Comment by jdlshore

3 days ago

It says 1.2-1.6 grams of protein and healthy fats per kilogram of body weight, from animal and plant sources (including milk). Is that really advocating for more meat?

49 comments

jdlshore

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woodruffw  3 days ago

The implication is that the current food pyramid disproportionately weights against proteins and fats. Assuming that Americans follow the current pyramid (this is a hell of an assumption), then any change to the pyramid that asks them to change their diets in favor of more protein and fat is likely to result in them eating more meat.

In reality, I don't think anybody in the US follows the food pyramid religiously. But I do think people (try to) follow the main strokes of what the government tells them is a healthy dietary balance, and so any recommendation to increase their fat/protein intake will result in more meat consumption even if the guidelines doesn't itself proscribe that as the only source.

  • hunter-gatherer  3 days ago

    > But I do think people (try to) follow the main strokes of what the government tells them is a healthy dietary balance...

    Do you really observe that in your circles? I've lived in 6 different states, from Maryland to Idaho, and I've never got an impression that many people take any real though or consideration for their health at all. If anything, I'd armchair guestimate something like 10% of adults seem to put any real attention of effort into their health. I feel like late teens to late college year people put more effort in general, but only because they themselves are on the meat market and don't usually have complex lives (kids, careers)

  • DangitBobby  2 days ago

    I agree, and think particularly where there children are concerned at least some parents will try to follow official dietary guidelines to make sure their kids grow up healthy and with healthy habits.

  • AstroBen  3 days ago

    Americans do not follow the food guidelines. It's an absurdly low percentage who do

  • ericd  3 days ago

    As I see it, the point of this new pyramid is not to add more emphasis to meat specifically, but to undo some of the past vilification of fat (note the emphasis on whole milk and full fat dairy), and to move emphasis away from carbs as the basis of the diet. And honestly, I think that's pretty much correct - the low fat movement was a disaster for our collective health, because food manufacturers added more sugar to compensate for the bad effects on taste that that has, and because if you eat a good amount of full fat stuff, there's not nearly as much need to snack between meals.

    If you go to Western Europe, they're not drinking lots of skim milk, and if you eat things from the bakeries, there's more butter and not as much low quality vegetable oil or sugar. When my French cousins come here, they find lots of the stuff sold here revoltingly sweet.

weslleyskah  3 days ago

This can be an outrageous amount for a normal individual. These proportions are used for bodybuilders and powerlifters.

And even then this rule is not perfect because of individual genetics, metabolism rates, activity level, percentage of lean mass, etc.

Americans (US citizens) really do eat a lot. What the hell

  • HoJojoMojo  3 days ago

    These numbers are actually "disappearance" they include an immense amount of food waste as well so the average American is probably almost half a body builder and leaving food on their plate at a restaurant while more of it is going bad at home and in their grocery.

  • giantg2  3 days ago

    1.5g/kg for a 90kg person is 135g. You can get almost half that daily need from a chicken breast or a few ounces of fish. Two meals of that and a few non-meat things like rice and beans, lentils, peanut butter, etc and you're set, even towards the higher end of the recommended range. That's doesn't seem outrageous at all.

  • stubish  3 days ago

    And here I am thinking that 50-100g of protein per day for an elderly person was way too low.

    But here we have the problems with the numbers and why they should only be guidelines. Consumption of protein needs to increase as you get old (into the range we consider for athletes). And basing consumption on body weight is stupid, because telling an obese person they need to eat twice as much protein as a non-obese person is probably wrong.

  • jdlshore  3 days ago

    I think most commenters are missing two things:

    1. It’s proteins and fats, not just protein. The site specifically calls out avocado as an example.

    2. It’s from meat and vegetable sources. Other commenters have mentioned that you get more protein from non-meat sources than you expect.

  • MattRix  3 days ago

    yeah, and it’s also worth noting that the usual guidelines you hear like “eat 1g of protein for each pound you weigh” are actually meant to be 1g of protein per pound of lean mass, which for many people is significantly smaller amount.

dkarl  3 days ago

The public health discourse about protein is in a weird place right now. The recommendations are higher than ever, yet people are constantly told not to think about protein, or to worry about excess protein intake instead.

Case in point: the Mayo Clinic article titled "Are you getting enough protein?"[0]

It claims that protein is only a concern for people who are undereating or on weight loss drugs, yet it cites protein recommendations that many people find challenging to meet (1.1g/kg for active people, more if you're over 40 or doing strength or endurance workouts.) To top it off, it's illustrated with a handful of nuts, which are pretty marginal sources of protein. It's bizarrely mixed messaging.

[0] https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speak...

ctoa  3 days ago

When I did strength sports and would eat ~180g protein a day (which for me was 1.8g/100kg), I ate a lot less meat than you would think, I was carefully tracking all my food for a while and you have to count the whole diet.

I really like this study of a population of highly trained athletes and their diets/protein intake: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27710150/

In that study they eat > 1.2g protein/kg body weight, but 43% of that is "plant sources", meaning grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables. Like one serving of oatmeal is 6g, things you don't think of as "protein" add up and you have to count them. The athletes in that study are Dutch and 19% of their protein intake came from bread.

But what always happens with protein recommendations is that they say "x grams protein/kg bodyweight" but people hear "protein is meat, you are telling me to eat x grams/kg bodyweight of meat." Very few people ever look closely enough at their diet to develop an intuitive sense for counting macros.

  • aucisson_masque  3 days ago

    Protein from grain food isn’t as well absorbed as protein from meat, milk, fish. Roughly, 2g of protein from bean equal 1g meat protein.

    • ctoa  3 days ago

      Yes, but the standards aren't based on "the best protein to absorb", they are based on whole diet consumption. Studies like the one I linked to are where the recommendations come from. It is a misunderstanding to read a recommendation for 1.2g/kg (or whatever) as saying that the 1.2g is supposed to all be meat quality protein. It's supposed to be the protein in your total mixed diet.

      Your diet contains many sources of protein lower quality than beans (as in the linked study with high level Dutch athletes getting 19% of their protein from bread), you do need to count those. They do add up and if you don't, you end up assuming you need way more protein than you do.

      4 replies →

omgJustTest  3 days ago

90g of protein, what is recommended for me, is like 4 hamburgers or a 16oz steak per day ...

  • tejohnso  3 days ago

    Doesn't make sense to me that a 400lb obese person would need to consume the same amount of protein as a 400lb lean muscle bodybuilder.

    All of the protein recommendations I've seen were for lean mass. You don't feed fat.

    • SoftTalker  3 days ago

      Correct, and the guideline on the "realfood.gov" site doesn't say it but all the protein g/kg body weight I've seen (mostly relative to weight training or building muscle) are in terms of kg of lean body mass, not total body weight.

    • maerF0x0  2 days ago

      All these things are actually rules of thumb that aim to be easy, and less focused on accurate.

      A reasonably close rule of thumb can actually be 1g of protein per cm of height.

      Also not accurately represented is that your body absorbs less protein per gram consumed the older you get. (I couldnt find a source with an actual ratio, just recommendations for _more_ as you get older).

      When listening to folks like Layne Norton, they have said that surprisingly many people who simply increase their protein inadvertently begin to lose weight due to greater satiety per net calorie. (remember, roughly 20% of protein calories are lost in digesting/absorbing/converting the protein)

    • omgJustTest  3 days ago

      I am not 400lbs... I don't know if you are implying that... if so check your math:

      1.2g/kg * 90kg (~200lbs-lean) = 108g of protein.

      each person, on average, in the US would be eating one 16oz steak or 3-5 hamburgers every day.

      3 replies →

    • deinonychus  3 days ago

      > Doesn't make sense to me that a 400lb obese person would need to consume the same amount of protein as a 400lb lean muscle bodybuilder.

      yeah both of those people are extreme cases that would break this very crude formula

  • blks  3 days ago

    If you don’t forget to count proteins from all the grains and other products, then you may realise you don’t need that much meat (or any meat at all).

  • Aurornis  3 days ago

    Nobody should be getting all of their protein from meat, though.

    Even a cup of cooked rice or a slice of bread has several grams of protein.

  • tomjakubowski  3 days ago

    People, even meat-eaters, tend to get much of their protein intake from the long tail of non-meat foods they consume. Lots of foods (especially grains and legumes) have a little bit of protein, and that adds up.