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I'm sorry, I really don't mean to put you down. I'm pointing out that the things you're saying make absolutely no sense. You seem to have no idea what you're talking about, and you seem to have no desire to learn more. Honestly, I feel like I'm talking to a child. Or a bot.

Try reading this out loud, see if it helps: every human body is an ammonia factory, and easily handles thousands of times more ammonia than what is present in foods. The amounts of ammonia found in foods is completely insignificant compared to the ammonia your body naturally produces. If you have a condition that impairs your ability to excrete nitrogen, the only way to lower your blood ammonia level (and urea) is to EAT LESS PROTEIN. Avoiding ammonia has no significant effect. Read all that again to help get it into your brain. And if you don't believe me, just look it up. This isn't difficult stuff; it's basic, basic physiology.

Just for fun, and at the risk of repeating myself:

> You are making the case that eating pink slime and consuming ammonia is safe and a welcome thing because the FDA doesn't test for ammonia in food.

No, not because the FDA says so. Rather, I've explained some basic physiology to you, and provided numbers showing that dietary ammonia has an insignificant effect on the human body. Your body produces hundreds or thousands of times more ammonia than you eat from scary pink slime, every day. You don't have to take my word for it. Go read about it. You'll probably enjoy it.

> You are also saying that our ability to detoxify doesn't change with age or fitness level.

That's half correct. Renal function declines very slowly after middle age in healthy people. I've seen no evidence that hepatic urea production declines with age, nor have I seen evidence that fitness level affects nitrogen conversion or clearance. If you have any evidence to support your opinions, I'd love to see it.

> You are arguing that ammonia in food at any level is okay and wouldn't put additional stress on the detoxification process because the fda doesn't test for this?

No, see my answer above. Or just re-read my earlier comments. The FDA's testing is incidental.

> That position while technically correct doesn't take into account all of the other stresses including age as factors that slow down these processes.

No, age is accounted for investigations of this stuff, because age is part of the standard formula for eGFR, which is a measure of renal efficiency. But that doesn't matter, because if there are any "factors" that impair your ability to excrete nitrogen, then the only thing that will help is to lower your protein consumption, which is where the vast majority of the nitrogen comes from. Any ammonia in food will not have a significant effect.

> What do you think would happen if you went on a 30 day pink meat challenge?

You mean pink slime? Well, try running the numbers! I've given you all the information you need to find the data and work with it, but I'll make it super easy for you. Let's use these assumptions:

1. Let's say you eat a big 10 ounce patty of pink slime every day.

2. Let's say that pink slime contains 400 ppm ammonia, which is at the high end of tested values.

3. Let's use a dietary nitrogen content conversion factor of 16%, which is the standard for meat protein. If you need more info, go read about "Jones factors". It's easy stuff!

Now, you'll need to figure out both the total ammonia content and the total protein content of your pink slime. The ammonia is easy, given assumption 2 above. You can look up the protein content on the internet. Here's a hint: the USDA categorizes pink slime as 18/15 lean ground beef, so you can use the nutrition data for that product in any of the USDA databases.

Convert the ammonia and the protein to equivalent nitrogen content. Use the standard 16% jones factor for the protein.

Now, you'll be able to tell me how much extra ammonia you'd get from the pink slime, versus, for example, a serving of "normal" ground beef with half as much ammonia. Give it a try.

And then, when you have thah number, reflect once again on the fact that it doesn't matter. If you need to lower the ammonia (or urea, more likely) in your blood, eating ground beef instead of pink slime will do you no good. Even if you're old and sick, the ammonia you make from ALL of the protein you eat completely overwhelms all other sources.

Seriously, give those numbers a try. Let me know how it goes.




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