Food Choices Page #2

associated these nutrients

with animal foods.

I needed to find out

if those were valid

concerns, or simply myths.

- It's almost

impossible to design

a protein deficient diet

surrounding, you know, a variety

of whole plant foods.

- What people need to know

is there's never been a

case of protein deficiency

ever described in

the world literature,

on any natural diet,

that met the sufficient

amount of calories.

- You know, back to

1839 when protein

was discovered, it had

this incredible reverence

associated with it, and

it just gained traction.

But the evidence is

very clear that humans

do not need to eat

a lot of protein,

and when they do, they get

a lot of health problems

as a result.

I mean human protein needs

are just a tiny percentage

of calories, maybe two

and a half, three percent

of calories.

And if you were to

eat the lowest protein

foods, in the plant world,

which would be foods like rice,

you're at eight or

nine percent protein.

So you're not going to

become protein deficient.

But, the promoters of

the low-carb diets,

the promoters of

the sports drinks,

and the food bars, and

all these kinds of things,

insist and market to

the public that they

absolutely must

have more protein.

It's just not true.

In practical sense,

and in reality,

the way we humans operate,

we get ideal loads of

protein if we just get it

from plants.

When we consume animal foods,

to get that protein,

if you will,

what we're actually

doing, we're displacing,

the consumption of

those foods that matter.

And foods that

matter are plants.

- The amount of

animal protein we eat

is the problem.

You know, in rural China,

and Japanese populations,

and healthier

places in the world,

people eat a little

bit of animal protein,

but for economic reasons,

it's very, very, very tiny.

They use one little

piece of meat,

they slice it up,

and it seasons a dish

for eight people.

Here in this country,

we have one gargantuan

piece of meat, we

put it on a plate,

with a tiny little

bit of vegetables,

we call that a meal.

The problem is that when

you eat too much protein,

of any type, you

stress your kidneys,

you stress your liver, and

when it's animal protein,

you increase your

risk of cancer.

And we see cancer is

geographically distributed.

The more animal food

consumed in a society,

the more cancer, more

heart disease, you get.

- And it's amazing all

the animals that we choose

in this country to eat

for protein and calcium,

are vegetarian animals.

Where's the logic in that?

And I always like

to remind you, also,

when you're eating your garbage,

you never ask , "where

am I getting my protein,

"and my calcium."

It's only when you come

into the healthy world

that all of a sudden

you're concerned

with where it's coming from.

- We're in the midst of

this amazing protein push.

Everywhere you look,

the message is clear.

Protein, protein, protein.

This idea that you

need massive amounts

of protein, to

simply breathe air

in and out of your lungs,

you know, and to be healthy,

or to perform as an athlete.

- Prior to making

this dietary change,

like my main nutritional

strategy in a day

was to see how many

grams of protein

I could get in, like about that,

the only calculations

i ever really did,

I didn't count calories,

i didn't count anything,

was just like trying to

get in exorbitant amounts

of grams of protein in my day.

Just because there

are grams of protein

on the nutritional

content of something,

doesn't mean that

your body can actually

process all of those grams.

- Protein does

some other things.

It elevates blood

cholesterol levels,

which most people

have not heard of.

But that's about 100

years old, that idea.

And then repeated several times,

but always ignored.

Animal protein

starts heart disease.

It increases things

like the production

of so called free radicals,

which are those highly

reactive molecules

that actually stimulate aging,

and encourages cancer formation.

It also stimulates the

production of the wrong

kind of hormones.

It tends to increase

the level of estrogens,

for example, and

one, which in turn,

is associated with

breast cancer.

It changes the microflora

in our intestine

when we're consuming

too much protein.

I mean, it does

all these things.

- There's lots of things

we have to worry about

in the American diet.

Fiber, 97% of Americans

don't reach the daily

minimum intake of fiber,

98% of Americans don't

reach the daily minimum

intake of potassium,

for example.

The nutrients of concern

for most Americans

are the ones that are

found in plant foods.

Mostly fruits and vegetables,

and the ones that we're

getting too much of,

in excess, whether

it's calorie, sodium,

cholesterol, saturated

fat, are found

in processed foods and

animal foods in general.

- Many people

decide they want to improve

their health, by staying

away from red meat.

And instead, they begin

consuming more white meats,

like chicken, Turkey, and fish.

I always wondered if

certain types of meats

were really better than others.

- People think that

they're going to be healthy

by giving up red meat,

and instead, eating

poulty and fish.

Stop and think about

this for a minute.

What are meat, poultry and fish?

They're muscles of animals.

In one case, they

have to move a limb,

another case, they flap a wing,

in another case,

they wiggle a tail.

They're the same.

High fat, high protein,

high cholesterol,

no dietary fiber,

high in the food chain,

so heavily polluted.

- From the standpoint of

the effect of the protein

and fat in those foods,

and their effect on health,

it really doesn't matter.

It's dose dependent,

not type dependent.

So fish is not

healthier, in many cases,

it has more fat, than

chicken and pork.

But you have other

issues with fish, too.

In the ocean, you have

this whole hierarchy

of things eating things, that

eat things, that eat things.

And so you concentrate all

the pollutants in the ocean

including Mercury,

in fish like tuna,

that are some of the

favorite that we like to eat.

So fish is really not healthier.

Don't kid yourself in

thinking that if you're eating

fish and chicken you

can eat more of it.

Because one thing

in common with these

healthy populations

around the world that

do eat a little

bit of animal food,

whatever type they're choosing,

it's really a tiny,

tiny percentage

of what they're

eating in their diet.

So fish doesn't get a free pass.

A lot of people are

being told to eat fish,

by cardiologists,

or to take fish oil.

That's the other thing.

By cardiologists who

say that if you do that,

you'll increase your

hdl cholesterol,

and here's the

problem with that.

It's true, by the way.

It just doesn't

make any difference.

Studies are pretty clear

that in populations with very

low incidence of heart

disease, total cholesterol,

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