This is a frequent question that many people ask me. Have you ever noticed that many of us take a very broad and complex subject and somehow filter out one or two aspects of that subject fixating on them and ignoring the rest of the particulars? We grab onto one thing and don’t spend the time to investigate further. I have been asked this question throughout my journey and my answer with a big smile as always was, ” The same place that the “meat” that you eat gets its protein from, GREENS!!!!” Many of the animals, such as chicken, pork, beef, and turkey, that people consume don’t eat other animals, they graze on greens and/or grains. Okay, pigs eat some of everything so maybe they are the exception, lol. Have you ever met someone who was diagnosed with a protein deficiency? But I have met people who have been diagnosed with too much protein in their urine. The recommended amount of protein for women is about 46 grams a day and men about 56 grams a day. Take your weight and divide it in half then subtract 10 from it is the formula that I got from a nutritionist. Too much protein is known to be dangerous to your kidneys, especially those that have kidney disease.
So what is protein??? Is it the meat or is it the essential nutrients that the meat is composed of? Protein is made up of 100 or more different amino acids. These complex amino acids contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. I won’t go into Chemistry 101, but I had to give you an overview. Okay, so the body requires twenty different amino acids of which eight to ten are referred to as essential amino acids. There are two types, essential amino acids, which are the ones that our bodies cannot make and non-essential amino acids, which are ones that our bodies can make. The non-essential are just as important, but they form from compounds that are already in the body at a rate that meets the needs of normal growth and tissue repair. The essential amino acids are: Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan, Valine, and Histine, which is only essential for babies. There are fourteen non-essential amino acids, but I will spare you with the names;-)
My point is that you do not have to eat meat to get all of your essential amino acids. You just have to be more aware of the food that you eat to make sure that you are getting a complete protein, all of the essential amino acids, which is something that I had to learn to do over the years. Green vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds, have more protein per calorie than some meat and they are also easier to digest as well as provide disease-fighting nutrients. It is a known fact that green veggies are about 1/2 protein, 1/4 carbs, and 1/4 fat. One hundred calories of broccoli have about 11.2 grams of protein plus fiber versus a 100 calorie steak which has about 5.4 grams of protein no fiber. I know that this is an eye full, but let’s learn to dig a little deeper before we start projecting. Please seek your own truth. Research, research, research! Breathe with the flow of life.
Comments