i can't count how many times over the years people
who daily eat refined sugar ask me this. they just
can't fathom that 3# blended raw green food per day is
probably way more protein that i need.

sorry do delurk with a rant.

who's excited about watermelon right around the corner?

You mean "are you sure you ARE getting enough protein?"

I'm yellin... you're yellin...
WE'RE ALL YELLIN FOR WATER MELLIN (((((:

haha, funnneee

what are the limiting amino acids for green vegetables?
Lysine or methionine or something else?

I've been doing some internet searching and I can't find any info
on the idea that green vegetables by themselves do provide enough
protein.

ON every site I have come across, everyone mentions that the idea
that grains & legumes have to be combined at the time they are eaten,
is not true. Thye have all said that one still needs to eat the
grains or legumes and veggies for an overall healthy diet.
The only place I have seen the idea that green veggies
by themselves are plenty, is on raw food sites.

Does anybody know about the scientific research on this? Maybe
somebody's book?

Those people are probably misinformed.
Protein is built from amino acids. Out of the 23 amino acids needed, the body can not synthesize eight, all of which can be found in carrots, bananas, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, kale, okra, peas, potatoes, summer squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, all nuts, sunflower and sesame seeds, peanuts, and beans.

But Thomas, with all due respect, how do I kow that you are informed?

Yes I know about the 8 amino acids. Are you informed about the limiting
amino acids? For grains & leguems, it's easy. I'm not just going to
accept the idealogy of the raw diet gurus, because there is some question
that they really have people's health as their most important interest:

[www.beyondveg.com]

Who Should You Believe?

by Tom Billings


This guy was a 100% raw food vegan for years, and he's still not against raw food
veganism, he just doesn't go 100%.

The question is, do these vegetables provide enough of all of the 8 amino acids?
If I ate only grains or only legumes, it certainly would not. I have yet to see any numbers to convince me that vegetables would, any real hard evidence.

We are not true herbivores, we are omnivores. Science is proving this more and more. Therefore, to eat a raw food diet, it's really important to be educated
about the amino acid thing.

Simple question. What other animal cooks their food? If all the other animals on this planet can get everything they need from a raw diet, why can't humans?

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

ok, I found some information:

[plantanswers.tamu.edu]

I'm taking spinach as an example, because I've seen the opinion that spinach
is high in protein, on some web site.

This shows the overall protein content of spinach to be 2.86 grams per 100 grams of spinach. That's almost 3 %. It's pretty low. It has way more protein than lettuce though.

Now let's take a look at how much of the essential amino acids spinach has, per 100 grams of spinach:

isoleucine: .147 grams per 100 grams of spinach
leucine: .223 grams
lysine: .174 grams
methionine: .053 grams
phenylanine: .129 grams
threonine: .122 grams
tryptophan: .039 grams
valine: .161 grams

ok, so some of these amino acids are present in such low quantities as to
be really not worth mentioning. Spinach has only 4 one-hundredths of a gram
(rounded up) per 100 grams of spinach. Come on! It has 5 one-hundredths of
a gram of methionine per 100 grams of spinach. Even the most abundant one, leucine, is just under 2.25 tenths of a gram for 100 grams of protein. All of
these are way less than 1 percent, for those who don't like math.

It might be convenient for you to doubt the numbers just because a university is involved, but just how credible are the raw food gurus who do not back up their claims, but want to sell you their books and applainces?

funky rob, that wasn't the point I was going for. But just so you know,
gorillas do eat lots of insects, and they eat them raw. We are descended
from primates who ate insects. I don't care for eating raw animal
protein of any kind, but especially not bugs.

I agree, I'm sure our natural diet should include insetcs, and I do eat them!

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

well, but bug eating is not for me. forget about it.

Hi kohlrabi_Croce,

How much protein do you need?

Also, when quoting the % of protein in a certain food, it might be worth calculating the % from the point of view of energy/cals. Spinach is over 90% water, if you take the water away and then see what you are getting, it's doesn't look so bad.

Generally I've found there is not a lot of good science info on how much protein we need. For example, tell me a person needs 100g protien per day, then see how healthy they are after eating a 100g of gelatin per day for a few weeks. The point being, we need more that just 100g of any protein.

I'd welcome any good science data on a break down of which proteins humans really need and how much.

Cheers,
Ian.

hi sawed off,

well I already gave the 8 essential amino acids. The WHO says that we need,
aas an absolute minimum, 12 to 15 % protein in our diet. That's not in calories or grams. Protein recommendations are usualy given in grams you need per day,
not calories. 12 to 15 % is not the optimum, however. For me, I will still stick with the RDA, and I won't get that from spinach.

The gelatin example makes no sense and is not relevant. who would do that except someone taking a dare?

Hi.

The 8 essential amino acids you already gave are a good start. But how many grams of each do you need?

Is the 12 to 15% minimum RDA really that useful if it's not in any units (hopefully I'm not supposed to include water in whatever unit the 12-15% isn't in).

And noooo, I'm not daring anybody to eat gelatin, just saying that when we are given a figure like "eat %15 protein" or "eat 100grams of protein", it's not that useful because there is useful protein and not so useful protein. Gosh, I really hope nobody tries to replace protein with gelatin! ;-)

Does the 12 to 15% figure you quote just consist of the 8 essential amino acids only, or does it cover a range of different proteins? Was this figure chosen in the hope that if your where eating 15% protein in you diet, you'd most likely get enough of the 8 essential amino acids that you'd remain health, even though most of the 15% protein you consumed isn't used or isn't neccessary?

When I started eating 100% raw, I got the "are you sure you're getting enough protein" all the time. I got it enough that I became very concerned about this so I read lots of stuff on required protein, both 'guru' (taken with a pinch of salt...) and scientific texts. Both are so vague and ambiguous that in the end I decided it didn't really matter, and if it did matter there would be many unambiguous sources of information on this topic. The only thing they could tell me was "you need protein in your diet to be healthy"...

And thanks for the tamu.edu link, quite interesting. I notice that if I remove the water from spinach, I get 33% protein. This is more than twice the minimum RDA you've quoted.

Cheers,
Ian.

ok, here's some info about broccoli:

[www.nutritiondata.com]

It has slightly more protein, with 2.6 grams of protein for 91 grams
of broccoli. That still works out to 2.86%, actually, but it's for
only 91 grams.

here's the breakdown:

isoleucine: .719 grams per 91 grams of broccoli
leucine: .117 grams
lysine: .123 grams
methionine: .346 grams
phenylanine: .106 grams
threonine: .801 grams
tryptophan: .300 grams
valine: .114 grams

so broccoli has less of some, quite a bit more of others, like threonine.
There's almost a whole gram of threonine.

So, there are 454 grams in a pound. If you ate a pound of broccoli, you'd
get 13 grams of protein.

ok. here's a site that shows the daily requirement for each of the eight
essential amino acids:

[www.unu.edu]

ok, here are the daily adult requirements for six of them
(Idon't know what saa or aaa stand for):

isoleucine: 1.370 grams
leucine: 3.230 grams
lysine: 2.840 grams
threonine: 1.670 grams
tryptophan: .540 grams
valine: 1.720 grams

a pound of broccoli would give you:

isoleucine: 3.595 grams
leucine: .585 grams
lysine: .615 grams
threonine: 4.005 grams
tryptophan: 1.5 grams
valine: .57 grams

so the one that least fulfills the daily requirement is leucine.
So you'd have to eat 5.5 pounds of broccoli to get enough leucine.
Mind you this is a "high protein" vegetable.

How many of you eat 5.5 pounds of broccoli a day? I don't think so.

Thanks it's nice to see some data like that. The www.nutritiondata.com website is kind of interesting. Looking up coconuts and cashews, it doesn't seem to hard to make the RDA. But doing on spinach and broccoli alone is probably not a good idea.
Eating flax is gooooood. But I don't see hemp listed (oh yeah, happy 4/20 for all you, ah, never mind).

Thanks,
Ian.

That's right, that's what I'm trying to say: greens alone aren't enough.

Nuts are high fat and expensive, but for those who aren't bothered by that....

What I don't get is why these raw food recipe books don't have much
for sprouted grains or beans.

Hemp seed - nutritional breakdown

[www.chii.ca]


This is for unhulled hemp seeds. Once the hull is removed, the fibre goes down and the protein goes up.

Cheers,
J

I see flax used a lot in raw food recipe books. Of all the things I looked up flax had the most in the way of essential amino acids. I use a lot of flax in the things I make, so yay for flax/lin seeds.

The greens thing is probably still doable, but I think mono type diet is bad and doomed to starvation (your crop fails) or longer term health problems (missing some trace element). Although for a while I was experimenting with making spinach chips/crisps in the dehydrator, it took a lot of spinach to make them (spinach being 90%+ water), but the nutritional value must have been pretty hight (10 times that of fresh spinach).

Cheers,
Ian.

This is probably just my bias speaking, but isn't this just science du jour and about to be supplanted by the next science du jour?

Where do they get the figures of protein requirements anyway?

I'd rather see proper studies of effects of real diet on real people.

Hey, what about raw salmon? I eat it everyday. I am 100% raw. I also eat egg yolks. You need a little animal food to feed the cholestoral in your brain. Think about the brain, and what it needs, not only the body.
Cheers,
Rich

your body makes enough cholestoral by itself. it doesnt need a dietary source of cholestoral.

don't want to eat any animals, or what comes out of them...no thank U...
Namaste, Basia

to greenie:

Well, what about the raw food diet guru du jour about to be supplanted by the next raw food diet guru? heh. Why don't you find some proper studies as you suggest, and post them? I backed up my statements with numbers. That is not common on raw food forums.

to tscuffie:

Yes, but the brain *is* a protein hog.

to sodoff:

of course raw salmon has great protein, but I' vegan so I don't.

Hi Rischott,

Why do I need to eat raw salmon and egg yolks or animal food for my brain? Could you please back up you claims with some scientific research or refereneces?

I've consided the raw-but-not-vegan approach before, especially when I was keeping chickens and could get eggs so fresh they are warm. But I feel the raw-vegan thing workings fine for me.

I'm in no way dissing the inclusion of animal products in your diet, I believe that people should eat what they way (or better, what they feel their body is telling them to eat). But I would like you to expand on and back up you're claims that I 'need a little animal food' for my brain.

Thanks,
Ian.

I didn't pull my information from any raw guru, it was from Fit For Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. Thanks for the link to Tom Biling's website, but I don't need it.

If I was given enough evidence that raw foodism was not the way to go (or veganism), then I would give it up, without hesitation.
I don't "believe" that the raw diet is necessarily correct... it only seems that way to me, based (admittedly) on my own experience.

Similarly, it seems like combining grains with legumes does not make sense, as one requires an alkaline stomach secretion, the other requires a specifically timed alkaline then acidic secretion (or possibly the acidic comes first, but the idea is that they are timed so that they are not secreted at the same time). Acid and alkaline secretions at the same time would occur if you ate both grains and legumes at the same meal, and the secretions would neutralize each other (which seems to imply a serious lack of digesting power).

At any rate, I am more than willing to admit that I have much to learn and that I probably shouldn't have bothered posting at all.

kohlrabi_Croce Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> to sodoff:
>
> of course raw salmon has great protein, but I' vegan so I don't.

I know salmon is a good protein source, but I'm vegan and don't want to eat any.

Thomas,

I am not promoting combining grains and legumes. They just need to be eaten
on the same day.

I'm not attacking you, it's just that if you question my sources, as is
reasonable, it is certainly resonable that I should question yours. And
you did not provide any proof, just a statement of belief. So I went and
found some numbers myself since no no one had any.

I'm just a little jaded because I had a recent experience with a raw food
diet guru who is very insecure, defensive, and to me seemed bordering on
mental illness. (shrug)

Then I found out that many of these raw food diet gurus at least fit the first
two attributes. But that's not the point I was going for.