What Is "adequate Protein"?

messtafarian

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Is there a standard daily recommendation for protein?

Two quarts of nonfat milk have a total of around 33 grams of protein. If you added maybe an egg, some gelatin, a little cheese -- you'd be at something like 75; maybe.

This is the Peat recommendation -- the milk and gelatin -- but is this also the "standard" protein recommendation?
 

charlie

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At least 80 grams. Peat said he doesn't feel right with at least 100 grams IIRC.
 

4peatssake

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messtafarian said:
Is there a standard daily recommendation for protein?

Two quarts of nonfat milk have a total of around 33 grams of protein. If you added maybe an egg, some gelatin, a little cheese -- you'd be at something like 75; maybe.

This is the Peat recommendation -- the milk and gelatin -- but is this also the "standard" protein recommendation?
There is a great thread in the diet section that covers the "basics" in detail.

Ray Peat Diet, Food Choices, and General Guidelines

Proteins:
Daily protein should be at least 80 grams, preferably 100 if you are working or otherwise active. An egg has about 6 grams, a quart of milk about 32 grams, meat, cheese, and fish are usually about 20% protein, so a pound would be enough for a day. It's important to have fruit or other carbohydrate with the protein for efficient metabolism. Milk, cheese, eggs, shellfish are good protein sources, and potato protein is high in quality, if the potato is very well cooked and eaten with butter or cream. Although potatoes contain only about 2% protein, a kilogram of potato has roughly the protein value of a liter of milk (which is 3% protein), because of its high quality. Unless you are buying eggs from a verified grass-fed, free range source he recommends limiting them to one or two a day, and making sure to have plenty of carbohydrate around the same time to prevent sugar crash.

Regarding his recommendation of daily gelatin:
For an adult, gelatin can be a major protein in the diet, since the need for cysteine and tryptophan decreases greatly when growth slows. Ox-tail soup (boiled for 4 or 5 hours) and lamb shanks have a good proportion of gelatin. I think most stores have gelatin in one pound packages or bigger, for example Great Lakes gelatin is usually around $11 per pound. If a person eats a large serving of meat, it's probably helpful to have 5–10 grams of gelatin at approximately the same time, so that the amino acids enter the blood stream in balance. Asian grocery stores are likely to sell some of the traditional gelatin-rich foods, such as prepared pig skin and ears and tails, and chicken feet. Although the prepared powdered gelatin doesn't require any cooking, dissolving it in hot water makes it digest a little more quickly. It can be incorporated into custards, mousses, ice cream, soups, sauces, cheese cake, pies, etc., or mixed with fruit juices to make desserts or (with juice concentrate) candies.
 

charlie

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It should have read......Peat said he doesn't feel right unless he gets at least 100 grams of protein.

Not sure where I read that.
 
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messtafarian

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I found it in this article, where he characterizes high protein in regards to progesterone dosage:

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/pr ... ries.shtml

With a diet high in protein (e.g., at least 70-100 grams per day, including eggs) and vitamin A (not carotene), I have found that the dose of progesterone can be reduced each month. Using thyroid will usually reduce the amount of progesterone needed. Occasionally, a woman won't feel any effect even from 100 mg. of progesterone; I think this indicates that they need to use thyroid and diet, to normalize their estrogen, prolactin, and cortisol.

I think there might be some situations where lower protein and higher sugar might be appropriate; for example if a sick person *really* needs to limit tryptophan.
 

4peatssake

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messtafarian said:
I think there might be some situations where lower protein and higher sugar might be appropriate; for example if a sick person *really* needs to limit tryptophan.
Ray Peat recommends a minimum of 80 grams of protein and personally favors a high protein diet.

Ray Peat said:
In animal studies, “adequate” dietary protein, 13.8% of the diet (equivalent to about 80 grams per day for a person) is associated with more oxidative damage to tissue proteins than the very high protein diets, 25.7% or 51.3%, that would be equivalent to about 150 or 300 grams of protein daily for a person. Yet, many physicians recommend a low protein diet to protect against osteoporosis.

Avoiding fluoridated water and the polyunsaturated oils, and drinking two quarts of milk daily (which will provide only 66 grams of protein), and using some other nutrient-rich foods such as eggs and fruits, are probably the basic things to protect the bones. For vitamins, especially K, occasional liver can be helpful. Meats, fruits, leaves, and coffee are rich in magnesium.

Some people have argued that the acidity of urine produced by eating meat causes calcium loss. However, a high protein diet also improves the absorption of calcium by the intestine. Another overlooked function of dietary protein is that it stimulates insulin secretion, and insulin is anabolic for bone.

Bone Density: First Do No Harm

As Charlie mentioned, he does not feel well at less than 100 grams of protein but usually consumes more.

Ray Peat said:
I've always been very sedentary, but I have usually had close to 150 grams (of protein) daily.

Tryptophan can be a problem if muscle meat is the main source of protein - which Peat doesn't recommend - and is not taken with gelatin. Gelatinous cuts of meat, liver once a week and bone broth are preferred sources of meat.

Ray Peat said:
Although people in the northern countries aren't normally protein-starved, they do tend to get a large part of their protein from the muscle meats. In traditional cultures, all parts of the food animals were eaten--chicken feet, heads, and necks, animals' ears and eyeballs, etc.--and so the amino acid balance was favorable for maintaining a high metabolic rate and preventing stress.

Glycine is the main anti-inflammatory amino acid, and it can normally be made in adequate amounts, but some proteins, especially muscle meats, don't have enough Glycine in relation to tryptophan. Fruits and milk or cheese will usually provide a good balance of the main nutrients, but sometimes gelatin is very useful to balance the other proteins. The calcium content of milk and cheese is important for lowering inflammation, and helps to prevent excess fat deposition.

Ray Peat said:
The optimal quantity of protein in the diet has traditionally been treated as if it were a matter that could be resolved just by observing the rate of growth when a certain protein is given in certain quantities, along with “standard amounts” of calories and other nutrients. This kind of research has been useful to farmers who want to find the cheapest foods that will produce the biggest animals in the shortest time. But that kind of research climate has spread a degraded concept of nutrition into the culture at large, influencing medical ideas of nutrition, the attitudes of consumers, and the policies of governmental regulatory agencies.

The expensive tender cuts of meat contain excessive amounts of cysteine and tryptophan, but bone broth (gelatin) and the tougher cuts of meat contain more gelatin, which lacks those amino acids. Many fruits are deficient in tryptophan, yet have very significant quantities of the other amino acids. They also contain some of the “carbon skeleton” (keto-acid) equivalents of the essential amino acids, which can be converted to protein in the body.

Ray Peat said:
In the traditional diet, rather than just eating muscle meats, all the animal parts were used. Since collagen makes up about 50% of the protein in an animal, and is free of tryptophan, this means that people were getting about half as much tryptophan in proportion to other amino acids when they used foods such as “head cheese,” ox-tails, and chicken feet.
 
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messtafarian

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150 grams of protein is a lot of protein. I don't know to get to that without eating at least two servings of animal protein every day. Two quarts of milk for 60 grams, three eggs for 20 grams, two servings of meat for 40 grams plus two cups of gelatin. That still doesn't add up to 150 grams.

If I ate that much protein in a day it would not stay in me I don't think.
 
J

j.

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But RP advises 80. He eats more, but people seem to forget that he supplements with thyroid on top of doing just about everything right for years and keeps his pulse at 95 bpm.
 
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messtafarian

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Good to know. This is how I get in trouble with protein. I look at what I'm supposed to be eating ( previously for the purpose of "burning fat and building lean muscle tissue") and there is just no way in my opinion that I could possibly get there. Isn't it that book Protein Power that tells you to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight?

The only way to do it is to add protein supplements three times a day, which leads a person to the protein bar aisle to ingest gobloads of soy. I'm glad it's 80 but even trying really hard my protein is only averaging 70 grams or so.
 

4peatssake

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messtafarian said:
150 grams of protein is a lot of protein. I don't know to get to that without eating at least two servings of animal protein every day. Two quarts of milk for 60 grams, three eggs for 20 grams, two servings of meat for 40 grams plus two cups of gelatin. That still doesn't add up to 150 grams.

If I ate that much protein in a day it would not stay in me I don't think.
I couldn't eat that much either!
I get between 80 and 100 grams, but make sure to get at least 80. I don't find that difficult.
I made bone broth with oxtail for the first time today and was amazed at how gelatinous and meaty the bones were. I have about 2 cups of this gelatinous meaty stuff that I strained from the broth, which I'm going to make into a stew or thick soup.
My next experiment will be with chicken feet and necks! :eek:
I normally use Great Lakes Gelatin but I think I'll start making a lot of broth, especially as we begin moving into fall here in the northern hemisphere.
To me, gelatin is a superfood.
I am inclined to eat less and less muscle meat, so I've begun experimenting in earnest with healthier sources of protein.
BTW, Peat says that for adults a large part of our protein can be in the form of gelatin.

Ray Peat said:
...a daily intake of 100 grams of gelatin wouldn't seem unreasonable, and some people find that quantities in that range help to decrease fatigue. For a growing child, though, such a large amount of refined gelatin would tend to displace other important foods. The National Academy of Sciences recently reviewed the requirements for working adults (male and female soldiers, in particular), and suggested that 100 grams of balanced protein was needed for efficient work. For adults, a large part of that could be in the form of gelatin.

Gelatin, stress, longevity
 
J

j.

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I don't think there's a huge difference between 70 and 80. Probably even 60 would be fine. Lots of people just have 20. You can worry about getting to 80 over time.

If you don't have trouble drinking milk, 2 quarts of skim milk or fat free milk would be 70 already, I think, and not a lot of calories.

200 grams of cheese have 44 grams.

You could easily add 10 grams of gelatin to each cup of milk with coffee, so just one quart of milk plus the gelatin would be 75 grams. You add an egg and get to 82.
 

4peatssake

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messtafarian said:
Good to know. This is how I get in trouble with protein. I look at what I'm supposed to be eating ( previously for the purpose of "burning fat and building lean muscle tissue") and there is just no way in my opinion that I could possibly get there. Isn't it that book Protein Power that tells you to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight?

The only way to do it is to add protein supplements three times a day, which leads a person to the protein bar aisle to ingest gobloads of soy. I'm glad it's 80 but even trying really hard my protein is only averaging 70 grams or so.
The minimum is 80 for optimal metabolic functioning. Some people, especially active ones, need more.

Do you use gelatin?

6 TB of Great Lakes Gelatin provides 36 grams of protein.
I add it to everything!
 
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j.

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Most people who adopt the diet don't do all the recommendations the first day. Changing one's diet is stressful to the body. You should just eat what you comfortably can and try to increase a few grams each week or month.
 

4peatssake

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j. said:
Most people who adopt the diet don't do all the recommendations the first day. Changing one's diet is stressful to the body. You should just eat what you comfortably can and try to increase a few grams each week or month.
Changing your diet is stressful on the body, but I think it behooves us to give people the correct information, rather than suggest to them that some people eat only 20 grams of protein or that 60 grams is sufficient.

How is that helpful?

Protein deficiency causes serious metabolic issues and leads to degenerative diseases. According to Ray Peat, chronic protein deficiency is a common cause of hypothyroidism.

The question asked was the "standard" amount of protein. It is not that difficult to achieve when one is given the right information. No one said the changes had to be immediate.
 
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j.

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4peatssake said:
Changing your diet is stressful on the body, but I think it behooves us to give people the correct information, rather than suggest to them that some people eat only 20 grams of protein or that 60 grams is sufficient.

How is that helpful?

It's helpful because it doesn't put unnecessary stress on getting that amount today, the body might not even be able to do it if she was eating like 20 grams per day, which many people do, while reminding her that over time she could get to the goal of 80. I eat more than 80, but when I was starting I was barely eating 50 or so even trying.

Most of the benefits occur at the lower level increases. When you go from 20 to 40, you benefit. When you from 40 to 60, you benefit as well, but less than when you jumped form 20 to 40. Same thing when you go from 60 to 80. If she gets to 70 or even 60 I consider that spectacular for the first month.
 
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j.

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4peatssake said:
The question asked was the "standard" amount of protein. It is not that difficult to achieve when one is given the right information. No one said the changes had to be immediate.

Very often people answer with something that is not exactly what was asked, but which is related and would be useful. Haven't you ever listened to a Ray Peat interview?
 
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messtafarian

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4peatssake said:
To me, gelatin is a superfood.
I am inclined to eat less and less muscle meat, so I've begun experimenting in earnest with healthier sources of protein.
BTW, Peat says that for adults a large part of our protein can be in the form of gelatin.

Ray Peat said:
...a daily intake of 100 grams of gelatin wouldn't seem unreasonable, and some people find that quantities in that range help to decrease fatigue. For a growing child, though, such a large amount of refined gelatin would tend to displace other important foods. The National Academy of Sciences recently reviewed the requirements for working adults (male and female soldiers, in particular), and suggested that 100 grams of balanced protein was needed for efficient work. For adults, a large part of that could be in the form of gelatin.

Gelatin, stress, longevity

I just ordered Great Lakes Gelatin but I think I'm confused about it. In most nutrition calculators it says that one envelope of regular gelatin has seven grams of protein. That means you'd have to eat 14 packets of gelatin a day to eat a hundred grams of gelatin. That is 56 servings of Jello right there. I can basically get in like maybe three packets a day at the most. It does sound like a superfood, I just can't figure out how to eat enough of it.

4Peatssake, I think j. was just trying to be encouraging. 70 grams probably is not enough for me and I just have to try to eat more of it. Getting to 100 grams might take a while but it's a worthy goal :)
 
J

j.

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I don't think knowing the exact amount of grams of gelatin in a teaspoon is that important. First of all, you'll probably have to start slowly, a lot of people have digestive issues when they take a ton the first time. And once you consume it regularly, if you're like me, your body will tell you when you need more, say, for optimal sleep, and when to stop eating to not get sick of it.
 

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