So, let's get the science stuff out of the way first; You need proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water, to survive. Protein provides four calories per gram, as do carbohydrates. Fat provides nine calories per gram, making it the perfect food for endurance activities, like hiking.
Proteins are amino acids strung together. There are eleven total amino acids, nine of which are considered essential and need to come from your diet. The others your body can synthesize. Which aminos are strung together determines whether it's a complete protein, containing all the essential amino acids, or incomplete, lacking one or more of the essentials. An egg white is an example of an incomplete protein because removing the yolk removes two essential amino acids. It isn't necessary to only eat complete proteins though, the body is perfectly capable of building it's own. (Vegans rejoice!)
But do athletes and intense exercise enthusiasts need more protein than their sedentary counterparts? Maybe a better understanding of where our nutritional recommendations come from will help you decide. America started as an agricultural nation. Once the industrial revolution began, agriculture and technology had a hard time coexisting. We made it centuries drinking various milks, but as the pre-industrial age became the industrial, livestock, especially cows, started giving us tainted milk. It has been postulated that industry moved right next to agriculture and started billowing filth that effected the cows so badly, we resorted to pasteurization and homogenization, processes that destroy all bacteria, not just the bad. In doing so, the nutrition passed on from cow to human was interrupted and altered, and not in a good way. In the 1950's, when the food pyramid was created, it had less to do with health and more to do with appeasing the dairy and meat industries. So recommended daily allowances should be taken as just that, recommendations.
There are those who claim that strength gains are dependent on how much protein is consumed. Recommendations as high as one gram of protein per pound of body weight have been suggested by those seeking to sell protein supplements that help you reach that incredibly inflated goal. There are no scientifically backed studies that prove excess protein does anything other than provide excess calories. It's important to stop differentiating the nutrient from the proposed effect. There's no guarantee that consuming protein will make muscles bigger. Muscles store and use glycogen, a carb, as fuel, not protein. It's important to remember how hard it is to distinguish what the body uses as fuel and what it uses to build and repair. My guess is that is uses everything, or anything, you give it. Meaning, go on an all bacon diet, and your body will find a way to work with it. (Please don't go on an all bacon diet).
What's all this have to do with choosing a protein source? To understand a nutrient is to understand it's history. Protein has yet to be vilified in the media like fat and carbs, partially because it's a big business in America. Ideally, your protein source should come from properly fed, humanely raised, happy, cows, chickens, pigs, and fish (who are now being farmed and fed corn). Don't assume that any label claiming that the meat you're buying was humanely treated. Make sure it's commensurate with your idea of humane. It's important to have your own standards as it relates to your beliefs about which animal passes on health, the one that suffered on a feed lot, or the one that thrived roaming pastures.
Know that a serving size for protein is still a deck of cards, home version, not the Vegas five decker. Find what's local. Go to farmers markets. Talk to a farmer. Chances are he's a lonely bloke who only hears from cows all day, so trust me, he's happy to chat. Ask him if his cows are loved. Meet your meat. If not, seek local markets that support the farmers who practice what you believe. Your grandmother knew her butcher by name. Who's yours? Don't say Dexter...Don't say Dexter...(fingers crossed).
Let's move on to carbohydrates. Carbs are strings of sugars. Simple carbs are simple strains. Complex carbs are multiple strains. Your body cannot digest sugar without the aid of insulin, an essential hormone in the processing of sugar into glycogen, the usable source of fuel stored in muscles. Excess glycogen is stored as fat in the liver first, then is distributed as fat throughout the body. It's here that carbs get a bad rap. Anything that can be stored as fat should be avoided, conventional wisdom says. Carbs in general, thanks to The Atkins Diet, have people screaming and running from bread for fear that each mouthful instantly converts into pure mush.
Gluten alone is desperately trying to piece together it's tattered reputation after everyone started blaming it for any and all gastro intestinal problems. Fact is, eliminating bacteria's role in proofing our grains has caused a shift in how our bodies react to bread. Wheat and most grains are grasses, and we lack the four stomachs it takes to digest them. But people are also smart, and starving people tend to be even smarter. So we buddied up to bacteria, specifically yeast, and manipulated it to predigest our grains so we could use this abundant fuel source and not die. The proofing process takes twenty-four to forty-eight hours of kneeding, rising, and kneeding again. Doing so gives the gluten more elasticity, yielding a chewy, meatier bread.
But industry sidestepped this process using chemicals and fast acting, Franken-yeasts. There is no evidence to suggest that suddenly everyones' bodies are turning against gluten, especially since we've been eating it for centuries. We need bacteria's assistance, and not just with grains. It's vital in digesting dairy. People mistakenly look to dairy products as a source of "friendly bacteria." But a two ton elephant sits on dairy's claim that yogurt provides good bacteria because all commercial yogurt comes from pasteurized and homogenized milk that is pasteurized and homogenized again after it becomes yogurt. Do that math, that kills the bacteria twice. And if all the bacteria are dead, how can it be beneficial? Sit any gluten sensitive individual down and give them a slice of your grandmother's homemade bread and they'll be reintroduced to an old friend, one that we should get back in contact with. (To get good bacteria, try Kombucha).
Sugar's vilification is a little more interesting, and the argument against consuming this simple carb has some holes. Consumed sugar promotes an insulin response. The more sugar consumed, the more insulin is released. Insulin in excess of the body's needs is a problem, so the brain asks for more sugar (think about why, after consuming twelve hundred calories in one Thanksgiving meal, you need pie). The challenge is to maintain a tight control over your sugar intake and avoid foods that promote a quick insulin response, or spike, in your blood sugar. But perspective is needed. The Glycemic Index was created to help designate which foods promote spikes in blood sugar. But not all foods pegged as high glycemic are to blame for why insulin levels may be abnormally high. Carrots are high on the glycemic index. Eaten alone they cause a spike in blood sugar, but eaten with fats, proteins, and other carbs, there is no spike.
But also of note is that sugar is the brain's only fuel source. That's it. Nothing else. It never nibbles on chocolate, and it doesn't like steak. Break it down into simple sugar or the brain wants no part of it. But your brain is comprised mostly of fat. So fat eats carbs and protein eats carbs, but you don't. How can sugar be bad if it's all your brain eats? How can carbs be bad if that's all your muscles store and use as fuel? Managing insulin spikes is far more important than avoiding carbs and sugar entirely.
Fats are delicate and come in all shapes and sizes and in varying degrees of saturation. For simplicity's sake, unsaturated fats have molecule chains that aren't completely filled with hydrogen. Saturated fat molecules are saturated with hydrogen. Olive oil, being an unsaturated version in the fat family, has curried favor due to it's proposed health benefits. Throw it in a hot pan and it changes. Heat damages it's delicate structures and those health benefits begin to dwindle. Saturated fats are much better for cooking at high temperatures because it withstands heat better, and doesn't go rancid. Butter, lard, and coconut oil, all have high smoke points and withstand heat better. Since fat molecules are prone to rancidity if exposed to heat or light, buy oils in small, dark glass containers. Keep it away from heat changes and intense light, both damage the molecules.
Certain fats have come into the spotlight lately. Omega 3 fatty acid is one of them because they vanished from the American diet when our livestock vanished off the farm and was put on feed lots and fed corn instead of grass. The natural omega 3 found in meat caused an imbalance between omega 3's, omega 6's, and omega 9's. The 6's and 9's predominated the American diet, leaving us omega 3 deplete. A simple solution is too eat grass fed beef. But we turned to fish for omega 3's, causing over-fishing, forcing us to create fish farms where fish are bred and production is more controllable. Everything I've read about farmed fish says don't eat it. Others, claim the ocean is way too polluted, and that wild caught is as much of a gamble as farmed. I'm out. I know what I used to do in the ocean as a kid, if I multiply that times what a corporation must dump in there on a daily basis, I can safely say, I'd rather risk mad cow than polluted fish.
It's important to determine which side of the fence you're on. There are those who eat for taste, and those who eat for nourishment. I like both camps, and sashaying between the two on a whim is possible only after you've achieved your fitness goals. Cooking healthy and flavorful is ridiculously easy. It just takes time to get everything into place before you can begin to take back control of your metabolism. Most people are victims to their's. Metabolism refers to the amount of time your body takes to do it's job. It's job being every single process in your body that occurs without you thinking about it. That's it. (<--- that was sarcasm.) Part of what determines that is how often you eat, and of course, what. Eating at regular two hour intervals speeds digestion, which accounts for sixty percent of the calories you burn overall. Sixty Percent! Wait, eating burns calories? Yes! So start chomping.
Sometimes it's best to simplify an overwhelming topic. The absolute best nutrition advice I've ever heard came from an unlikely source, my aging college professor, who said: "Judge what's healthy by how long it has to be chewed. Anything that can go from mouth to belly with little or no chewing should be eaten in moderation. Otherwise, get chewing."
Chew on it, you'll see he's right.
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