Proteins - What To Eat? Questions

Parsifal

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Okay so I'm still a newcomer and trying to refine my Peat diet and as a perfectionist the question of ideal protein is very unclear for me for many reasons:

- We should eat between 70-100g of proteins but according to tara I should eat 3500 kcal/day as I'm young and tall and I've also read here that we should have a 1:2 ratio of proteins to carbs so as I'm only eating 100kcal or coconut oil/day it means 2300kcal of glucides so around 600 grams and 1200kcal of proteins so 300g ! :?: :crazy:

- Meat gives too much phosphorus (compared to calcium ratio) tryptophan, iron and generally PUFAs, arginine, histidine, cysteine, methionine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid and other antimetabolic substances, is insuligenic

- Muscle meat/seafood is loaded with diverse stress and antimetabolic hormones, polyamines, antibiotics, etc

- Good quality meat/seafood without antibiotics is expensive and/or very hard to get

- Shellfish is too high in iron/iodine to be a staple

- Liver is too high in iron to be a staple

- Eggs are too high in cysteine to be a staple

- Gelatin is loaded with endotoxin according to a lot of people here and arginine

- Cheese is made with bacteria and sometimes strange products so can promote endotoxins and contains lactic acid/lot of PUFAs/tryptophan and counting too much on dairy will give too much calcium as well?
Dairy are full of hormones as well, cow are generally fed with hormones and antibiotics to be more productif, have a longer lactation.

- In my case I'm not sure that I do digest dairy well (I believe it gives me diarrhea but still experimenting with it), at least I don't tolerate cheese and milk if we don't want too much calcium 1 quart/day (1200mg calcium) is only 30g of proteins.

- Potato is starch and in my case impossible to eat with symptoms like IBS.

- Protein powders seems denatured so bad.

- Fruits have proteins in free amino acids from so are less absorbable and are not high enough in proteins and too acidic/high in fluid and full of pesticides and other things if not organic not good if not ripe?

Would you have any advices for me (or even others) please guys? :)
 

answersfound

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Cardboard has a great amino acid profile. Have you tried that?
 

jyb

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Do you know Ray himself probably eat all or most of the items above, despite the negative points you made for each? For each item, you could also make a case that the benefits are worth the downsides. Or just that the downsides are totally insignificant, depending the item and on your condition. But I agree it could be harder for you if you don't do much dairy. Dairy is definitely very conveniently and cheap, in my opinion. I would probably eat a lot more beef if I couldn't do milk nor cheese, as it remains nutritious, low pufa and good to digest.
 
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Parsifal

Parsifal

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jyb said:
post 101143 Do you know Ray himself probably eat all or most of the items above, despite the negative points you made for each? For each item, you could also make a case that the benefits are worth the downsides. Or just that the downsides are totally insignificant, depending the item and on your condition. But I agree it could be harder for you if you don't do much dairy. Dairy is definitely very conveniently and cheap, in my opinion. I would probably eat a lot more beef if I couldn't do milk nor cheese, as it remains nutritious, low pufa and good to digest.
Beef muscle meat? How does it compare to chicken and turkey that are low in tryptophan?
 
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mt_dreams

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If you end up tolerating dairy, it seems beneficial to staple that in. Whatever your questions regarding dairy having too much calcium, that shouldn't be a big concern, unless you have specific symptoms. If you're worried about what's in the milk/cheese, get the best quality, or make it yourself. Everything else should be rotated based on individual preference/tolerance, and/or nutritional requirements. Case in point, I needed to fix my zinc to cop level, so for a couple of months I ate it pretty much beef everyday compared to 2-3 times now that things are more balanced.

The carb to protein ratio does not need to be 2:1, rather that is probably the lowest a healthy person would want to go in order to insure none of the protein turns to energy. My carb to protein is 4.5:1, taking in 90-110g or so of protein, and at times close to 500g in carbs. I'm 6'1 & lean.

You know the proteins. The perfectionist in you wants to know scientifically what's the best protein source, and unfortunately that is a tough question to answer. In the Peat world, dairy & potato protein will probably top out the list, with fresh gelatin being an honorable mention .. but it's more of an individual based question rather than a blanket generalized ranking list.
 

tara

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Parsifal said:
post 101124 Would you have any advices for me (or even others) please guys? :)
Eating food, even if it is imperfect, beats starving. Fear of food can kill quicker than most food. Take into account the big issues, pay attention to what works and doesn't work for you personally, and aim for progress not perfection. 'The best is the enemy of the good.'

jyb said:
post 101143 Do you know Ray himself probably eat all or most of the items above, despite the negative points you made for each? For each item, you could also make a case that the benefits are worth the downsides. Or just that the downsides are totally insignificant, depending the item and on your condition. But I agree it could be harder for you if you don't do much dairy. Dairy is definitely very conveniently and cheap, in my opinion. I would probably eat a lot more beef if I couldn't do milk nor cheese, as it remains nutritious, low pufa and good to digest.

:yeahthat

Peat usually recommends 80-100g for people in hypothyroid states, but has also talked about healthy people eating more, eg 150g. Being tall, possibly (not sure) still growing, and needing to recover ground, you may do better with a bit more than 100g. Your appetite may help guide this. One of the problems with eating more protein than we can currently manage is having trouble getting rid of excess ammonia. You can read about what to watch for on other threads if you are concerned about this. There are also some possible counter measures.

Some people do well with 1:2 P:C, but lots of people seem to eat a much higher ratio of carbs. There is nothing fixed about the 1:2 ratio. Some people here eat more protein too - eg 200+g, but I think they are mostly the body builders.

You can help counter the excess iron in meat by having calcium at the same meal, and/or drinking coffee, and avoiding high vit-C at those meals.

You can help balance the amino acids by having some gelatin in the same meals.
I've read the threads about concerns with endotoxin in gelatin. It may be an issue. However, I have not seen any quantification on those threads that indicates that the endotoxin in gelatine is at such a concentration as to make any difference in the a gut that is already teeming with microbes that are constantly dying and giving up their own endotoxin. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so I consider this an open question. Lots of people eat gelatine or collagen and some report good effects, others report tummy trouble. Personally, in the absence of stronger evidence, I'd note your own reaction/tolerance and not worry too much about the theoretical possibility of imperfection.

Peat has expressed concerns about contamination from production processes of isolated amino acids, and about them possibly not being absorbed as well as protein in food. But if you are having trouble getting enough, it is an option you could consider. Some people report good effects from various specific amino acids, eg glycine (may be useful if gelatine doesn't agree with you) from pro

Polyamines in meat and fish can be minimised by getting and eating it as fresh as possible.

Pastured, organically grown meat and milk may be best, but Peat has made the point that animals have some pretty robust detoxification processes, so they probably excrete a lot of the poisons they get exposed to. More so than many plants.

I try to find gelatinous cuts of meat, and eat as much of the gristle as possible along with the meat, and make stocks with the bones and remaining collagen.

Eggs have some good stuff in them - Peat has described them as high quality protein, and they also have some useful vitamins and minerals. If you are worried about them, then just eat 1-3 a day, not a dozen or more to meet your whole protein requirement. They are highish in PUFAs if you eat a large quantity.

Some cheese is made with bacteria. If you want to avoid that, it is very quick and easy to make your own fresh cheese. (Heat milk, add vinegar till it curdles, strain. Salt to taste. You can make a nicer one with a bit more time but still simple if you have access to animal rennet.)
Peat says the calcium (and maybe other factors?) in milk help channel the tryptophan away from excess serotonin production.
Cheeses don't contain very much lactic acid - most of it is drained away in the whey.
Some of the PUFAs in milk/cheese are conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which may have some beneficial effects compared with other PUFAs. If you want to avoid large mounts of milk fat, you can choose lower fat versions, and make your own cheese out of lower fat milk (not quite as tasty, but you can still make it good). But until you're managing to eat enough calories on a consistent basis, I wouldn't recommend going for particularly low fat.

Why are you concerned about eating too much calcium? I'm not aware of a problem with drinking the calcium in 2 l milk, and Peat often recommends this. That can be part of how you can balance the phosphorus in meat. You do need to also have enough magnesium and fat soluble vitamins to make good use of the calcium.
If you get severe symptoms from particular forms of dairy, then it may be worth going easy on it for a bit and trying it again later. Some have trouble with aged cheese - possibly from the bacteria (I think I'm one of them). If you don't have serious bad effects from them, I wouldn't worry. It may be worth trying various kinds of milk and cheese to see if there are some you can tolerate.

Peat recommends potato protein in the form of cooked potato juice as being very high quality protein (even better than eggs) for those who are having trouble thriving on other proteins. This can avoid a lot of the starch, but it is a time consuming process.

Fruit has amino acids and keto acids that are probably really valuable. There just isn't enough information available about their exact composition, so it's hard to know how to get all your protein needs covered with fruit. I would guess that you need more protein than you can realistically get from fruit. They also contain valuable minerals that help with using their carbohydrates well - eg potassium and magnesium. You need some fluids, if not too much, so it's worth including as much fruit as you can enjoy and tolerate. Unripe fruit can be an issue. Get the ripest fruit you can find, and if it's still too acidic, stew it up with sugar. I add baking soda to commercial OJ to help deal with excess acidity.

All proteins are insulinogenic, and some more than others. We need insulin to get stuff into cells where they can be used. You'ld have a problem if you didn't produce insulin in response to sugar and protein. You just have to make sure you also have adequate carbs with the protein so that the insulin doesn't drive blood sugar down too far, and cause a bunch of stress.

Eating a variety of different foods helps reduce the impact of any particular downside. Rotating the ones you are most concerned about rather than eating them every day may help. Eg shellfish one day, liver another, beef, lamb, cod, ...

Listening to your appetite, when you have one, can be one of your important guides. Hopefully if you listen to it it will become a stronger guide.
 
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jyb

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Parsifal said:
Beef muscle meat? How does it compare to chicken and turkey that are low in tryptophan?

The same can be said with dairy, which is close to meat in many respects. In fact I think dairy is not as good in terms of protein, but that's off topic. We need protein, and dairy/beef are quality protein we can use. Ray says the higher calcium mitigates the dairy tryptophan. But then you could always take eggshell calcium, although I don't think its true that the calcium just makes it fine to load up on tryptophan (whether in dairy or supplemented). But you don't have to eat pure steak and muscle beef only. You can eat varied cuts, which are richer in nutrients, saturated fat, gelatin etc. This addresses Ray's advice of eating balanced protein like when eating a whole animal traditionally. I definitely wasn't thinking 70g protein from steak every day. But a bit of steak and other cuts will get you a decent amount of protein, if you need more then eggs, shrimp, gelatin, a bit of dairy etc.
 

BrundleFly91

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"Some cheese is made with bacteria. If you want to avoid that, it is very quick and easy to make your own fresh cheese. (Heat milk, add vinegar till it curdles, strain. Salt to taste. You can make a nicer one with a bit more time but still simple if you have access to animal rennet.)"

@tara

Do you know if there are particular types of cheese that support bacteria production/ proliferation? I've been trying to avoid that so I'm definitely going to try your homemade solution! Any advice of the type of vinegar?

Brundlefly
 

tara

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BrundleFly91 said:
post 101207 Do you know if there are particular types of cheese that support bacteria production/ proliferation? I've been trying to avoid that so I'm definitely going to try your homemade solution! Any advice of the type of vinegar?
I know many aged cheeses are made by adding selected bacteria and sometimes molds.
I don't know about fresh cheeses particularly support bacerail growth inthe gut. I guess keeping peristalsis going helps to no have it sitting around in the guts for too long. Maybe others will know more on this.

I've used plain white vinegar, or lemon juice for quick acid curdling.
Or animal rennet for slower setting but tastier curd. The latter takes longer to set/curdle, and you let the milk cool more before adding rennet).
 
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Philomath

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@tara, I don’t see yogurt (strained) on your list. Is that intentional? Personally, I’ve had success tolerating Greek yogurt, a protein option introduced to me by @haidut in one of his posts. I’ve seen a few recipes for making strained yogurt that seem quite easy. I would imagine homemade is considerably better that store bought.

As an aside, I am beginning to wonder if the process of fermenting dairy wasn’t created intentionally to make it more “tolerable” or beneficial. A method created for health reasons in addition to the obvious long term storage benefits. Similar to nixtamalized corn or sourdough bread, did someone realize long ago that the proteins in milk were “safer” when broken down and devise methods to do such? I believe @Travis wrote somewhere about the benefits of fermentation on various proteins like gluten and casein?



Eating food, even if it is imperfect, beats starving. Fear of food can kill quicker than most food. Take into account the big issues, pay attention to what works and doesn't work for you personally, and aim for progress not perfection. 'The best is the enemy of the good.'

Peat usually recommends 80-100g for people in hypothyroid states, but has also talked about healthy people eating more, eg 150g. Being tall, possibly (not sure) still growing, and needing to recover ground, you may do better with a bit more than 100g. Your appetite may help guide this. One of the problems with eating more protein than we can currently manage is having trouble getting rid of excess ammonia. You can read about what to watch for on other threads if you are concerned about this. There are also some possible counter measures.

Some people do well with 1:2 P:C, but lots of people seem to eat a much higher ratio of carbs. There is nothing fixed about the 1:2 ratio. Some people here eat more protein too - eg 200+g, but I think they are mostly the body builders.

You can help counter the excess iron in meat by having calcium at the same meal, and/or drinking coffee, and avoiding high vit-C at those meals.

You can help balance the amino acids by having some gelatin in the same meals.
I've read the threads about concerns with endotoxin in gelatin. It may be an issue. However, I have not seen any quantification on those threads that indicates that the endotoxin in gelatine is at such a concentration as to make any difference in the a gut that is already teeming with microbes that are constantly dying and giving up their own endotoxin. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so I consider this an open question. Lots of people eat gelatine or collagen and some report good effects, others report tummy trouble. Personally, in the absence of stronger evidence, I'd note your own reaction/tolerance and not worry too much about the theoretical possibility of imperfection.

Peat has expressed concerns about contamination from production processes of isolated amino acids, and about them possibly not being absorbed as well as protein in food. But if you are having trouble getting enough, it is an option you could consider. Some people report good effects from various specific amino acids, eg glycine (may be useful if gelatine doesn't agree with you) from pro

Polyamines in meat and fish can be minimised by getting and eating it as fresh as possible.

Pastured, organically grown meat and milk may be best, but Peat has made the point that animals have some pretty robust detoxification processes, so they probably excrete a lot of the poisons they get exposed to. More so than many plants.

I try to find gelatinous cuts of meat, and eat as much of the gristle as possible along with the meat, and make stocks with the bones and remaining collagen.

Eggs have some good stuff in them - Peat has described them as high quality protein, and they also have some useful vitamins and minerals. If you are worried about them, then just eat 1-3 a day, not a dozen or more to meet your whole protein requirement. They are highish in PUFAs if you eat a large quantity.

Some cheese is made with bacteria. If you want to avoid that, it is very quick and easy to make your own fresh cheese. (Heat milk, add vinegar till it curdles, strain. Salt to taste. You can make a nicer one with a bit more time but still simple if you have access to animal rennet.)
Peat says the calcium (and maybe other factors?) in milk help channel the tryptophan away from excess serotonin production.
Cheeses don't contain very much lactic acid - most of it is drained away in the whey.
Some of the PUFAs in milk/cheese are conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which may have some beneficial effects compared with other PUFAs. If you want to avoid large mounts of milk fat, you can choose lower fat versions, and make your own cheese out of lower fat milk (not quite as tasty, but you can still make it good). But until you're managing to eat enough calories on a consistent basis, I wouldn't recommend going for particularly low fat.

Why are you concerned about eating too much calcium? I'm not aware of a problem with drinking the calcium in 2 l milk, and Peat often recommends this. That can be part of how you can balance the phosphorus in meat. You do need to also have enough magnesium and fat soluble vitamins to make good use of the calcium.
If you get severe symptoms from particular forms of dairy, then it may be worth going easy on it for a bit and trying it again later. Some have trouble with aged cheese - possibly from the bacteria (I think I'm one of them). If you don't have serious bad effects from them, I wouldn't worry. It may be worth trying various kinds of milk and cheese to see if there are some you can tolerate.

Peat recommends potato protein in the form of cooked potato juice as being very high quality protein (even better than eggs) for those who are having trouble thriving on other proteins. This can avoid a lot of the starch, but it is a time consuming process.

Fruit has amino acids and keto acids that are probably really valuable. There just isn't enough information available about their exact composition, so it's hard to know how to get all your protein needs covered with fruit. I would guess that you need more protein than you can realistically get from fruit. They also contain valuable minerals that help with using their carbohydrates well - eg potassium and magnesium. You need some fluids, if not too much, so it's worth including as much fruit as you can enjoy and tolerate. Unripe fruit can be an issue. Get the ripest fruit you can find, and if it's still too acidic, stew it up with sugar. I add baking soda to commercial OJ to help deal with excess acidity.

All proteins are insulinogenic, and some more than others. We need insulin to get stuff into cells where they can be used. You'ld have a problem if you didn't produce insulin in response to sugar and protein. You just have to make sure you also have adequate carbs with the protein so that the insulin doesn't drive blood sugar down too far, and cause a bunch of stress.

Eating a variety of different foods helps reduce the impact of any particular downside. Rotating the ones you are most concerned about rather than eating them every day may help. Eg shellfish one day, liver another, beef, lamb, cod, ...

Listening to your appetite, when you have one, can be one of your important guides. Hopefully if you listen to it it will become a stronger guide.
 

tara

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@tara, I don’t see yogurt (strained) on your list. Is that intentional? Personally, I’ve had success tolerating Greek yogurt, a protein option introduced to me by @haidut in one of his posts. I’ve seen a few recipes for making strained yogurt that seem quite easy. I would imagine homemade is considerably better that store bought.
I have tried yogurts of various kinds, bought and home made, strained or not. I love it, and would be very happy to eat it if I didn't get problematic symptoms from it it too.
My unproven hypotheses for myself are that I may be sensitive to the products of casein digestion, but maybe also lactic acid and histamine and/or other polyamines. I didn't fare well with coconut yogurt either, tasty as it was.

As an aside, I am beginning to wonder if the process of fermenting dairy wasn’t created intentionally to make it more “tolerable” or beneficial. A method created for health reasons in addition to the obvious long term storage benefits. Similar to nixtamalized corn or sourdough bread, did someone realize long ago that the proteins in milk were “safer” when broken down and devise methods to do such? I believe @Travis wrote somewhere about the benefits of fermentation on various proteins like gluten and casein?
Maybe. I kind of imagine it might have been accidental in the beginning, that many people noticed it was often benign and tasty, and that some people noticed it was helpful to them.
I imagine sourdough might have started as an accident that turned out to be useful too.
 

TeaRex14

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Pretty old thread, better late then never I guess. Milk, cheese, eggs, and potatoes are probably the best sources of protein. Problem is you'd have to eat a lot of them to get enough protein on a daily basis. For instance 2 quarts of milk, 2 eggs, and 2ozs of cheese will roughly only give you 85 grams of protein. Potatoes have about 7 grams of protein in them depending on the size, the smaller ones less. Potato protein is really high quality though, which is why Peat has mentioned juicing potatoes for people that have digestive issues and they need some good protein. Adding at least one serving of meat to your routine is the only logical thing to do here, unless you want to drink upwards of a gallon of milk everyday. Lean hamburger, oxtail, lamb shank, ossobuco, chicharrons, chicken feet, bone broth are all great sources of well balanced protein that support thyroid function. Avoid muscle meats as much as possible ideally, unless taking supplemental gelatin is no problem for you. Also weekly servings of liver and shellfish can be protein sources but also serve as dense sources of minerals.
 

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