There's Plenty of Misinformation About Protein Foods

Confusion about protein foods is widespread. I wish I had a nickel... well okay, a dollar (inflation, after all)… for every time somebody brought up the protein issue when they learn I’m a vegetarian .

We’ve been brainwashed by industrial/commercial (think meat and dairy ) interests to believe we must consume high amounts of high-protein foods (surprise, surprise: meat and dairy) to be healthy.

One very dear friend in particular is overweight, unhealthy, and on medications. Over the 30 years we’ve been friends, she still expresses her concerns—to me, a healthy, normal-weight person on no medications—about not getting enough protein on a vegetarian diet .

How Much is Enough?

One of my heroes when it comes to educating people about nutrition and conscious eating is John Robbins. In his book May All Be Fed, he writes that the World Health Organization, the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Research Council have said that we need only 8% of our daily calories from protein, at the very maximum.

Human mother’s milk provides 5% of its calories as protein. Nature seems to be telling us something there. If little babies, growing the fastest they will grow in their lives, are best served by getting 5% of their food calories as protein, what about us full-grown people?

Is it difficult to get 5% of your calories from food? I’m not suggesting this, but if you just ate potatoes, you’d get enough. They contain 11% protein. Oatmeal is 15%. Beet greens are 30%, cauliflower 34%, lentils 29%. You get the idea.

“If people are getting enough calories,
they are virtually certain of getting enough protein.”

Animal vs. Vegetable Protein

Some people still think that protein from animals is superior to that from vegetarian sources. The medical journal Lancet reported:

“Formerly, vegetable proteins were classified as second-class, and regarded as inferior to first-class proteins of animal origin, but this distinction has now been generally discarded.”

By eating natural plant-based foods when you’re hungry, it’s nearly impossible to be deficient in protein.

Dangers of Too Many (Animal) Protein Foods

People have been so concerned—because of the mythology foisted on us by commercial interests—about getting enough protein in their diet, that they are probably unaware of the serious health consequences that can result from ingesting too many high protein foods.

The greatest incidences of osteoporosis occur in those nations with the highest animal protein food intake—the United States, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden and Israel.

A high-protein diet creates a negative calcium balance, suggesting that osteoporosis is forming. The body pulls calcium out of the bones to bring the blood back to homeostasis with a proper calcium balance.

In addition to osteoporosis, scientific research indicates that many other diseases are directly related to animal protein food consumption: kidney stones and other kidney diseases, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and many kinds of cancers.

If you’re a natural-food-eating vegan , congratulations! If you’re still eating animal products, do yourself a big favor and start eliminating those foods. You’ll feel better, lose weight and avoid some serious health problems.

Return to Raw Foods from Protein Foods .