protein as we age" claim)? EDIT: Nevermind, found some: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/8/5/295 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/8/5/295 [from 2016] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/35/1/6/4693343 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/35/1/6/469334... [from 1982] One that says it doesn't differ: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/5/1322/4648885 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/5/1322/4648885 [from 2008]
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    The article itself would also serve as a source: 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.
    - xenocratus 5y ago
      True, however they just didn't link to anything (unlike other parts, e.g. in the paragraph prior to that one, where they send you to published research).
      - mumblemumble 5y ago
        That, though, would be a reason to aim a [citation needed] at the BBC, not at someone who's just offering a TL;DR type summary of what the BBC said.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  I learned that any 'health' bars with 12+ grams of carbs are just candy. Yet all except one was over that limit. The exception was 5g yet had sugar alcohol (artifical sweetener?) putting the real number at 20g. So maybe those bars are intended as whole meal replacement? If so it's not clear on the labels.
adflux 5y ago
So I thought carbs were bad? Oh no, it was fat right? Or sugar, or meat, or... 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.
- HanaShiratori 5y ago
  It doesn't have to do with poor research methodologies specifically in the field of nutritional science, since they do not differ from other fields. It's just that people are easily exploited by the industry because they believe there is a cheat code in dealing with obesity and other food related diseases
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Research methodologies in nutrition are almost universally underpowered for the results they claim. You'll very rarely find double-blind clinical trials with large numbers of participants, and since we know little of the possible confounding factors between individuals when it comes to nutrition, that's what you need. Instead, most knowledge in nutrition comes either from extremely small clinical studies (often less than 50 people), often with co-morbidities such as obesity or diabetes or endocrine diseases; or from professional atheltics. Or, from huge national-level statistics that rely on interviews for self-reported diet information, and are thus forced to mix diet, diet perception, excersise levels, lifestyle (stress, sleep) and environmental factors in one big mess, out of which come recommendations like the mediteranean diet, instead of siesta or 5-7 weeks of vacation per year or year-round sun.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Nutritional studies also frequently suffer from the healthy subject effect. Dietary is highly correlated with other behaviors in ways that are difficult to control for.
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  Since macronutrients are interchangeable to some degree, they could have written an article called "We don’t need nearly as much fat as we consume" or "We don’t need nearly as much carbs as we consume" as well.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Required Protein intake depends on many other factors. Carbs are protein preserving. If someone does a lot of weight lifting and or really hard cardio and is on a low carb diet, they will have an elevated protein requirement, else the body will simply consume its own proteins, aka muscle and tendon tissue, you don't want that. For the average Joe with a sitting job and zero sports activity and a regular no care diet, yeah, they don't need 2lbs of red meat every other day. 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.
- Retric 5y ago
  Excess protein gets you just as fat as excess carbs or fat does. The only difference is people tend to think of protein as more essential even if it’s just being used as energy. 1000 of each isn’t obviously excessive of any one but without exercise you will get fat.
  - kiba 5y ago
    It's more costly to turn protein into glucose, though.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Efficiency isn’t that important. An extra 100 calories per day of protein, fat, or carbs is largely interchangeable assuming an otherwise balanced diet. In other words if your in a balanced diet with 33% of each and you add 100 calories of any of them you will gain weight.
  - yawaworht1978 5y ago
    Well, not really. This all depends on other factors as well. For example, how much glucose is stored at the moment of the food intake. If you are full of glucose, any fat will go straight to the fat deposits. Carbs, if the stores are full, will be converted to body fat in a calorie surplus, up to 25percent, depending on genetics. If glucogen stores are empty, fat won't get stored easily. And carbs will not be converted to fat until the stores are full. And the most important, carbs are metabolized very fast, especially sugars. Fats are relatively slow, protein takes forever and gives you a fullness sensation much sooner than the other macros. Try to eat 500gramm of cake(400grams of carbs give or take) and then try to eat 1.3 kilos of tuna in water, 400gramms of protein, give or take.
briga 5y ago
Maybe not to lose weight, but as far as I know the primary goal of most people who take protein supplements is to gain muscle. From my understanding this is literally impossible if you don't consume enough protein. So the question of how much should you be consuming based really depends on your training level, goals, diet, etc. > 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.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Beginners do not have the muscular coordination for a while, unless they have done some sort of competitive sports before. This takes a while to develop, and if they go to the gym , eat as usual and add one or two protein supplements a day, it's doomed to fail. Summary, their training intensity does not mobilize the body to process more protein and basically every meal would need to be conform. The diet is really 90percent of all, everyone can train, but nobody wants to give up pizza and usual diet schedule. Personal trainers know that, but if they tell this to the customers, they will never see them again. So they tell them white lies. Building muscle takes a lot of time, consistency over long periods, it has to become second nature, else it won't happen. In every gym, you see most people look the same every year, those are the ones. Then you have the ones on performance enhancing drugs and the ones with proper diets, these will have the real results. If someone gains 2kilos of pure muscle(not fat and water) in a year , it's a lot. That is like 175grams a month, so yeah, these studies are done by people who shouldn't have any business doing such studies. They leave out too many factors, of course supplements will do nothing for a newcomer. The only supplements that work you will find on the banned substances lists. The next best thing is a proper diet. I think bodybuilding is a rather dumb sport, but they know how to diet, they have decades of pioneer experience.
Darmody 5y ago
I have tried different diets. Nutrient dense carbohydrates, healthy fats and high protein works the best for me. 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.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
the-dude 5y ago
You don't need nearly as much nutritional advice as we publish. But hey, clicks.
nikkinana 5y ago
You don't, i do. Good luck with those bugs.
geofft 5y ago
These two paragraphs are very confusing: > 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 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.
kvgr 5y ago
Protein bars are bullcrap, but try to write somewhere that you should eat protein equivalent of 0.5kg of meat to maximize our muscle potential.
kortex 5y ago
> Fortunately, it’s difficult to have too much protein. While we do have an upper limit of protein intake, it’s “virtually impossible” to reach, says Tipton. “There are concerns among some dieticians that a high protein diet can hurt the kidneys and bones, but evidence in otherwise healthy people is minimal. 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?
- nradov 5y ago
  Whether saturated fats are good or bad depends on more than the length. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109720356874 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073510972...
strken 5y ago
I was reading https://mennohenselmans.com/protein-is-not-more-satiating-than-carbs-and-fats/ https://mennohenselmans.com/protein-is-not-more-satiating-th... yesterday, trying to understand the role of protein in satiation. 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.
wombatmobile 5y ago
TFA curiously asks questions about what the body really needs, in order to investigate a processed food category from an industry that spends billions on advertising and technology designed to make people eat more than they need for only one reason - to generate profits for manufacturers. 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-9781448133871 https://www.penguin.com.au/books/salt-sugar-fat-978144813387... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATmXufOvIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATmXufOvIk
- Rompect 5y ago
  No. I've been eating beef meat, chicken and a suet that is 99.8% fat for more than a month now and it's great. Nobody needs vegetables or nuts.
  - mft_ 5y ago
    Can I ask what you’re optimising for with that diet? e.g. energy, or weight loss, or cardiac health, or longevity?
    - BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
      Not joking -- I think it may be all of those. See e.g. the work of Ivor Cummins, books like "Eat Rich, Live Long".
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or not. In any case, while human bodies are amazing in the way they can strive on different diets, we know that the traditional Intuit diet (~50% fat, 30% protein, 20% carbs) leads to significantly increased cardiovascular risk: "However, actual evidence has shown that Inuit have a similar prevalence of coronary artery disease as non-Inuit populations and they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, with twice the risk to that of the North American population.[27][28] Indeed, the cardiovascular risk of this diet is so severe that the addition of a more standard American diet has reduced the incidence of mortality in the Inuit population.[29]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine#Nutrition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine#Nutrition
Ambolia 5y ago
I wouldn't trust mainstream nutrition advice coming out from any country with a >20% obesity rate. So maybe from Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia or Buthan. But not from the UK.
- Rompect 5y ago
  Sadly, I wouldn't trust any mainstream nutrition advice at all. When you see the McDonalds and Coca Cola logos behind footballers, and find out that the food pyramid was made by the Department of Agriculture and unsurprisingly advocates for crops, you become really suspicious.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Papers in journals disclose conflicts of interest. You can't just hand-wave bodies of research including systematic reviews as untrustworthy on the conceit that some of it is cherry-picked in mainstream media.
  - antisthenes 5y ago
    Trying to paint USDA here as some sort of conspiracy to push processed grains on the population is really doing it a huge disservice and sounds like bad faith argument. USDA is responsible for pretty much all food and farming oversight, including animal products and fresh vegetables. Just because one of their initiatives produced a misguided food pyramid poster isn't reason to denigrate the entire institution. I'm sure you enjoy mad cow disease-free beef and salmonella free vegetables and chicken eggs when you go to the supermarket. You can thank USDA for that.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Interestingly, Hong Kong residents appear to have a high meat-consumption rate. However they also walk far more than Westerners. Vegetable consumption may be higher as well.
mattgreenrocks 5y ago
I've always eaten a lot of meat, and had cognitive dissonance about headlines like this. If I didn't eat much meat in a given day, I'd just feel like garbage. When I did keto, it wasn't a super difficult adjustment for me after the first week (which sucks for almost everyone). It felt closer to how I always wanted to be, to be honest, though I think keto is a little too into fat. 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.
The_rationalist 5y ago
Actually recommendation has undervalued it https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/499374 https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/499374
bobobob420 5y ago
I agree with this article. As someone who has been weightlifting since I was in high school, most people are obsessed with protein for the wrong reasons. The truth is you only need to eat slightly above normal protein intake, and the part most people don’t understand is you need to increase carbs for muscle growth. Without the increase in carbs you will not be able to put on a large mass of muscles.

56 points by hiddencache 5y ago

How is the title accurate, when in the middle of the article there's this: "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.

geofft 5y ago
I don't understand why this is downvoted - not only is this correct, it's also in accordance with the experts quoted in the article. > Fortunately, it’s difficult to have too much protein. While we do have an upper limit of protein intake, it’s “virtually impossible” to reach, says Tipton.

lambdaba 5y ago

This isn't really about protein, just how ultra-processed, high-carb candy bars are masquerading as protein. Good quality protein is necessary and healthy, and as we age we actually need more of it, not less.

xenocratus 5y ago
Not doubting, just curious: do you have a source (on the "need more protein as we age" claim)? EDIT: Nevermind, found some: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/8/5/295 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/8/5/295 [from 2016] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/35/1/6/4693343 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/35/1/6/469334... [from 1982] One that says it doesn't differ: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/5/1322/4648885 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/88/5/1322/4648885 [from 2008]
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  The article itself would also serve as a source: 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.
  - xenocratus 5y ago
    True, however they just didn't link to anything (unlike other parts, e.g. in the paragraph prior to that one, where they send you to published research).
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      That, though, would be a reason to aim a [citation needed] at the BBC, not at someone who's just offering a TL;DR type summary of what the BBC said.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
I learned that any 'health' bars with 12+ grams of carbs are just candy. Yet all except one was over that limit. The exception was 5g yet had sugar alcohol (artifical sweetener?) putting the real number at 20g. So maybe those bars are intended as whole meal replacement? If so it's not clear on the labels.

adflux 5y ago

So I thought carbs were bad? Oh no, it was fat right? Or sugar, or meat, or... 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.

HanaShiratori 5y ago
It doesn't have to do with poor research methodologies specifically in the field of nutritional science, since they do not differ from other fields. It's just that people are easily exploited by the industry because they believe there is a cheat code in dealing with obesity and other food related diseases
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Research methodologies in nutrition are almost universally underpowered for the results they claim. You'll very rarely find double-blind clinical trials with large numbers of participants, and since we know little of the possible confounding factors between individuals when it comes to nutrition, that's what you need. Instead, most knowledge in nutrition comes either from extremely small clinical studies (often less than 50 people), often with co-morbidities such as obesity or diabetes or endocrine diseases; or from professional atheltics. Or, from huge national-level statistics that rely on interviews for self-reported diet information, and are thus forced to mix diet, diet perception, excersise levels, lifestyle (stress, sleep) and environmental factors in one big mess, out of which come recommendations like the mediteranean diet, instead of siesta or 5-7 weeks of vacation per year or year-round sun.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Nutritional studies also frequently suffer from the healthy subject effect. Dietary is highly correlated with other behaviors in ways that are difficult to control for.
0-_-0 5y ago
Since macronutrients are interchangeable to some degree, they could have written an article called "We don’t need nearly as much fat as we consume" or "We don’t need nearly as much carbs as we consume" as well.

yawaworht1978 5y ago

Required Protein intake depends on many other factors. Carbs are protein preserving. If someone does a lot of weight lifting and or really hard cardio and is on a low carb diet, they will have an elevated protein requirement, else the body will simply consume its own proteins, aka muscle and tendon tissue, you don't want that. For the average Joe with a sitting job and zero sports activity and a regular no care diet, yeah, they don't need 2lbs of red meat every other day. 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.

Retric 5y ago
Excess protein gets you just as fat as excess carbs or fat does. The only difference is people tend to think of protein as more essential even if it’s just being used as energy. 1000 of each isn’t obviously excessive of any one but without exercise you will get fat.
- kiba 5y ago
  It's more costly to turn protein into glucose, though.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Efficiency isn’t that important. An extra 100 calories per day of protein, fat, or carbs is largely interchangeable assuming an otherwise balanced diet. In other words if your in a balanced diet with 33% of each and you add 100 calories of any of them you will gain weight.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Well, not really. This all depends on other factors as well. For example, how much glucose is stored at the moment of the food intake. If you are full of glucose, any fat will go straight to the fat deposits. Carbs, if the stores are full, will be converted to body fat in a calorie surplus, up to 25percent, depending on genetics. If glucogen stores are empty, fat won't get stored easily. And carbs will not be converted to fat until the stores are full. And the most important, carbs are metabolized very fast, especially sugars. Fats are relatively slow, protein takes forever and gives you a fullness sensation much sooner than the other macros. Try to eat 500gramm of cake(400grams of carbs give or take) and then try to eat 1.3 kilos of tuna in water, 400gramms of protein, give or take.

briga 5y ago

Maybe not to lose weight, but as far as I know the primary goal of most people who take protein supplements is to gain muscle. From my understanding this is literally impossible if you don't consume enough protein. So the question of how much should you be consuming based really depends on your training level, goals, diet, etc. > 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.

yawaworht1978 5y ago
Beginners do not have the muscular coordination for a while, unless they have done some sort of competitive sports before. This takes a while to develop, and if they go to the gym , eat as usual and add one or two protein supplements a day, it's doomed to fail. Summary, their training intensity does not mobilize the body to process more protein and basically every meal would need to be conform. The diet is really 90percent of all, everyone can train, but nobody wants to give up pizza and usual diet schedule. Personal trainers know that, but if they tell this to the customers, they will never see them again. So they tell them white lies. Building muscle takes a lot of time, consistency over long periods, it has to become second nature, else it won't happen. In every gym, you see most people look the same every year, those are the ones. Then you have the ones on performance enhancing drugs and the ones with proper diets, these will have the real results. If someone gains 2kilos of pure muscle(not fat and water) in a year , it's a lot. That is like 175grams a month, so yeah, these studies are done by people who shouldn't have any business doing such studies. They leave out too many factors, of course supplements will do nothing for a newcomer. The only supplements that work you will find on the banned substances lists. The next best thing is a proper diet. I think bodybuilding is a rather dumb sport, but they know how to diet, they have decades of pioneer experience.

Darmody 5y ago

I have tried different diets. Nutrient dense carbohydrates, healthy fats and high protein works the best for me. 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.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

the-dude 5y ago

You don't need nearly as much nutritional advice as we publish. But hey, clicks.

nikkinana 5y ago

You don't, i do. Good luck with those bugs.

geofft 5y ago

These two paragraphs are very confusing: > 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 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.

kvgr 5y ago

Protein bars are bullcrap, but try to write somewhere that you should eat protein equivalent of 0.5kg of meat to maximize our muscle potential.

kortex 5y ago

> Fortunately, it’s difficult to have too much protein. While we do have an upper limit of protein intake, it’s “virtually impossible” to reach, says Tipton. “There are concerns among some dieticians that a high protein diet can hurt the kidneys and bones, but evidence in otherwise healthy people is minimal. 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?

nradov 5y ago
Whether saturated fats are good or bad depends on more than the length. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109720356874 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S073510972...

strken 5y ago

I was reading https://mennohenselmans.com/protein-is-not-more-satiating-than-carbs-and-fats/ https://mennohenselmans.com/protein-is-not-more-satiating-th... yesterday, trying to understand the role of protein in satiation. 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.

wombatmobile 5y ago

TFA curiously asks questions about what the body really needs, in order to investigate a processed food category from an industry that spends billions on advertising and technology designed to make people eat more than they need for only one reason - to generate profits for manufacturers. 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-9781448133871 https://www.penguin.com.au/books/salt-sugar-fat-978144813387... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATmXufOvIk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eATmXufOvIk

Rompect 5y ago
No. I've been eating beef meat, chicken and a suet that is 99.8% fat for more than a month now and it's great. Nobody needs vegetables or nuts.
- mft_ 5y ago
  Can I ask what you’re optimising for with that diet? e.g. energy, or weight loss, or cardiac health, or longevity?
  - BoHerfIIIJrEsq 5y ago
    Not joking -- I think it may be all of those. See e.g. the work of Ivor Cummins, books like "Eat Rich, Live Long".
- Pyramus 5y ago
  I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or not. In any case, while human bodies are amazing in the way they can strive on different diets, we know that the traditional Intuit diet (~50% fat, 30% protein, 20% carbs) leads to significantly increased cardiovascular risk: "However, actual evidence has shown that Inuit have a similar prevalence of coronary artery disease as non-Inuit populations and they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, with twice the risk to that of the North American population.[27][28] Indeed, the cardiovascular risk of this diet is so severe that the addition of a more standard American diet has reduced the incidence of mortality in the Inuit population.[29]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine#Nutrition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine#Nutrition

Ambolia 5y ago

I wouldn't trust mainstream nutrition advice coming out from any country with a >20% obesity rate. So maybe from Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia or Buthan. But not from the UK.

Rompect 5y ago
Sadly, I wouldn't trust any mainstream nutrition advice at all. When you see the McDonalds and Coca Cola logos behind footballers, and find out that the food pyramid was made by the Department of Agriculture and unsurprisingly advocates for crops, you become really suspicious.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Papers in journals disclose conflicts of interest. You can't just hand-wave bodies of research including systematic reviews as untrustworthy on the conceit that some of it is cherry-picked in mainstream media.
- antisthenes 5y ago
  Trying to paint USDA here as some sort of conspiracy to push processed grains on the population is really doing it a huge disservice and sounds like bad faith argument. USDA is responsible for pretty much all food and farming oversight, including animal products and fresh vegetables. Just because one of their initiatives produced a misguided food pyramid poster isn't reason to denigrate the entire institution. I'm sure you enjoy mad cow disease-free beef and salmonella free vegetables and chicken eggs when you go to the supermarket. You can thank USDA for that.
slothtrop 5y ago
Interestingly, Hong Kong residents appear to have a high meat-consumption rate. However they also walk far more than Westerners. Vegetable consumption may be higher as well.

mattgreenrocks 5y ago

I've always eaten a lot of meat, and had cognitive dissonance about headlines like this. If I didn't eat much meat in a given day, I'd just feel like garbage. When I did keto, it wasn't a super difficult adjustment for me after the first week (which sucks for almost everyone). It felt closer to how I always wanted to be, to be honest, though I think keto is a little too into fat. 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.

The_rationalist 5y ago

Actually recommendation has undervalued it https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/499374 https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/499374

bobobob420 5y ago

I agree with this article. As someone who has been weightlifting since I was in high school, most people are obsessed with protein for the wrong reasons. The truth is you only need to eat slightly above normal protein intake, and the part most people don’t understand is you need to increase carbs for muscle growth. Without the increase in carbs you will not be able to put on a large mass of muscles.