Expert Interview: what no one tells you about protein

“EAT MORE PROTEIN” is the catch-cry.

Hmm, you think, protein is good for me. I must guzzle ALL THE SHAKES!

(Right?)

Not so fast, buster.

People are addicted to the idea that protein (animal protein in particular) makes you lose weight and is a generally healthy thing to do.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

(Don't feel bad if you think this way: there are billions of dollars spent inducing this type of response.)

As always, your number 1 tool in assessing the veracity of anything (study, point of view etc) is enacting the maxim “follow the money”.

One of my favourite atheletes, writers and inspirational people, Rich Roll, had an epic podcast with Ironman doctor (who transformed his life), Dr Garth Davis.

I highly recommend you listen to this epic Rich Roll podcast (link) with Dr Garth Davis that dispassionately discusses, dissects and disassembles the misinformation in nutrition.

Below you’ll find my notes, observations and key takeaways. Think of this as a TL;DR in case you can’t listen to the entire podcast. I hope you see enough to whet your appetite and listen to it as it’s seriously worth your while to make time to listen to it.

(I don't normally show-note podcasts but I think I ought to, at least for worth shows like this. Rich Roll also has his usually-awesome notes.)

This is an absolute must-listen if you are:

• Interested in living longer
• Interested in avoiding cancer, coronary heart disease, diabetes and more
• At all confused about diet and nutrition
• How to figure out what studies to trust or not (blogs don’t count)

Key topics

• How to avoid confusion around diet/nutrition and sort fact from fiction (follow the money)
• Debunking the “high protein is good” myth
• Debunking the “saturated fat is good” myth
• Health studies that are actually based on good science and testing methodology (and aren’t compromised by funding)
• The idea that plant based diets don’t provide enough iron/protein/amino acids <insert any other nutrient here> and why this is wrong

Key takeaways

• It’s almost impossible not to get enough protein from a plant based diet.
• No one (NO ONE) is protein deficient unless they’re starving or practically starving (<1000 calories).
• RDA protein: Men 56gm, women 42gm: optimal (not minimal) (WHO states 0.8g/kg bodyweight, 1g for athlete).
• Eating more animal protein will make you sick eventually.
• Eat 35gms of fibre a day. You will lose weight (ideally switch a portion of animal protein to fibre to start with).
• Eat tonnes of fibre, you won’t get sick (fruit, vegies).
• Forget protein, put that focus on fibre.
• Eating more plants is like finding fountain of youth (for the doctor’s patient and from general observation of converts).
• Use common-sense and instinct. Peel an orange, perfect for human consumption.
• The baby test. Place cut up banana in front of a baby and bloody steak. What does she reach for.
• Keep a journal: exposes your poor eating, you’ll find food patterns (beer + high fat).
• #1 thing that holds people back from healthy lifestyle trajectory: the belief we need high doses of protein.
• Dr Dan: chicken #1 cause of weight gain in USA.
• Food system that isn’t concerned about health and health system unconcerned with food.

Issues with nutrition

• Look at what people who are telling you carbs are bad are eating: overweight people (to a large degree).
• Researchers: publish or perish, leads to really bad studies.
• Univariate analysis (Swiss chocolate example), must do multivariate analysis, this is what Denise Minger did in “tearing down” The China Study (her debunking since thoroughly debunked)
• You can’t do double blind randomized study on food. Strictly speaking, this is the best way to do studies. This doesn’t mean studies aren’t valid but it makes it easy for anti-plant food industry to decry these studies.
• So many variables in diet: ie vegans who don’t eat fibre, aren’t eating good vegan diet. Vegan diabetes incidence, 2% not clear why. But, correlation does not prove causality (e.g. just because a plant-food diet adherent has diabetes doesn't mean plant food diets cause diabetes).
• Medical profession: not trained to treat the whole person, and is a huge part of the problem. No nutrition learnt at medical school. No doctor ever asks “what are you eating”. Trained to treat symptoms not root cause.
• Patient resistance to change: Dr prescribes a drug rather than convincing them to change their lifestyle and diet (Especially in 20 minute consult).
• Reductionism in food science. Particalisation of food. Bad.
• Meat/Animal Protein: more calories from fat than protein. The meat=protein link is misleading.
• So many things are said that are completely untrue (blogs are quoted as sources of authority).
• Medicine doesn’t know about nutrition. Bariatric surgeon conference: none of them had heard of EPIC studies, they see a “chance to cut is a chance to cure”.
• True vegans have lower iron, but not anaemic. Anaemia incidence uniform across population including red meat eaters.
• Doctors blame vegan diet for many things (e.g. hypothyroid). Nutritionists and doctors don’t really understand nutrition.
• People do NOT want to change lifestyle: easy to get people to take notice of something that confirms their bad habits. E.g. “butter is good for you”. Latch on to this to avoid wholesale change.

Animal food diet

• Processed meat is just HORRIBLE for you. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease. HORRIBLE.
• Red meat, for the most part, not good for you. Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease (CHD).
• Animal products lead to premature aging, cancer (telomere destruction).
• Chicken: leukemia, lymphoma.
• Prostate: dairy, eggs, meat.
• Red meat, reproductive issues (protaste), diabetes.
• Animal products: heart disease, shorter length of life.
• Very clear: less meat, mostly plant = longer life.
• Haem-iron: from animals (very dangerous to pancreas), iron in plants non-haem and not dangerous.
• Meat = acids (amino acids), body buffers acid to some degree. Steals calcium from muscles (and bone).
• Hetereocyclic Amines (burnt food)
• Nitrosamines
• Glycated end products (VERY VERY bad for body)

Studies

• China Study debunking: Colin Campbell has studied nutrition ALL his life. Not an industry schill (quite the opposite if you read his story).
• China Study debunking: Denise Minger: rant, took raw data, used univariate analysis (poor science) to prove her point of view (cognitive bias).
• Saturated fat is good: Siri-Tarino (all authors paid for by meat/dairy industry). Finding “Sat fat not correlated to heart disease”. Cherry picked studies that gave that answer. Studies they picked did over-adjustment, i.e. removed confounding variables (things that independently affect a result). They removed anyone diabetic and high cholesterol. High cholesterol causes CHD. Sat fat raises cholesterol, causes heart disease. e.g. by removing those high cholesterol people, you’re only leaving those genetically predisposed to handle high cholesterol and not get CHD.
• Good studies: EPIC trials, 500k people, 10-12 countries, 12-14 years. Adventist Studies, Nurses Health/Harvard. All pretty clearly show plant-based diet prevents diabetes, CHD, cancer, increases length of life.
• Adventist studies
• EPIC
• Harvard/Nurses Study

High protein/Ketosis diets

• Depletes glycogen, lose water.
• Ketones, pee more. Lose weight for a while, not sustainable.

Plant based diets

• Fibre is satiating factor.
• Potato highly satiating and healthy (but starch is bad according to experts?).
• Society has a wholesale fibre deficiency.
• Fruit is not bad, fruit sugar not bad: Sugar + fibre (fruit ) = slow release pill.
• Almost impossible for sugar/carb to return to (de novo lipogensis) fat until you've completely saturated all of glycogen (1500gm) in your body, THEN ups the metabolism to burn carbs.
• Everything about our anatomy indicates we’re fruit eaters.
• Fat adaptation (vegan), not needed.
• Train in aerobic zone(Z2), go all day.
• Fat adaptation fits into a broader picture.
• Can’t do it through diet (acidic).
• Ketosis is an emergency state of the body.
• Brain lives on glucose (sugar) not fat.
• Serious ketosis is not a cool place to be.

“Grain brain”

• Gluten sensitivity totally imagined (there's a study).
• Coeliac very real.
• Rich’s example on bread and feeling crap even though bread is a carb/starch: FODMAPS (polysaccharides, yeast, gut bacteria can’t handle some FODMAPs, CHOs).
• Can draw blood and test for gluten sensitivity and get a value of 0. No clinical value or meaning.
• Grains GOOD for diabetes, CHD, B vitamins.
• Grain GOOD for brain.
• By grain, we mean, Heirloom millet, Oatmeal (steel cut, rolled oat, must include wheat germ), eat food as close to its natural state.

More reading

You can buy Rich's new book as well as Garth's book Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It from my Amazon page. Doing so doesn't cost you anything extra but Amazon kicks back a little commission to VeloNomad.

Proteinaholic: How Our Obsession with Meat Is Killing Us and What We Can Do About It

The Plantpower Way: Whole Food Plant-Based Recipes and Guidance for The Whole Family