Protein and vegetarianism

Amazing how many people resort to ad hominem when faced with actual logic and science they cannot dispute. Now I am being accused of lying or doing drugs. WOW!

Thanks to the rest of you who have keep this discussion mature, relevant, and factual.

Endless entertainment

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ask-the-ripped-dude-how-much-muscle-can-i-put-on-naturally.html

I've been vegetarian for 14 years now and although it has been a struggle hitting my protein at first (130g +-) I learned how to eat to hit my goals. Feel free to check my diary for inspiration, although you will find chicken like once a week when I'm too lazy to cook two meals (my partner is a meat eater). In a nutshell it's a lot of cheese, eggs, cottage, quark, Quorn every now and then etc. Beans & chickpeas are good too but a bit carb heavy to eat all the time.. Plus I have 1-2 scoops of whey daily, I get mine from myprotein.com it's the most student budget friendly source..:)

If you eat chicken you are not vegetarian!
The rest of my family are meat eaters but I don't eat meat and that includes not eating chicken and fish.

If you will believe a photo on the internet before actual science, you are prone to believe anything.

Good thing I provided the evidence from the World Health Organization.

Good thing I provided the evidence from the World Health Organization.

Definitely THE source for exercise and sports nutrition science. I lean towards the UN for post-work out nutrition advice.

Good thing I provided the evidence from the World Health Organization.

their data is based on what's the bare minimum needed for survival, and what the definition of a famine is. It's not a guide for optimal health.

Eeeek! Stop giving away the punchline!

I've also been a vegetarian for 7 years now… When I first began it was for the intent of leading a "cleaner" life style away from the temptations of fast food and the harshness of meats on our digestive track. I lost a significant amour of weight coupled with my obsession with fitness and weightless and have now been able to better coerce my motives to general health and wellness.

balancing protein and iron intake are my major priorities as some of the more common pitfalls of being a strict vegetarian (occasionally I eat fish because of severe anemia). I am also a college student that can't afford to purchase all of the vegan and vegetarian meat replacement foods on a regular basis

I think primarily the aspect of being a vegetarian comes with diversifying your recipe life....

If you eat fish you are not a vegetarian. Pescetarian yes. Vegetarian no.

Yes, you are correct. The recommendation is .83g/kg. The .66 number is the mean which stuck in my head. It has been a while since I read it.

"This is clearly shown in a recent meta-analysis of all nitrogen balance studies reported to date (13). The median requirement (0.66 g/kg per day) was more than twice the obligatory nitrogen losses (0.3 g/kg per day) because the slope was <0.5. Furthermore, there was no significant influence of variation in the protein sources (animal, vegetable or mixed protein) on the slope and consequent requirement. This implies that for human adults, net protein utilization values for diets of most sources are similar, but much lower than would be predicted. Agreement has not yet been reached on an explanation for this, although one suggestion is that it is a consequence of incomplete adaptation (22). In any event, it is an indication of the importance of gaining a better understanding of how the organism adapts to variation in protein intake."

"In studies of the obligatory nitrogen loss, subjects fed a protein- free diet took between 10 and 17 days to achieve a constant low level of urea nitrogen excretion (28). In studies involving diets in which protein intakes were reduced from adequate to 0.35 g/kg per day, adult men took from 7 to 28 days to achieve nitrogen equilibrium (29). The subjects studied by Oddoye & Margen (27) took from 16 to >40 days to achieve balance after the reduction in intake from 3 to 1 g protein/kg per day."

"It is unclear whether the protein gained during periods of increased protein intake is retained, or whether the protein lost during periods of low protein intake is regained if the treatments are continued, as there has been no sys- tematic study of body composition of adults in relation to variation of protein intakes within the normal range in well-fed societies. However, attempts to increase muscle mass by increases in protein intake within the normal range have generally failed. Thus Lemon et al. (30) fed protein at 2.62 g/kg per day or 1.35 g/kg per day for 1 month during intensive weight training in a ran- domized double-blind cross-over study, and found no difference in measured strength (voluntary and electrically evoked) and muscle mass (density, cre- atinine excretion, muscle area by CAT scan, and biceps nitrogen content)."

This article explains the process of how the numbers were achieved.

"Human nitrogen requirements are usually determined from the nitrogen balance. The usual procedure is to regress nitrogen balance on intake and to define the requirement as the intake level that would produce a zero balance, i.e., equality of dietary N intake and N losses (Fig. 1). Nitrogen losses occur in different ways. They mainly arise from urinary losses in the form of urea, ammonia and creatinine but also in the form of fecal and miscellaneous losses (Calloway and Margen 1971) (Table 1). Minimum nitrogen losses [“obligatory nitrogen losses” (ONL)] were measured in subjects fed a protein-free diet for 1 week. Under these conditions, nitrogen losses were estimated at 36 mg/kg/d in urine, 12 mg/kg/d in feces and 8 mg/kg/d in miscellaneous nitrogen losses (sweat, sebum, desquamations, nails, hairs and saliva) (Manatt and Garcia 1992). Obligatory oxidative losses and indispensable ileal amino acid losses have been reported to reach 162 and 18 mg/kg/d, respectively (Fuller et al. 1994, Young et al. 1989) (Table 2). We determined total ileal nitrogen losses as reaching 9 mg/kg/d, i.e., 16% of ONL. Indispensable ileal amino acid losses represent ∼10% of obligatory oxidative losses. From these estimations, ONL represent 54 mg/kg/d and correspond to a protein requirement level of 0.34 g/kg/d (FAO/WHO, 1985). Because dietary protein utilization does not achieve 100% efficiency, it has been suggested that an intake of 0.6 g/kg/d of well-balanced protein will achieve a zero nitrogen balance. The adequacy of this diet has been reported in studies conducted over 2- or 3-mo periods (FAO/WHO 1985). A safety coefficient is added to this figure so that the final recommendation for dietary protein is 0.75 g/kg/d. In children, the requirements for growth must be integrated in addition to maintenance requirements."

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/77/1/109.full

They base it on moderate activity. So, a 70 kg individual would have a daily energy requirement of 2,700 calories. So these roughly come out to 3.5% protein by calories needed, 6.2% to compensate for utilization efficiency, and 7.7% for the safety coefficient.

"There is a trend toward an increase in the nitrogen balance when nitrogen intakes are increased"

This observations are particularly telling when combined with these ones:

"In studies of the obligatory nitrogen loss, subjects fed a protein- free diet took between 10 and 17 days to achieve a constant low level of urea nitrogen excretion (28). In studies involving diets in which protein intakes were reduced from adequate to 0.35 g/kg per day, adult men took from 7 to 28 days to achieve nitrogen equilibrium (29). The subjects studied by Oddoye & Margen (27) took from 16 to >40 days to achieve balance after the reduction in intake from 3 to 1 g protein/kg per day."

This suggests the body maintains a limited range of amino acids as a ratio of protein intake. If there is less protein intake, the body might believe there to be less total energy intake leading to less activity and doesn't maintain the store of amino acids. If there is more protein, the body sees it as a likely increase in total energy consumption and increase the store of amino acids for repairing and rebuilding. Of course this is a limited range as 1.8g/km is the highest protein consumption shown to effect nitrogen balance. This was for body builders, and if we assume an extra 1,000 calories a day consumed (The subjects were working out for 1.5 hours, 6 days a week), then that comes out to around 13.6% protein by calories. Anything more showed no benefit.

*Going over my notes, I see that 1.6g/km was the highest protein consumption to show an effect of nitrogen balance in bodybuilders. Comes out to around 12% protein by calories. 1.8g/km was used during caloric deficient training and shown to be protective against muscle loss when compared to .9g/km.