Comments? Email me!
Back to the Table of Contents
| Introduction | If there is one problem Americans do not
have, it is lack of protein. The health issues of protein concern mainly: 1. Vegetarians--are they getting enough? and 2. Body builders--are they getting too much? The answer to both questions is probably Yes, although don't tell that to a body builder. |
|
| How much extra protein does a body builder need? Not much. | But any way, let's do a calculation. Suppose a bodybuilder adds 1 # of pure muscle per month. That is 454/30, or about 15 grams per day. Theoretically, then, he should eat no more than 15 grams/day of extra protein! But let's say that the body is only 50% efficient in utilizing this protein. Then he should get an extra 30 gms/day. For a 70 kg male (154 #), whose RDA for protein is .8g/kg, or 56 grams, that amounts to 86 grams total. Not the 200 and 300 or more grams that these guys are taking. | There are vegetarian bodybuilders who do not supplement, who are doing just fine. |
| You should be aware that we are ALREADY getting well over our RDA of protein (.8g/kg), easily double. It is thought by many that we are already OVER-proteinized, and this .8g/kg is itself a hotly contested number, with many suggesting that it should be .2 g/kg (1/4 of the current level), so that that same male would be getting only 15 gm of protein per day. Others suggest that body building would make the metabolism of protein more efficient. This theoretically would result in less deamination of amino acids in the liver, and therefore less urea in the urine. Experiment, anyone? The point being that there is already enough "slack" in our protein metabolism to provide more than enough aa's for bodybuilding. | ||
Protein combining. |
The bottom line is that you can take some high level but poor quality proteins, like lentils, and make them spectacularly high quality protein meals, with added methionine. Ditto even plantains. By simply exporting the amino acid methionine, a typically limiting amino acid, you can make protein poor countries protein rich! Bottom line is, vegetarianism is a great way to go! Humanely-speaking (visit your local slaugherhouse lately? Hey, it's so boring in my vegetable garden, honey.....Let's go to the slaughterhouse, where we can be more romantic.......), ecologically responsible, etc. The laws of thermodynamics state that animals MUST be a less efficient source of fuel than the plants themselves. | |
| But, veggies are so expensive!!! Did you know that meat is CHEAPER, by far, than most vegetables on a calorie by calorie basis? Much cheaper. And forget about asparagus! Email me for the calculations! | ||
| MMMMMMMMMMMMMM | MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM | MMMMMMMMMMMMMM |