Lose Weight Program > A High Protein Diet

Many people still have a vague impression that a high-protein diet is unhealthful. Doctors used to think so too, but the newer knowledge of nutrition has pretty generally knocked the props from under this idea.



One supposedly dangerous effect of protein was its action on the kidneys, which eliminate the products of protein metabolism. Various ailments of these vital organs were laid to heavy eating of protein. Doctors have discarded this superstition so completely that today high-protein diets are prescribed for some not all-kidney ailments.

VilhjaImur Stefansson, the Arctic explorer, spent several years living with Eskimos on an exclusive meat diet. According to theories then current, he should have been struck down by all manner of ailments, from Bright's disease to scurvy. He was so un-co-operative with theory, however, as to thrive on his all-meat, high-protein diet.

Stefansson ate as much as his appetite called for; he wasn't trying to reduce. Nevertheless, with no effort on his part, his all-meat diet soon brought about a loss of some ten pounds and brought him down to his ideal weight. His "unbalanced" eating habits failed even to raise his blood pressure, and he was downright stubborn in his insistence that he never felt better in his life. Later he lived on the same diet in New York, where physicians could clap stethoscopes on him. They couldn't find a thing wrong with him. Since then there has been abundant evidence that high-protein diets can be continued indefinitely without ill effect, except in certain cases of disease.

Experiments leading to the belief.that protein was dangerous to kidneys were performed, in large part, before the all-important effects of vitamins and minerals were well understood. Another supposed danger of proteins - that they putrefy in the intestines and produce poisons absorbed by the body - is much more theoretical than real, on the basis of present conservative opinion.

An inflamed, diseased colon can conceivably absorb toxins through its walls. That a normal colon will do so is extremely doubtful. The theory of poison absorption is the popularly horrifying one of "autointoxication." Curiously, no one bas ever satisfactorily demonstrated the presence in the blood, or the specific identity of, the postulated poisons that stage these Borgian blitzkriegs. One famous experiment by Dr. Walter Alvarez of the Mayo Clinic has demonstrated that every symptom attributed to "autointoxication" can be produced by stuffing the rectum with cotton. The symptoms are real, but the causes are more mechanical than chemical.

Meat is by no means the only excellent source of protein. Other animal products - milk, eggs, fish, poultry, cheese are outstanding. A protein is considered biologically complete if it furnishes liberal amounts of the amino acids, the chemical units out of which proteins are built, needed by the body. You need at least eight of these amino acids (there are twenty-three all told) for the same reason you need vitamins: The body cannot manufacture them for itself.

Cereals, fruits, and vegetables, in general, furnish incomplete protein - certain amino acids are lacking, or there are not enough of them. When supplemented by animal protein, however, these sources become much more valuable. Soybeans are an exception in the vegetable world in that they furnish, if cooked, fairly complete protein. In countries such as China, where animal foods are severely restricted in the diet, the soybean is justifiably esteemed.


Continue to Vegetarian Diet

Get weekly weight loss tips and tricks for how to lose weight and keep it off.

Lose Weight Program

www.HowToLoseTheWeight.com | Contact | About | Privacy | Sitemap | Copyright 2011. All Rights Reserved.