The Nutrition Protein Myth
"Where do you get your protein?" This question has become a humorous one to many in the living and raw food community due to how often it is asked. It can become kind of sarcastically funny because of how much ignorance the question is based in. The last thing a civilized person needs to worry about is getting protein...which is why it has become the nutrition protein myth. "Civilized" society actually suffers from excessive protein consumption, not deficiency. From Diet for a New America by John Robbins, 40,000,000 suffer from diseases caused by protein excess in America, while only 3 suffer from diseases caused by protein deficiency. The protein content of mother's milk is only 2% and drops to 1.2% after the first six months (Ehret, 1920). So if growing babies only need 2% protein, imagine how little we must need. Some of the healthiest studied tribal societies in the world live on 10 grams of protein a day and are vegetarian, eating vegetarian cooked roots (and NOT cooked grains) (Patenaude, 2002). 
One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make the bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying himself
with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle.
~Henry David Thoreau
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Body Warmth on Raw Foods
Not rated yet The Nutrition Protein Myth continued... What people don't understand is that our bodies actually create the exact proteins required, when required, and that they do this from amino acids, not protein. Protein has to be broken down by the body, it is the "middle man" that can provide the amino acids we need, but it would be a lot easier to just eat raw plant products to get those amino acids, and a lot healthier too. Our bodies easily absorb the amino acids of plant matter. Then we have the amino acids needed to create different proteins. Our bodies do not utilize proteins that come into the body as they are, the body needs to make its own. There are plenty of amino acids in plant foods as long as you don't cook the food. Cooking at high heat destroys amino acids. It is a fallacy that we need to eat all of the amino acids in one meal for our bodies to be able to make proteins. Our body creates many of the amino acids we need and the rest come in easily by eating a variety of plant foods throughout the day and week. Intentional food combining for amino acids is now known to be unnecessary(American Dietetic Assoc.1997). If people are worried that their low energy is from not eating
Protein on the Raw Vegan Diet Look at raw food trainer Roger Haeske below; he is 41 years old in this image, does he look like his body is not making all the proteins
it needs from a totally raw vegan diet? There is actually enough protein on the raw vegan diet anyway. Look at this chart from Sunfood Diet Success System.:This chart, borrowed from David Wolfe's book, clearly shows that there is enough protein in the raw vegan diet, and that concerns otherwise are completely unfounded. Also, excess protein is acidic to the body and needs to attach to calcium for the body to release it. It is thus no accident that there are an annual 1,200,000 osteoporosis-related fractures in the United States according to Surgeon General reports. This is an excessively high number, much higher even than the incidence of heart attacks and strokes (US Dept of health and human services, 2004). Whey Protein PowdersFinally, if you think non-raw protein powders, i.e., whey protein is healthy, read the following from www.Enerex.ca (for the sources you'll have to go to the website):It has been demonstrated in humans that whey protein rapidly exits the stomach and may be incompletely absorbed by the GI tract, which may not only prove wasteful, but could potentially increase the chance of GI upset and bloating (1).A recent study demonstrated that the ingestion of whey protein might actually increase the breakdown of pre-existing muscle tissue. This effect is due to the rapid oxidation of BCAA's, which renders them useless for incorporation into new muscle tissue (2). In summary, whey protein moves through the human system too quickly, particularly in the absence of dietary fibre, for the nutrients and growth factors to be fully utilized. There is also considerable concern about the long-term health risks of animal protein in general. Long-term consumption of animal proteins can cause significant hypercholesterimia and elevated blood levels of homocysteine (a derivative of methionine which can damage the artery walls if allowed to accumulate in the body's blood and tissues). Elevated homocysteine increases the risk of vascular disease. Meat, egg and milk are high in cholesterol, and their proteins are high in methionine, a sulphur amino acid, an excess of which has been shown to interfere with the metabolic breakdown of homocysteine (3) by suppressing the action of Vitamin B6, Folic Acid and Vitamin B12. Individuals consuming a diet high in animal protein, whose plasma lysine to arginine ratio is 3.5 to one or higher value as in whey protein, have a significantly increased atherosclerosis risk due to excessive dietary lysine. Animal protein has a L/A ratio of 3-4/1, while plant protein has a L/A ratio of 1-1.25/1 (4). Whey Protein and Bone Loss A recently completed study (10) comparing bone loss in the lumbar spine in peri-menopausal woman showed that the control group who supplemented the diet with whey protein, significant bone loss occurred. In the group who supplemented the diet with isoflavone-rich soy protein, significant positive effect on bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) occurred. The researchers at Iowa State University concluded that regular consumption of isoflavone-rich soy protein could translate into a decrease in lifetime risk of osteoporosis. By analogy, regular consumption of milk proteins such as whey could increase the lifetime risk of osteoporosis. Whey Protein increases creatine kinase activity after strenuous activity. According to a recently published study (11) creatine kinase activity, an indicator of muscle damage following strenuous aerobic exercise, actually increased after participants consumed whey protein, whereas the increase after each bout of exercise lowered for those participants who consumed Supro®Soy beverage. The same study also showed that soy protein limited an exercise-induced increase in plasma myeloperoxidase, which is an inflammation marker. Comparatively, whey consumption had no effect on the level of inflammation monitoring.
Get real muscle, real strength. Go vegan. Go raw.If you want the amino acids your body needs and you want incredible muscle, no body fat, and incredible endurance like raw-food athlete Tim VanOrden in the above video, then eat raw-living foods and raw food 'protein' powders like Hemp Protein Powder, Raw Vegan Sun Warrior Protein from fermented rice, and Raw Vegan Sun Warrior Activated Barley Protein from Sunfood Nutrition. Cooking your food kills the amino acids that your body needs, and whey protein powders are a less than healthy way to get protein on a nutrient deficient diet. Remember, you *don't need protein*, you need *amino acids* straight from nature as intended in *un-cooked foods*!All the nutrients you need our found in a raw-living food diet. I'm a professional TriYoga® teacher and I'll include a picture of me below to show off raw food diet strength and muscle, while eating nothing but raw-living foods. I don't even do the 'protein' powders listed above, except for the hemp. The other two powders are brand new on the market and I haven't even tried them yet. I have been raw for nine years, so this muscle is all built from raw plant foods! Get real muscle, real strength. Go vegan. Go raw. Visit my
raw vegan diet inspiration
page.
 
Sources: Carqué, Otto An appeal to common sense: The folly of meat-eating ; a reply to an editorial in the New York and Chicago Evening American and San Francisco Examiner. Kosmos; 3rd edition: 1904. Ehret, Arnold. Mucusless Diet Healing System: A Scientific Method of Eating Your Way to Health. Benedict Lust Publications: New York, N.Y., 2002. Petenaude, Frederic. The Raw Secrets: The Raw Vegan Diet in the Real World. Raw Vegan Publishing: Quebec, Canada, 2002. Position of the American Dietetic Assoc.: vegetarian diets. J Amer Diet Assoc 1997:97 (11):1317-21. US Dept of health and human services. Bone health and osteoporosis: a report of the surgeon general, 2004. Whey Protein and Fructose, an Unhealthy Combination. Enerex.com. Viewed at: http://www.enerex.ca/articles/whey_protein_and_fructose.htm
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“High-protein foods, particularly excessive animal protein, dramatically increase the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses. In the short run, they may also cause kidney problems, loss of calcium in the bones, and an unhealthy metabolic state called ketosis in many people." -Dr. D Ornish
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meat or concentrated protein, man actually receives energy and endurance from the combustion of carbohydrates, rather than from protein, and the body does not consume any more protein when doing strenuous work then it does when it is at rest (Carque, 1904). This is best illustrated by endurance athletes who eat carbohydrates when training/competing. The only man to win the Ironman Triathlon more than twice is vegetarian Dave Scott (6 time winner), thus it's a myth that healthy vegetarians are frail and weak. More examples of the incredible vitality of vegetarians include former champion bodybuilder Bill Pearl, the legendary 6'8, 320 pound wrestler Killer Kowalski, the Olympic gold medalist track runner Edwin Moses, and in the animal kingdom ,bulls, elephants, rhinos, and gorillas are all vegetarian if not vegan.
