I find that to be a challenging amount of meat. It's a lot! And to find out that's average???
Americans eat way too much meat. Cheese, too.
I don’t believe that the average American eats nearly a pound of meat per day. I do believe if the average American ate meat before carbs, we could get there, and all be a lot healthier, though.
For me, processed carbs make me much hungrier, but the kale salad I’m eating right now makes me less hungry.
I think you’re conflating 200g of protein with 200g of meat that has protein.
The real number for meat consumption at the end consumer is about half that amount.
I can eat 200g of lentil noodles in a sitting.
back of the hand math suggests id have to eat a kg of dry lentils a day to reach my protein requirements. that's gotta be what, 2800 cal? edit: 800g of lentils for 200g of protein, 2500 cal.
im just thinking out loud here, but lentils alone wouldn't be adequate for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EU76q3Vf3Q
My favorite is pan frying them in a hot sauce + aromatics for a quick chickpea rice bowl, I even gotten into the habit of using chickpeas as a chicken replacement for many of my Mexican dishes.
If you're use to the typical American diet, please try cooking more lentils! Very tasty, filling dishes, low on costs and high on nutrients.
chicken 100g/27g of protein
chickpeas 100g/19g of protein
That's a good ratio for something that costs less than a dollar a can compared to chicken.
im probably more conscious about what i eat than the average person, just on virtue of watching macros lol
Just as an example of an opposite experience.
(american, vegetarian for 13 years, athletic, former meat eater, long carb centric diet that i'm trying to change)
people don't realize how challenging it is to eat 200g of protein a day, every day, for months, without eating like 3000cal lol
that said, i do eat a lot of plant based protein. i love chickpeas and i also fuck w tofu a lot.
I used to drink protein shakes, but now I am actively against these. Artificial sweeteners provoke insulin release [1] [2] that leads to type-II diabetes.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887503/
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10568...
Lentils contain trypsin inhibitors, which contain inordinate amount of nitrogen that is counted as protein.
While you do not eat these directly after cooking your lentils, you do not eat as much protein as you would think you do.
What is the problem of consuming say 80-100% of whey protein? Not all of it has sweeteners.
Well, for starters, that'd be completely fucking joyless. And on top of that, meat contains other nutrients that I'd have to account for (which is not hard tbh, but requires a little bit of studying and planning).
> tasty milk product called tvoroh
My gallbladder has never been at 100% and as a result, I have to eat a relatively low fat diet. This is not something a normal person faces. I eat a fair amount of low fat greek yogurt, though. Similar concept.
When you compare the macros of that to sausages or ribs or even steak it’s quite drastically different.
Also I’d guess you aren’t covering your meat in thick sugary sauce every time…
Lions can't eat ducks or chickens. We can and do.
Why should I, as a top predator, drink a protein powder instead eating a meat of a big mammal?
There are satiety indexes for different foods but they are not universal. I can eat almost unlimited carbs and never feel full. I'll eat multiple plates full of bread or a thousand calories in french fries and then move on to the main course.
6oz of lean meat and some salad and I'm good with 500 or so calories on my plate.
I honestly don't get how potatoes supposedly fill people up. I have made twice baked potatoes before and eaten an easy 2000 calories of them along side thanksgiving dinner.
In contrast right now I'm eating clean and doing a body recomp. Eating clean is super satiating, for me at least!
The average western diet may over consume meat, but I have to work my butt off to hit my protein goals for strength training.
A slice of bacon has 3g of protein. 150 calories though. Eating enough protein through bacon isn't the best of ideas, even if someone is doing a ketogenic diet!
60-80g of protein is about right for a man who has a moderately physical job or who exercises some small amount. 100g is the minimum for putting on muscle and getting stronger.
The average western diet over consumes everything, it could do with less sugar, less processed foods (which are hyper palatable and don't satiate hunger), and more pure protein.
Why did you drink them before, if you appear to fundamentally object to the idea?
Bears are a terrible example to pick, as they aren't real “predators” in the first place. They are omnivorous, eating more fruits, roots and insects than meat, by far. Depending on their species and where they live they may eat fishes as well, but not that much meat at all.
And of course as omnivorous ourselves, we eat far less meat than actual predators like wolves and felines.
Like if someone is a 6 foot 10 body builder, they know their needs.
Also the suggested range of g/kg ranges from .8g/kg to 1.2g/kg, which is also a huge range, but that is primarily for building strength, not maintaining.
Given the goals here are "rough guidelines on eating healthy", I'm fine saying most men should aim for 60-90g of lean protein a day. That isn't exactly a hot take.
As in they can't catch them? Or they can't survive on a diet of them? I'd be surprised if it was the latter.
As someone who lifted for a good handful of years, there are a few reasons i used protein powder, it was a very affordable way to add 25-50g of protein and some random fruits or peanut butter or whatever(i'd usually blend up a shake).
It was also a good way as someone who struggles to eat a surplus, to hit my goals as it just went down way easier than an additional full meal.
It is ALSO easier to cut weight and maintain protein goals by utilizing simply water and protein powder.
when it came time for me to cut, im simply swapping milk for water, and removing the peanut butter, and suddenly that "meal" is ~400 calories less.
So the very simple answer? convenience/affordability.
You must have always known humans were apex predators, and that was the only non-sweetener reason you listed.
I can't imagine anyone actually saying this with a straight face (also I am totally using this line for everything now). What a way to view oneself!
Fat's thermal food effect is 3% of fat's energy, while sugar and amino acids have 8 to 10 times more of their energy converted to heat (25% and 30%). That thermal effect raises the body temperature and makes body to sweat.
Ketogenic diet also allow for fat burn through the year, not at the cut stage only. I once managed to burn fat and bulk at the same time, burning 2 kg of fat and adding 4.5 kg of lean mass in three months, just by switching to intermittent fasting and hypertrophy-specific training. Without PEDs - they interfere with thinking.
Our cat does not eat lamb as he is not adapted to lamb, but he does eat a lot of duck purring to the skies.
(But I doubt the cheese I find so delicious is that same as the cheese that's so prevalent in American diets...)
that's parents' point ( I think ? )
(Beef is about 25-30% protein by weight. Whey protein isolates are about 80% protein by weight.)
> im just thinking out loud here, but lentils alone wouldn't be adequate for me.
This seems in line with maintenance calories for a moderately active man, am I missing something?
Try plain boiled potatoes. I bet you feel like stopping long before 2000 Calories. Tasty things are tasty and often easy to eat an unhealthy amount of.
Can’t help eating junk carbs when I see them, though.
Makes me think of the song:
I like that term. I assume that means you cut out beef, pork, mutton, goat, cheese, and milk but eat seafood and birds/eggs.
I may start that diet!
Eggs work too.
The person I responded to seemed to seems to believe lions eating only poultry would develop nutritional deficiencies of some kind. Maybe that's true but I'm interested to learn if there are sources. Not just gut feel "they don't eat them in the wild so they can't do it".
But hey, here we go.
1. Intense physical exercise is the only known way to increase IQ. (Admittedly pure strength training is not the best for this, HIIT workouts are better)
2. Muscle mass is a huge factor in the early death in seniors. Basically people who lack muscle mass are more likely to fall over and fracture something, at which point they are much more likely to die.
3. Lean muscle mass, up to a certain point (e.g. extreme body builders have worse mortality numbers), decreases mortality across the board.
4. I like living w/o pain, and you can choose to either have your joints take the load or your muscles take the load.
5. I enjoy being able to move my body and be active in the world.
6. I'm vain and I like to look good.
> most people don't.
Most people in America die of a heart attack. Most people in America are obese and have troubles moving around. Most people in America don't read books. Most people in America don't enjoy mathematics. Most people in America don't go to art museums.
People should have aspirations to do more than average.
Meat contains essential fats to various degrees while protein powder does not at all. Usually, protein powder ([1] as an example) is not exactly matched to the human profile of amino acids [2], that means extraneous amino acids will be converted to glucose and stored as fat.
[1] https://explosivewhey.com/blogs/fitness-nutrition/what-is-wh...
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11291443/
Notice that ratio between leucine and methionine is 3/1 in consumption profile and is much higher in the whey protein profile. This leucine most probably will be wasted.
If the only food in your pantry were seitan, you’d have to eat 260g (960cal) of it to hit 200g protein. It’s not that much food.
Most people haven’t tried it but asian stores may sell it next to tofu as “vegan chicken/beef”. It has a nice texture that you can cube and treat like chicken in a stir fry.
I eat it weekly.
Kinda makes zero cal sweeteners look good.
If we assume that lions' best diet is beef [1], then chicken [2] would be less optimal for them.
[1] https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/171797/100g/...
[2] https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/171140/wt9/1
Look at the amino acid ratios. Leucine to valine ratio is about 0.66 for chicken and 0.8 for beef. This means that protein synthesis will be bound by valine in case of chicken and what is not used in the protein synthesis will be converted to glucose and then stored as fat. Chicken will be about 80% (0.66/0.8) as nutritious as beef, judging just by two essential amino acids ratio.
I started at 70kg (181cm), so pretty skinny, and without prior resistance training. I ate between 120and 140g of protein per day, without any shakes.
I am aware that these gains would not have continued, but my body obviously had more than enough with 130g to build muscle. I did eat a calorie surplus, but
200g seems like A LOT.
At least aspartame increases insulin secretion in them.
Whey protein most probably would bound muscle protein synthesis by methionine available, and make substantial (I think 40%) amount of calories from leucine in it to be converted to glucose. Two 33g servings of whey protein can be converted to 1g of fat, just from leucine alone.
Lions challenge the dominant male, and if they win, they kill all of their offspring and take all of their females.
Hopefully you are not doing that with every male you encounter that happens to be physically weaker than you.
You're badly misusing that amino acid data.
> I ate between 120and 140g of protein per day, without any shakes.
I'm afraid you're going to unlearn it, as humans are below big felines in the food chain.
I struggled a lot with my nutrition and eating "regular food" always mad me fat. I tried various keto and low carb variants but never made it work and always hit a wall after 2-3 weeks. UNTIL I discovered intermittent fasting. After having done the intermittent fasting for about 5 years I started another low carb/keto journey but this time I went all in on fat and protein. No holding back. And I also cut excessive vegetables (especially the raw stuff). So now I'm eating all the eggs, meat, butter, bacon as much as I want. About a year in. The results so far.. dropped 4kg body fat and put on 2kg of muscle.
I was asking for a source for this assumption. Lions in the wild eat gazelles, giraffes, zebras, and buffalo, not cattle. I guess there isn't a great source so I'll leave it.
Heart disease is a real risk. Don't ignore it. It's not something that only happens to other people.
It doesn't mean the diets of humans are biologically supposed to consist of huge amounts of meat.
Most apex predators are of course obligate carnivores. But humans are probably near the top because the use of weapons and tools makes us highly dangerous, so most land animals are wary of humans. Even many predators don't prey on humans for food.
(Although some large land predators do, mostly when they're desperate for food.)
Not sure about availability in the US, in EU cottage cheese often is sold as much more creamy spread, like Philadelphia cheese.
Which is hilarious since current bro-science is that protein is the most filling macronutrient.
"The two most common translations of tvorog are cottage cheese (common in the US) and quark (common in Germany). The process of making these different cheeses is quite similar: you take fermented, acidized or sour milk, and separate the curds from the whey. For cottage cheese, cream is added to the curds before they’re packaged, and for quark, the curds are not overly dried so the curds come out quite soft and creamy. Tvorog, on the other hand, is most often packaged as dry grainy pieces of curd."
I wasn't that serious about the whole thing, but I read somewhere that the benefits decline rapidly after 1.6g/kg bodyweight. That was the reason I didn't do any shakes.
> How did you do that in a plant based diet
Beans and whole grains. I realized that fat intake was limiting my protein access so I cut fat down do between 10 and 20% of energy intake. That means you have to chew down a whole lot of bulgur and beans. I ate about 3000 calories (I do a lot of swimming) and then you only need about 18% of energy from protein to reach 140g. Easy peasy.
I also made my own firm tofu (i was cheap). I could easily eat 200g of tofu a day.
i can hike elevation all day which is great for backpacking, i look great with a shirt off, and i can stand up from the couch without using my hands.
yes, im taking it a bit far at this point, but really that just means eating the average american's protein intake and then a protein shake or two on top
> Anything where P*10 > KCAL is a very good protein source, imo.
for the average person's protein intake, yes.
try doing 200g of protein a day with tofu. for firm tofu, that's over 5 pounds of tofu a day! and that's over 2000 calories.
it's doable but i also challenge you to eat 5 pounds of tofu every day of a week and tell me if that's any fun, lol.
Yes, at more than twice the price for me.
> for the average person's protein intake, yes.
The average person doesn't need that ratio, reaching 60-90g of protein is trivial. That ratio is good for bodybuilding purposes. Now, eating that much tofu, that sucks. Generally, getting 200g of protein sucks, even when you eat protein powder.
> Was that too much
I challenge you to eat 5 pounds of animal products in a day, for three days.
That's fine for the average person.
> Generally, getting 200g of protein sucks, even when you eat protein powder.
I have a some days where I hit 120g and it's not a recovery or workout day and I just give up lol.