Page 55 - Summer2018

Technology as Servant

PROLIFERATING PROTEIN SUPPLEMENTS: ANIMAL, VEGETABLE AND...OTHER
By John Moody

Americans love convenience. From con- AMINO ACID IMBALANCE Once a
suming fast food at the drive-through to The modern American generally suffers
substituting convenience foods for the family from a skewed protein intake and a related fringe food
meal, the amount of time people put into food amino acid imbalance. Whereas our ancestors consumed
preparation continues to decrease. consumed not just the muscle meat but the mainly by
Over the past five or so years, this love skin, bones and organs of animals, the average
of fast-and-easy has exploded into the area American does not. Instead, we consume large athletes,
of protein supplements, especially drinks and amounts of muscle meats—an average of over protein
powders. Once a fringe food consumed mainly two hundred and fifty pounds per person per supplements
by athletes, protein supplements have gone year.
mainstream, both as meal replacement (or This modern, muscle meat-heavy diet—and have gone
complement) and as a food additive. Instead of especially a diet marked by lots of skinless mainstream,
the massive tubs of product that sat on the coun- chicken breast, lean ground beef and other with designer
ters and fridge tops of bodybuilders and high such cuts—will commonly result in excess
school and college boys, we now have designer methionine. This causes glycine depletion and drinks and
drinks and slickly packaged canisters marketed contributes to numerous health issues. On the slickly

to males and females of every age. other hand, bones, skin, organs and certain packaged
The sports nutrition category in the U.S. is cuts rich in connective and other tissues that
worth almost seven billion dollars, with sports generally require long, slow cooking (such as canisters
protein powders accounting for 70 percent of the shanks) contain lots of glycine and far less marketed to
that market. Sports drinks and energy bars, methionine. Generally, if you are eating “nose males and
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many of which contain protein fortification or to tail” and consuming all the animal, including
supplementation, total almost another ten bil- stocks and broths, you will achieve an adequate females of
lion, creating a combined market worth over balance between methionine and glycine. every age.
sixteen billion dollars. About two-fifths of Chris Masterjohn, PhD, explains why most
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Americans say they regularly consume protein modern diets fail to achieve the proper balance:
supplements. These products also are popular
outside the U.S. The worldwide market for pro- Successful traditional diets provided muscle
tein supplements is anticipated to balloon past meats together with organ meats and gelati-
twenty-one billion dollars by 2025. nous materials such as bones, gristle and
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Extracting protein from grains, seeds, veg- other connective tissue. These combina-
etables and other plant matter was once unthink- tions provided a healthy balance between
able and impossible but is now an unsurprising the methionine found in muscle meats, the
industrial process. (This is similar to what hap- B vitamins found in organ meats and the
pened with the edible oil industry.) While not all glycine found in connective tissue. Modern
protein supplements are plant-based, many are, diets, by contrast, provide abundant quanti-
including many of the most problematic. Let’s ties of methionine-rich muscle meats while
look at these supplements and explore three rea- organs and connective tissue have fallen
sons that we should be concerned about adding by the wayside. The result of this imbal-
them to our diets—especially as replacements ance is that methionine is unable to fulfill
for real food. its proper cellular functions and generates

SUMMER 2018 Wise Traditions 53