A vegetarians’ favorite question
My daughter Emma, 17, and I had a convo the other day about how every vegetarian gets sick of the question, “How do you get your protein?” (I bet we hear from some of them here!)
I often point those asking that question to my report called “Protein: Are We Deficient? Or Overdosing?”
A soccer teammate of Emma’s props up her diet with endless protein shakes. Even vegans sometimes buy into the protein myth! And this teammate is not healthy. She eats lots of processed food, plus a processed protein powder mix. This is the logical fallacy: “I know a vegetarian, and she’s not healthy. Therefore we must need meat to be healthy.”
Nearly every logical fallacy applies here. I love exposing logical fallacies but don’t want to deliver a dissertation on all the ways that argument fails. My readers are smart, and you can poke holes in that kind of thinking yourself.
Most if not all our degenerative diseases are related to undigested proteins floating in our bloodstream. That’s right, our EXCESSIVE PROTEIN consumption is killing us. We do NOT need 20% animal protein, thank you very much Dr. Robert Atkins! (It didn’t work very well for him, did it?)
Those of you eating a mostly plant-based diet, what’s your favorite response to that question, “Where do you get your protein?”
Posted in: Whole Food
Hello R
obyn 🙂
I allways answer with a question: where do cows get their protein from?
regards Anne from Denmark 😉
I like that answer! I think I might start using it 🙂
I hate to say it but 2 1/2 years into being a vegetarian the question still tongue-ties me. Perhaps because I’ve tried to point out that greens have a good amount of protein and that people don’t need as much as they think, only to get looked at as though I’ve grown horns. Now I tend to just answer “beans and nuts” because it’s easier. The most recent person to ask was my beloved aunt who is dying of stage 4 breast cancer. The irony wasn’t lost on me and I was trying to think of a good reply when my 13 year old daughter piped up “she eats TONS of beans and green smoothies.”. Good girl!
The same place as the cow.
The way i under it is this way: your body builds and repairs tissue with amino acids-the building blocks- your body cannot build muscle tissue from muscle tissue, it must do it from the cellular level. If your body was deficient in blood, you wouldn’t solve the problem by drinking blood… what is the source of bio available amino acids? vegetables…raw, complete with enzymes to break them down to a level where the body can assemble them into tissue. just my .02
We are going on a cruise next week. Does anyone have any tips that can help us eat whole foods while we are cruising? I doubt green smoothies will be available. I would love any tips from previous cruisers!
Stefanie, ask them to make you a green smoothie—chefs grant special requests all the time, and another reader wrote us about getting the cruise chefs to make her green smoothies, several months ago.
Me too girls! I point out that “processed-meat”animals” eat greens and grains. Then people eat their flesh to get a bit of second-hand protein, even though we can get the perfect amount by eating the greens and grains, by-passing the animal flesh. Better for us, better for the environment.
I reply that I eat 5 servings of spinach, which is 42% protein, a day and have more energy than when I was drinking those protein shakes. They usually look at me like I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. 🙂
Thanks Robyn, love this and it IS the #1 question for sure! I generally give a brief explanation of amino acids, say I feel great(!), and then promptly email them your website. ; )
I get looked at as “weird” also. But I am healthy! Probably 99% of the people that ask me this are in poor health and grossly overweight. I reply – my greens.
From greens, unfiltered through a cow.~ I also love to tell people to watch this funny musical video about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n20uGGNoVdo