I think its necessary to point out that one of the authors is Mary Weiler and Steve Hertzler who work for Abbott - who makes Ensure products and Pediasure products which supplement protein for the old and the young.
They're also behind Similac, and have a history of funding research that makes infant formula look better than it actually is.
As others note, this doesn't make the study automatically invalid, but it does make it highly suspect. I'm personally growing rather tired of industry-funded nutritional research that inevitably makes the product being pushed by the funder look good, often in contradiction to other research funded by opposite industries. Fat vs sugar, carbs vs protein, dairy, red meat, alcohol. At this point you can find a study supporting pretty much any dietary decision you want to make.
Well if you haven't figured it out already, all nutritional advice in the US and most other countries is not about nutrition. In the US particularly, it's about special interest and national security by way of food security.
All of these studies, changes to the food pyramid (and the food pyramid itself) and the like are designed to entrench existing food production industries at the expense of foreign dominated industries to ensure food security, particularly in the event of conflict or other fast changing global circumstance. It's viewed as a win-win by the policy setters: our buddies make money, they break us off a little, and nobody starves, even if they're not ideally healthy. A little corruption goes a long way! All it takes is a little herding of the sheep so to speak and everyone is better off than yesterday. There's conflicts of interest, there's perverse incentive, but until very recently it worked alright, developed countries virtually eliminated foodbourne illness and life threatening vitamin deficiency. Only recently has there been an issue involving pharma, healthcare in general and food production that created this very profitable obesity quagmire we find ourselves in today. But not so long ago, the approach worked out pretty well.
You're never going to get good nutritional advice from the government, or from industry insiders. You might get better than the status quo, and you might get facts, but at best you're getting carefully selected honesty and lying by omission. And unfortunately the "other side" of this is so chock full of crystal healing quacks that you're basically on your own.
My current model on this is: carbohydrates from fruits and starches, focus more on fat, then protein, in that order, and particularly animal fat and animal protein. This should cover trace minerals and fat soluble vitamins so that I don't have to think much about them and focus on macros.
You’re right, the scientist example is benign as you say
The difference is when there’s a profit motive for the person to inflate the actual numbers or distort their recommendation.
If the example was “professional climate scientist selling cloud seeding chemicals suggests we should do more cloud seeding to fight climate change” then there would be cause for skepticism.
> The difference is when there’s a profit motive for the person to inflate the actual numbers or distort their recommendation.
Grant money is distributed based on the perception of a problem. Nobody would be funding climate change research if the scientific consensus is that it wasn't a problem.
I am 100% a believer in anthropogenic climate change, but it's ridiculous to claim that there's no financial incentive for researchers to find positive results.
You're talking about the difference between a scientist making like $50-150k/year salary and entities making millions or billions of dollars a year in profit. These are in no way comparable.
There's a lot of money being thrown into climate research. All those researchers like their jobs. We have a massive oversupply of academics and scientists with PhDs. Corporations aren't the only entities with perverse incentives.
I mean I don't blame them, I like my job too, but we should recognize the incentive exists.
Since 1993, OMB has reported over $154 billion in funding for federal climate change activities, spread across the government—raising questions about fragmentation, overlap, or duplication.
>"In 1996, Ensure had sales of about $300 million and accounted for 80% of protein supplement sales"
In 1996 Protein shakes were still new. Back then people using whey were 'cutting' edge.
Today:
>"The global protein supplements market size was USD 25.34 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow from USD 27.41 billion in 2023 to USD 51.81 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 9.5% during 2023-2030."
25 Billion a Year.
Meanwhile. Your Climate numbers on that linked site.
Yes, something like 8 Billion a Year on Research.
A pittance, that is to carry out the studies, not get paid.
And, A big chunk of that is on Technology, not 'proving if it's real or not', but on actually creating new tech, which goes into expanding the economy.
So the private companies making that tech are definitely incentivized.
>Joe Blow Researchers are not rich people.
Neither are cops, but there is plenty of incentive to fear monger crime to keep their headcount up and their budgets increasing. Do you not think there is an incentive to keep research grants for climate change flowing?
Here's something that came out recently. I don't know if you've read it, but it's interesting. I know a few people in the academic world and they are always desperate to get research grants to keep the lights on.
Sure. All researchers are scrounging to find grants.
I did read that article. Isn't one of the findings was that the data that was left out didn't change the results? Leaving it out just helped clarify the results? I guess if people did the opposite, they could include hundreds of 'possible' things that would really muddy the results.
Everyone in every form of writing is taught to stick to the basics and leave out extraneous 'possibilities' to clarify the message. That is just being succinct. If it doesn't change the results, then it is a matter of style.
I'm just saying the scale is orders of magnitude different.
You were equating the incentives of pretty lowly researchers scrounging for grants to do very basic research, to big money food production companies with huge incentives to sway opinions.
The climate scientist is not promoting a product, sure they want to get the next grant, and that is just how research is. But that is a really low bar. I don't think any grants specify that the results of the previous grant better result in "X".
That would be like saying, "I better produce something that proves that String Theory is real or I wont get another grant". -- OOOPS. Might have contradicted myself since string theory is garbage.
So.
All studies, as all humans, have bias.
All academic fields have bias.
So with all studies in all fields, the bias has to be factored in.
It was only a few years ago really that hundreds of studies said smoking was not only safe, but could be healthy. But those were corporate studies.
And like the protein study, there is just far greater scales of bias in corporate funded studies. They have bigger money, bigger stakes, more to protect.
The lowly climate scientist isn't getting much beyond a citation and enough money for dinner.
This narrative that there is some big money in climate science is a full on press of BS to discredit it, by the same people producing biased studies to disprove it. Just like with Tabaco companies.
>You were equating the incentives of pretty lowly researchers scrounging for grants to do very basic research, to big money food production companies with huge incentives to sway opinions.
I wasn't defending the corporation.
>The climate scientist is not promoting a product, sure they want to get the next grant, and that is just how research is. But that is a really low bar. I don't think any grants specify that the results of the previous grant better result in "X".
So you agree, there are perverse incentives to keep climate research funding flowing. That was my assertion.
No. I do NOT agree that climate science has any incentives beyond any research topic any any field. There are no 'perverse incentives' special to climate science. I never said that.
You are really taking some generic statements about how all research must guard against bias, about how bias is a characteristic in all humans. And then micro-focusing on climate science seeming to assert that this one particular field is much more biased than all other fields.
To do this you need to come up with some proof.
Saying all research contains some bias, climate science is research, thus climate science is biased, -> Is really just trolling.
You know gravity is just a theory, it is researched, that doesn't mean research on gravity is biased thus gravity is not real.
>And then micro-focusing on climate science seeming to assert that this one particular field is much more biased than all other fields.
I don't believe I asserted climate science was much more biased. I was just acknowledging the perverse incentive. I did assert it was very well funded though.
k.
I thought you were applying the "perverse incentive" to Climate Science specifically.
If you are saying all research, across all fields, has a "perverse incentive", that the entire research system across all disciplines is 'perverse', then I might agree.
There was whole thread on HN about this subject recently, sorry, don't have link.
BUT. In all the complaining about how research is currently done, I've not seen anybody come up with a credible alternative. You still need funding, still need a way to filter out crap, so still need some reviews by 'experts', that would still have biases.
I'm just demonstrating how much the government spends on climate change activities and compared it to sales of a single year of Ensure. What don't you understand?
Also that GAO report was published Apr 30, 2018. Publicly Released: May 30, 2018, so 25 years.
Any study sponsored by any given industry, that may have any effect on their bottom line, are generally treated with suspicion because the whole point of private ventures is to increase profits. The narrative is driven by that, not the other way around.
In contrast, climate research would happen with or without climate change happening.
So my original assertion was. I was demonstrating how much money is spent on climate research, then compared it with what Equate sells (which was mentioned earlier). The comparison was to demonstrate how much $154 billion was compared to a market leader at a given time. You know, like "how high is space in Eiffel towers."
>There's a lot of money being thrown into climate research. All those researchers like their jobs. We have a massive oversupply of academics and scientists with PhDs. Corporations aren't the only entities with perverse incentives.
>In contrast, climate research would happen with or without climate change happening.
Sure, but when something generates as much media attention and has as much fervor and staying power as climate change does, it gets a whole lot more funding. That's why most of what we hear as the consequence of climate change is absolute worst case scenarios. If people were to lose interest (fear), researchers would lose funding. Getting hit by an asteroid would be more devastating, but I'll bet it doesn't get nearly as much funding, because there isn't as much fervor.
Dude wtf to take your numbers … you said this nutrition enterprise was making like 300 million a year and then you are whining about that the budget for planetary defense is to low … it’s 150 million a year .. soo please Google bevor you speak.
> Getting hit by an asteroid would be more devastating, but I'll bet it doesn't get nearly as much funding, because there isn't as much fervor.
Perhaps because the chance of an asteroid triggering an extinction level event is infinitesimal, whereas climate change is a very palpable, ongoing issue?
Why did we spent so much money developing vaccines to address the COVID-19 pandemic, when there are supervolcanoes that could end all life on Earth as we know it?
> We have a massive oversupply of academics and scientists with PhDs. Corporations aren't the only entities with perverse incentives.
Corporations, especially publicly traded ones, will almost always pursue maximizing profits. That's quite literally the fiduciary duty of the C-Suite towards shareholders.
Academia really is not the most profitable endeavor. Spending 10+ years as a researcher to make less money than a software engineer sounds too dumb for someone smart enough to get a PhD, because it is [0]:
> For example, at Pennsylvania State University, professors in the earth and mineral sciences department made an average salary of $157,773, which was below the universitywide average of $166,731. Professors in earth and environmental sciences earned $98,567 on average at Iowa State University, compared with the average salary of $134,039.
It's worth noting that, to become an associate university professor, one needs to earn a MSc and a PhD, and spend handful of years as a postdoctorate.
Grants aren't "pocket money" for researchers either. In fact they aren't even awarded to individuals, but projects and organizations:
> [...] Dr. Hayhoe explained how a $1.1 million grant she received was spent: It was divided over four years, was split with her university for facilities costs, helped pay for a graduate assistant and covered the costs of conferences, laptops and publishing in scientific journals.
In short, I don't think these two are remotely comparable.
The marketing team for a protein shake is not making billions. If you mean the CEO and shareholders then you can’t compare them to scientists chasing grants, that’s not an apples to apples comparison.
All the researchers I know are driving old used cars and scraping by. Nobody is rich.
All the big firm researchers/marketers I know are living very comfortable upper class lives, and don't want to jeopardize that with any 'counter findings'.
How hard is this to understand:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor
- Strengthening bone, not muscle, is the reason to lift weights
- Red meat is not a health risk. New study slams years of shoddy research
- Years of shoddy research have overstated the risk.
- What you eat can reprogram your genes
- How to eat if you want to age slowly
- Americans are ignoring the one true “superfood”
Is "Nutrients" a reputable journal? Do the authors have a good track record? I have no idea, but would love if someone more knowledgeable here can comment.
Further, the paper is published by employees of Abbot Nutrition who financially benefit from the conclusions of the paper.
"Conflicts of Interest - The authors S.R.H. and M.W. are employed by Abbott Nutrition. "
That's not to say it's right or wrong, but i didn't know any of the above until i googled to respond to your comment.
I know YOShInOn ingests a lot of articles from MDPI journals, more than any other source. The report I have at my fingertips now is "bottom scoring" articles by my preference and MDPI papers feature prominently in that but that's not because I never like anything from MDPI or because the quality of articles is necessarily bad but because I'd certainly downvote "Vaccinatiopn In Immunosuppressed Patients With Established Skin Warts and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer: A Single-Institutional Cohort Study". It still shows me quite a few. ArXiv papers rank better overall but that's because I only subscribe to CS on arXiv.
---
It's actually a high priority for YOShInOn to have some process to track down links from articles like this that link to scientific articles because sometimes the original article is a better link than the recap and sometimes the other way around.
In my field, which is not science, MDPI seems to publish many, many bad journals. They're embedded in the for-profit publishing corner of the science-industrial complex and I would consider the very real possibility this paper is part total garbage part evil moneymaking scheme.
That doesn't answer OP's question. Is that other research published in reputable journals by people without a conflict of interest, or is it also funded by a protein shake company and published in a controversial journal?
We've long passed the point where we can trust papers written in the field of nutrition without looking extremely critically at their funding and research methods.
- "Strengthening bone, not muscle, is the reason to lift weights"
There's a ton of information out there about this, from my understanding it is really important as you age, especially for females, and then for males as testosterone levels drop.
Calling epigenics "reprogramming" makes it seem like the right combination of vitamins and heart-shaped herbs can turn you into a were-panther.
Your genes can be reprogrammed, but the relationship between epigenics and actual reprogramming is more like the relationship between Chrome and iOS — in that, in the few occasions when it's possible for the former to mess with be later, this is widely regarded as catastrophically bad.
I mean the first one is definitely true (or is an additional reason, especially as people age).
I think when people say "red meat is bad for you" they need to define red meat. Burgers and sausages - probably not great. Steak, chops etc - probably OK.
Eating too many cheeseburgers is a problem, mostly because it's easy to consume too many calories and cheeseburgers aren't good at making you feel full, but nothing is inherently wrong about red meat in a balanced diet, in fact it has many beneficial properties.
From a butcher that grinds it in front of you? sure. Frozen patties from the average cheap supermarket ? You might have less than 70% meat, and some of it might be from sick horses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal
You're implying that this somewhat isolated incident (which, if you see the causes, seems to be related to cross-border mistranslation of words and relabeling issues) is cause to assume that every piece of ground beef you buy at a store is garbage. Seems like quite the leap of logic to me.
> beef from France 75%, water, rehydrated pea protein 3.5%, vegetable fiber, alcohol vinegar, natural flavors, dextrose, starch, dehydrated red beet, salt, pepper.
What exactly is wrong with those ingredients lists, especially the first one? Those all look like standard things you would put in a burger patty (egg, salt, herbs, spices) with the addition of the usual preservatives and other agents to help them being a burger patty shape.
The stuff that's subbing other protein blends in... well, that seems unrelated to the beef content there. You're just picking crap patties.
When I think of beef patty, I think of buying ground beef and then making my own. It's literally as simple as salt, spices, maybe an egg, and some simple prep. No worry about pea protein or soy protein additives.
What ends up in a lot of supermarket patties is the leftover of all the other "higher quality" meat parts, you get stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aponeurosis &c. which don't exist in regular minced meat. We even have a term for these in France, "minerai de viande", literally "meat ore", back in the days it mostly went to the trash or for animal food. Some products are so processed that they can't be legally named "meat" but "meat preparations"
If labeled as a "Hamburger," it can contain all beef or beef and beef fat. Other permitted ingredients include dry seasonings like spices and flavorings. Water (and other liquids) and fillers (like breadcrumbs and flours) are not permitted. Products including these ingredients may be called "Beef Patties" and the added ingredients must be listed on the label. https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Can-hamburger-meat-contain-ot...
For the US, obviously. You sound like you may be in another country.
So, then make your own patties like I suggest then? Also, meat preparations seems like an accurate term for something like a patty that contains herbs, spices, and possibly egg ingredients. Nothing nefarious there to my mind.
> So, then make your own patties like I suggest then?
Sure, but look at what people buy ... the "meat bad" argument (the start of this conversation) comes from the fact that people are allowed to consume absolute garbage. A steak from your local farmer hasn't much to do with your cheap supermarket bacon or the "51% meat" patty which are both much more processed and contains god knows what
What bad nutritional values? It's beef. Are you implying that some fancy high end ground beef has materially different contents of vitamins and minerals compared to cheap ground beef at a store? I'd like to see sources on that.
>100% beef patties made form 50% meat and 50% additives also is beef
I'm pretty sure this isn't correct. According to the USDA
>Beef fat may be added to "hamburger," but not "ground beef." A maximum of 30% fat is allowed in either hamburger or ground beef. Both hamburger and ground beef can have seasonings, but no water, phosphates, extenders, or binders added.
For Hannaford supermarkets at least, the ground beef burger patties that you get out of the meat case next to the ground beef are made from ground beef. They are likely the ground beef FROM those packs, formed into patties by Craig in the back and then put in a new container. It used to be normal for these stores to actually HAVE butchers (my dad was one for decades), and grind and pack the ground beef right there, with a beautiful stainless steel grinder that you can literally hose down with bleach every night. You might even still be able to ask them to grind you some fresh stuff right then and there, that was a service they explicitly advertised at one point.
Every ground beef I've ever purchased has a stated fat to lean ratio. So, 100% beef fat is not ever gonna happen.
As per the 'patties are made of dog shit' claim... the difference in cost between beef with a stated location/content (e.g., sirloin, or chuck) and the generic ground beef is so low I don't see how your claim could be true. And if you're actually worried about that, just buy patties with a stated location of the cut.
People don't care much but a lot of food is very far from what you'd expect. A butcher's minced meat isn't the same as a supermarket's minced meat despite having the same name, some of them are barely 50% meat
> Confronted with different ideas about what is health and your response is to question the reputation of the site?
This should be your first instinct any time you read anything online. Most websites are garbage, pushing sensational "new" ideas to get clicks. If you don't immediately think critically about what you're reading (and part of that is considering reputation), you'll either fall for confirmation bias or you'll be tossed about with each new thing that trends in TikTok.
Haha. No. The source of the information never matters. The content is all that matters. Alas the population has been trained not to think for them self but be told what ideas are good or bad based off who said them. This idiotic thinking runs rapid through out the world causing havoc.
I don't have the knowledge, equipment, skill or time to verify the content of every piece of information I come across so I rely on reputable sources who i trust to verify it for me.
Is this infallible? no. Is it more reliable than me making a judgement based on nothing but my own biases? yes.
> I don't have the knowledge, equipment, skill or time to verify the content of every piece of information I come across so I rely on reputable sources who i trust to verify it for me.
Then pointing out the source is not to your standard is moot. This is a conversation, where opinions and conversations can be had out side in the views or credibility of the source which posted it.
If we were merely to consider the source then hacker news might as well be dig , but with a few “trusted” sources like what cnn?
A while back I spent a decent amount of time trawling through literature in an attempt to figure out the ground truth for protein intake.
My takeaways were:
- People often conflate "body mass" with "lean body mass". If you have a ton of extra fat on you that does not imply you need to eat more protein to retain/grow muscle mass. Lean muscle mass is the right calculation. For an average individual, this is ~15-20% reduction from body mass.
- Oddly, I saw people often conflating "kg" and "lb". 1kg = 2.2lb.
- There are numerous studies which reference ~1.5g per 1kg as a floor and north of ~2.0g protein as still providing benefit without concern for energy. A quick Google yields:
- When you crunch the numbers, it's really not that challenging to achieve. I'm a 195lb male, average/good fitness level, assume 18% body fat. So, lean mass of ~160lb / ~72.5kg resulting in 145g protein as an upper threshold.
I could reduce the amount of chicken I eat by over half, and skip adding chocolate whey to my yogurt, and still be above the maximum suggested guidelines. I could eliminate eating chicken and whey and still be above the minimum suggested guidelines.
Conversely, if I just ate chicken and whey with Greek yogurt, I would still be above the minimum suggested guidelines without eating a single bit of protein in any of my other foods.
Also, it's possible to swap out the chicken with Tofu/Tempeh if you're vegetarian. Firm Tofu is 17g/protein per 100g, Tempeh is 19g, chicken breast is 31g.
One thing glossed over regularly is that grams of protein is misleading, since a human has essential amino acids requirements that may be absent in some protein sources. I think the slang term for getting all the required amino acids is a "complete protein", which might be a blend of more than one "protein" source, with lentils and certain grains a famous example.
Point is that your chart is very cool, but has a single column tracking grams of protein, and that's too low resolution of information to know if those grams themselves are adequate in represented amino acids.
you could go over recommended grams of protein and be missing types of protein constituents in so doing.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a food that's completely missing a particular amino acid.
Most "incomplete sources of protein" still will get you what you need if you eat enough of it (in practical amounts, not impractical technically true amounts).
That said, if you're eating a sufficiently diverse diet, this shouldn't be a problem. And if you're going out of your way to get sufficient protein, tracking what you eat, etc., this is unlikely to be a problem.
Particularly if you're eating more than enough protein by any measure, lacking particular amino acids is a non-issue.
> That said, if you're eating a sufficiently diverse diet, this shouldn't be a problem.
that's the key...with a diverse diet in adequate quantity.
a counterexample would be a diet of blueberries and a huge bucket of lysine, you'd be starving for other essential amino acids, because their "essential" adjective means our livers can not synthesize them...in this contrived example from blueberries and lysine.
> - When you crunch the numbers, it's really not that challenging to achieve.
I slightly disagree. It is kind of hard to achieve, especially if you're trying to control calories as well (and especially if you're trying to cut).
You're effectively swapping out a lot of otherwise-standard, tasty foods (usually carbs) for lots of food that is more expensive, often harder to come by, and often harder to make taste good on its own. It is much easier (and cheaper!) to eat a "normal" diet.
When I was growing up the recommendation was to eat a lot of grains/carbs and avoid red meat. Beyond incompetence I think partly this was because cheap calories were needed historically to feed a manual labor force. Now that much of our labor is knowledge work, and people live sedentary lifestyles unless they exercise, the dietary recommendations should be altered. Whole foods and animal proteins, lower calories required, two meals a day.
And economics. Expensive food (protein) has lower margins. Cheap food is profitable. The high margin pasta dishes and alcohol keep restaurants alive (steak houses famously have almost 0 margin on steak), and it's the same for the entire food industry.
The USDA represents American agricultural industry - not consumers. Eight servings of carbs a day on the food pyramid was essentially a license to Americans to buy as much carbs as they wanted.
Could you give me more information about the low margin of meat? This is interesting. Would have assumed that meat would be a win for fast food industry.
Would be good to understand the source of the claim at the top. Not casting judgment, and they are nutrition folks, but there may be a profit motive behind the funding/research.
This is an interesting result, even though it seems to have arrived at the (edit: not!) same place sports nutritionists have been at for decades when it comes to the general population edit: 1g per kg. The things it says that I mostly hadn’t thought about or didn’t know:
1) older people are less efficient converting dietary protein into muscle, so they need 1.25g/kg
2) pregnant and lactating women obviously have higher needs, so they should eat up to 2g/kg!
3) children are doing a lot of growing, so they need 1.55g/kg
Americans get a lot of protein already in their diet (edit: for a sedentary lifestyle).
For the non-sedentary, I can say from experience (160lb, 5’10”, somewhat lean male) that eating 160g of protein spaced out in 4 meals (sports nutritionists also recommend spacing your protein intake out so that it’s consistently available) is actually pretty hard. You end up needing to eat a lot of chicken and eggs, unless you’re willing to go full-on body builder and start eating supplement shakes. Of course that’s while trying to keep a small calorie surplus — a lot of Americans are very overweight, and likely do eat more protein than they need because they eat more than they need of all the macronutrients.
I have a pet theory that one reason people overeat is because they are unconsciously trying to get more protein. So eating tons of donuts or chips etc doesn’t satiate and they eat until they hit the requisite protein and end up consuming way more carbs and fat in the process.
In the fitness world it it’s thought of as g/lb so if a 170lb person wants to gain muscle (or preserve it on a diet) they should aim for roughly 170g of protein a day minimum. There is more nuance to it than this (should be g/lb of lean muscle mass for example) but as a rule of thumb it’s pretty good and proven to be effective at building/maintaining muscle.
It sounds a lot but it’s not too hard to hit even without whey supplementation. Anyone who has focussed on nutrition and build muscle/strength will have been at this level (or higher) for weeks and months on end.
I was just saying in the context of the article, it’s kg not lbs. For a regular person, 170-200g of protein is not trivial, and you will not hit this without either protein powder or having every meal containing a protein portion. You say “anyone who has focused on nutrition and building muscle” like these people are everywhere. In the general context, few have “building muscle” as a goal.
Hehe you are right. Wanted to point out how weird g per pound g/lb is . It’s half imperial half metric system …
You Americans are moving in the right directions.
Next ist g/kg.
Sorry, but while the meathead stereotype is probably not entirely unfounded, I guarantee that 1) I don't get my information from locker rooms and 2) weightlifters are plenty familiar with what a kilogram is.
I hate these types of articles that spend a bulk of your attention telling you nothing new before they spend less than a paragraph glossing over the conclusion of the study, right before they tell you to eat more protein.
I’m sorry, but nitrogen balance and protein metabolism is one small facet of overall nutrition.
Nutrition is complicated, most of us are ignorant and puff pieces like this do nothing to improve people’s understanding of nutrition.
What does fiber have to do with protein intake? They're essentially unrelated, besides fiber and protein both being high satiety (fiber being essentially infinite satiety to calories).
Nothing, but there is no RDA for fiber, and the FDA also doesn't say that people shouldn't have too much sugar/refined starch, which they really should.
I found this out the hard way. I was a morbidly obese binge eater until I greatly increased the protein content of my diet. Overnight the binge eating stopped without effort. Over the next few years I became merely overweight. I believe that the protein RDA is contributing to the obesity epidemic.
I doubt that most Americans are even aware of the RDA, so I doubt it's contributed much to obesity. Availability of high calorie foods that are low in protein could be part of it though.
I do generally agree that more protein is good, but have you ever had a blood panel to see if you were low on some nutrient(s)? Common sources of protein contain a lot of high doses of other nutrients you may have been low on, causing cravings.
A study by a pill manufacturer whose business is sickness, promoting a sick diet for more obedient consumer customers.
Adult humans require surprisingly little protein. So little, in fact, it's virtually impossible to be protein deficient eating an adequate isocaloric diet with even a modicum of variety. This is a very well cited page which explains most misconceptions and falsehoods about protein in diet https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/apr/protein.htm
McDougall promotes a vegan fad diet. Not sure why I would trust his literature when there's plenty of contrary scientific evidence today. Also, it's been 16 years since that article was written. Scientific consensus has advanced considerably.
Just because humans survive on very little protein doesn't mean there are not negative implications, notably on muscle mass and development.
Fad diet? Until recent history, and coincidentally before the prevalence of vast diet-related disease, most of the world lived on a mostly vegan diet. You are welcome to cite some of this advanced scientific evidence refuting McDougall or suggesting protein deficiency is a concern anywhere in the Western world.
McDougall's diet promotes low dietary cholesterol. Scientific evidence supports dietary cholesterol has no link to blood serum cholesterol. One easy example of promotion of non-evidence-based dietary restrictions. Also, extremely low fat recommendations, far below scientific concern levels. What's left is carbs and fiber for satiety, which is going to be extremely difficult to adhere to.
McDougall has also promoted his diet for treating diabetes, cancer, and other non-diet-related ailments.
Yes, I think it's fair to call it a fad diet. Nothing specifically wrong with reasonable vegan diets, but his seems full of specious claims.
Except, low protein intake is correlated to problems in elder age. As you get older, you need more protein to support muscles from atrophying (explicitly a point the main article discusses). Muscle weakness and atrophy is a huge problem for elderly, and leads to numerous health risks, quality of life problems, etc. Stronger older individuals are better at caring for themselves, much more likely to survive accidents such as falls, and generally going to be more mobile.
This eating proteins seems like a some sort of mind virus these days propelled by clever marketing.
I don't think anyone ever have to worry about how much protein they need
the body tell you when you need to eat more protein
it usually comes with desire or craving certain foods
having the condition that you need to eat certain amount of protein everyday is probably a lot worse for your health than eating to little protein one day
> I don't think anyone ever have to worry about how much protein they need the body tell you when you need to eat more protein it usually comes with desire or craving certain foods
People can barely differentiate hunger from thirst, let alone protein hunger, what happens actually is the complete opposite of your interpretation though, low protein diet cause hunger, and since sugar and fat are addictive people go for these food first.
Your body doesn't send a lot of signals and the vast majority of these signals were for our ancestors who only had access to the most basic of foods in relative low quantity coupled with a lot of exercise. In our modern world of unlimited cheap calorie dense food that you can get delivered to your sofa in 20 minutes these signals are your greatest enemy.
> However, where low-protein diets are simultaneously high in fats and carbohydrates and low in non-caloric diluents such as fibre and water, the homeostatic mechanisms can be overwhelmed leading to positive energy balance, particularly where carbohydrates are rapidly digested non-resistant starches and sugars. If exposure is chronic, this leads to increased adiposity which itself can exacerbate the imbalance by decreasing protein efficiency thus increasing its deficiency and triggering further intake
skip studies, skip science.
This is yoga find out for your self.
If you exercise, if you meditate if you eat organic
You become receptive and sensitive and all the information you could ever want is right there available within
Including what you need to eat
Your body's feedback mechanisms are only approximations, and furthermore need to be trained. You crave the foods that you've been regularly exposed to that have the nutrients you're lacking, but if someone hasn't been exposed to good food, they won't crave it. Telling people to eat more protein is a signal that they should pay attention to how much protein they're actually ingesting because it may be lacking (which it typically is).
There is absolutely no mechanism in your body to signal the need for specific nutrients or macro-nutrients. The signs of protein deficiency are simply hunger and weakness[1], which is pretty vague.
This is a function of higher mind; awareness, you have everything you need I would go with instinct. Science will never be able to explain how this works, just abandon all hope of scientific rescue. You have everything you need within.
You're describing magical thinking. As a counterpoint you can look at the problem of scurvy on per-industrial naval voyages. They didn't have an instinct to eat citrus, it was discovered by a long and painful period of trial and error. As another counterpoint, historically "rabbit starvation"[1] otherwise know as protein poisoning has been an issue periodically. If people innately felt the need to consume fat in particular this wouldn't happen.
I have noticed a lot of inconsistency on (US) "nutrition facts" labels. I've seen anywhere from 5g being 3% of the daily recommended amount (~150g per day) to 15g being 33% of the daily amount (~50g per day).
> A competitive level isn't necessary, but reaching a non-trivial level of fitness has tremendous benefits to one's health and well-being.
Yes, but it's also a significant time and money investment. The additional time and food cost of nutrition/gym membership/supplements is easily $5000/yr or more.
That's not what the article says. It says "generally too low". The mentions of pregnant [people] and old people are preceded by "especially", so it's just more true in their case and not only in their case.
Additionally the list following "especially" includes lactating women (not the same thing as pregnant women) as well as children over age 3.
The article also says, “The good news is that Americans are already eclipsing that intake on average, and children appear to be getting plenty of protein, per data collected by the CDC.”
The RDA is used to set policy for institutions which do effect people. No matter how stupid an "official" recommendation is, institutions take it seriously because following it deflects blame if something happens.
Boosting the RDA probably filters through to stuff like school lunch programs sooner or later. If school lunches needed to boost protein they'd likely do it at the expense of carbs and fat. Less bread and seed oils, more proteins for the kids - sounds like a win to me.
RDI/RDA is intended to be the minimum value that would be sufficient for something like 98% of the population to be maximally healthy (ie, no negative side effects). Even if people are exceeding the currently defined limits on average, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be raised.
The other aspect is in general people who are strapped for cash also tend to be strapped for time, and the vast majority of junk food and quick premade meals don't have nearly enough protein in them for all the calories they contain. Very easy to end up overloading on low quality carbs and fats while skimping on protein and healthier sources of the former. As a rule the healthier stuff tends to be more expensive and less easily accessible to the busy/poor/stressed consumer (since a proper diet almost always includes a lot of cooking from scratch).
Anyone who works out at all knows this. Good luck growing muscle and recovering without proper protein intake.
Imo anti-meat stances have contributed to this. People really need to be eating quality meat to hit that protein mark. You'll never eat enough broccoli in a day to get enough protein, and good luck being bloated as hell if you try.
> People really need to be eating quality meat to hit that protein mark. You'll never eat enough broccoli in a day to get enough protein, and good luck being bloated as hell if you try.
Mixed veg proteins are virtually identical to whey, which is more of less the best you can get in term of amino acids.
If you're not vegan eggs will do the job very very well, better than most meat actually.
You _really_ don't need meat, at all
Of course if you try to bulk on broccoli and salad you're doomed, but you're the only one making that argument
Weird seeing this blatant industry funded talking point about broccoli spread. It's pure strawman. No one suggests you get your protein from broccoli. There are vegetarian and vegan weightlifters, MMA fighters, and all manner of elite athletes.
Do you really believe they are trying to get all their protein from broccoli? How can you possible believe this if you stop and think for more than a few seconds? Have you never heard of all manner of soy products, other beans, certain grains that are rich in protein, rice protein extracts, pea protein extracts, and of course dairy and eggs for vegetarians?
Yeah, you're going to have trouble getting enough calories for hard work from eating broccoli for that matter. Wheat contains a lot of protein for a grain although it is terribly imbalanced and is best when complemented. Note protein requirements are higher when calorie input is low
