| Most people seem to think that plants are devoid of protein. Even
many ardent vegetarians believe that they have to eat beans to make
sure they get enough protein. The truth is, all plant foods
have plentiful protein. Take a look at the following chart:
What do the percentages mean?
The calories in food come from protein, fat,
and carbohydrate. The numbers above reflect what percentage of that
food's calories come from protein. For comparison, here are some
common foods, showing how much of the calories comes from
protein,
fat, and
carbohydrate.
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Watermelon
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Whole Wheat Bread
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Iceberg Lettuce
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| Black Beans |
Ground Beef |
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While we're at it, many medical authorities
recommend diets that are high in carbohydrate, and low in fat and
protein. The chart on the right shows the rough proportion of calories
in diets recommended by Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr.
Michael Klaper, and Dr. Neal Barnard.
Are you alarmed because you're seeing for the
first time how much carbohydrates are in plant foods, and you thought
carbohydrates were bad or fattening? Then here's
more detail about
carbohydrates.
How much protein do you need?
The first clue to how much protein you need
comes from what nature designed for us. Human breast milk is 5.5%
protein. It's designed to nourish us at the point in our lives when
we're growing the fastest and our protein requirement is as high as it
will ever be. Obviously, if nature wants us to have 5.5% when we're
growing, we can easily do with less than that once we're already
grown.
It is interesting to note that cow's milk is
29%. Cows grow much faster than humans, and grow to be much larger, so
it's not surprising that their protein requirement is higher.
We can also ignore nature and look at
official recommendations. Experts disagree on exactly how much protein
you need, but the range of recommendations is between 2.5 to 8.0% of
your total diet. Even the highest recommendation (the U.S. RDA, at 8%)
is easily obtained on an all-plant diet.
A report in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition established that grown humans do fine with a
diet consisting of 2.5% protein. The U.S. Food & Nutrition Board set
their figure at 4.5%, then added a safety margin to bump it up to
6.0%. The U.S. National Research Council added another safety margin
when setting the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance), at 8.0%. The World
Health Organization recommends 4.5% (the figure we used in our chart),
or 6.0% during pregnancy.
Isn't plant protein of lower quality?
In practical terms, no, it's not. But even if
it were, it wouldn't matter!
Have a look at
the chart again. All foods contain so much
protein that even IF plant protein were inferior somehow, you still
easily get more than enough protein by eating only plant foods.
Don't you have to "combine" proteins to make
a "complete" protein?
No. That's an outdated theory that was
discredited decades ago. Unfortunately, myths die hard. Here's
more on "complete" proteins.
Meat isn't in the chart. How much protein is
there in meat?
It varies wildly depending on the meat. Bacon
is only 5%, while light Turkey is 79%, although the average is around
50%. But remember, more is NOT better in the case of protein -- it's
worse. Our bodies weren't designed to handle 50% protein, and that's
why we suffer from cancer, osteoporosis, kidney failure, and other
degenerative diseases when we eat meat every day.
A final thought
It's odd that people think we need to eat
animals for protein, but the animals that we eat consume nothing but
plants! Where do pigs, cows, and sheep get their protein? From plants.
Does anybody ever worry that cows or sheep aren't getting enough
protein? The cows and sheep certainly don't.
When I bring up this point, people often
counter, "But humans aren't cows!" What is that supposed to mean --
that only humans need protein and cows don't? Nonsense. All animals
need protein to grow and maintain body tissues. Is it supposed to mean
that humans and cows process protein differently? Nonsense again.
Protein is used universally the same way in all creatures.
Consider something else. Many people eat
animals because they think that there are some magical nutrients in
meat. But realize that meat is simply flesh... and humans are simply
flesh! Look at your own arm -- you're nothing but walking meat.
Anything that you might expect to get from eating flesh you already
have, because you're MADE of flesh!
About the percentages for the different
foods
Protein percentages were derived from the
bible of nutritional data, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Handbook
#8: Nutritional Values of Foods in Common Units.
Foods for each category were averaged. For
example, not all vegetables are 23% protein; we took several common
vegetables (such as Potatoes, 11%, and Broccoli, 37%), and reported
the average, which was 23%. Other types of foods were averaged the
same way.
I thought lots of carbohydrate was bad?
Not true at all. Your body was designed to
run on mostly carbohydrates. And as you can see from
the charts at the
top of this page, all plant foods are mostly
carbohydrates -- not just potatoes and bread. In fact, as you can see
above, the ONLY way to avoid carbohydrates is to eat only meat, which
is the only food without carbohydrates. And since meat has no
carbohydrate, all that's left is dangerous amounts of protein and fat.
If you were trying to avoid carbohydrates
because you thought they were fattening, then either (1) you probably
WEREN'T avoiding carbohydrates, because you now see that all plant
foods are mostly carbohydrates (even broccoli and beans), or (2) you
were really avoiding carbohydrates the only way possible, by eating
lots of meat. But that meant you were overdosing on fat or protein, or
both.
The only problem with carbohydrates are with
those that are heavily refined -- like white sugar and white flour.
White sugar is empty calories with no other nutritional value. White
flour has had vitamins and minerals removed, and is deficient in
fiber. (Better is whole wheat flour.)
References
Handbook of the Nutritional Value of Foods
in Common Units, by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1975 [commonly
referred to as Handbook No. 8 and No. 456]
Diet for a New America, by John Robbins,
1987
The McDougall Plan, by Dr. John A.
McDougall, 1983
The McDougall Program, by Dr. John A.
McDougall, 1991
Eating for the Eighties, by Janie C. & Neil
J. Hartbarger (see below), 1981
One of the above authors, Neil Hartbarger, wrote us on 6/10/01:
Hi, Michael. I just ran a Sunday-night-what-the-heck search on my
own name, and hit your page on protein. Very cogent. Making the case
against our cultural stereotypes is an uphill battle, though. As you
note, I've been talking about it for two decades and nobody seems to
notice. All the best. --Neil
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