Issue #11

The Protein Myth:
Animal vs. Plant Based Protein

When people find out that I eat a plant based diet almost exclusively, they invariably ask, "So where do you get your protein?" Ah, yes. The old protein myth question.

The issue of plant vs animal based protein is one of the most hotly contested (and confusing) health debates out there. But I'm going to lay the confusion to rest for you so that you will know where the truth lies.

First of all, when we talk about protein, let's define what we are talking about more specifically. What we are referring to when we talk about protein are the amino acids that your body uses to build cells, muscle, tissue, enzymes, hormones, etc. These proteins in your body are made of chains of 20 different amino acids.

So, where do these amino acids come from? Well, plants can create all of these 20 individual amino acids, from scratch, that are used to build proteins. Humans, however, can only create 12 of these amino acids from scratch. This means that there are 8 amino acids that we as humans can't create in our bodies.

So we need to get them in our diet. That's where the term "8 Essential Amino Acids" comes from. They are "essential" for us to have them in our diet because we can't manufacture them from scratch within our bodies.

Here is a list of those 8 essential amino acids:

• Isoleucine
• Leucine
• Lysine
• Methionine
• Phenylalaline
• Threonine
• Tryptophan
• Vailine

So here are the two questions that need to be asked when trying to make sense of the animal vs plant based protein debate. First, do plants contain ENOUGH protein in sufficient quantities in order to meet our daily protein requirements set forth by dietary authorities? And second, do plants contain ALL of these 8 essential amino acids?

Before I answer those two questions, let's look at something that is just plain common sense. Here it is.

If plants did NOT have enough protein in them to satisfy the nutritional requirements of humans, then how is it that far larger animals, such as giraffes, elephants, hippos and cows are all able to grow and maintain enormous muscle masses on plant based diets alone?

What's that? Did I hear you say it's because humans are different than giraffes, elephants, hippos and cows and are designed to eat animal based protein? Hmm, that's an interesting point. We are going to cover that later. The truth about this may surprise you.

Back to the 8 essential amino acids. The first question was do plants contain enough protein in sufficient quantities in order to meet our daily protein requirements set forth by dietary authorities. Well, to answer that, the first step would be to define what those dietary requirements are.

Here's one source. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that we obtain 5% of our calories from protein. This would mean that if you were a man burning 3000 calories per day, you would need 38 grams of protein. Here's the math on how this 38 grams of protein is calculated.

- 3000 calories times 5 percent equals 150 calories of protein required.
- 1 gram of protein accounts for 4 calories.
- So 150 divided by 4 equals 37.5.

Round that 37.5 up and you have 38 grams of protein required per day for a man who burns 3000 calories according to the WHO. And for a woman burning 2300 calories per day, she would need 29 grams of protein.

But let's really play it safe to make sure you get plenty of protein in your diet. Let's look at when a human's protein needs would be at their greatest. Like when they are a baby and growing very fast. Well, a woman's breast milk is 5% protein. So it would be fair to say that 5% protein in your diet would be an adequate amount, would it not? I think so.

So, the next step is to see if vegetables contain enough protein to match the 5% protein that is in breast milk. We cover this on the next page.

Click here to continue.