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NOTMILK - The Problem With Eating Chicken

Wednesday, 27 May, 2009

The Problem With Eating Chicken

A Notmilk reader wrote:

"A friend of mine has stopped eating meat citing health concerns. He now calls himself 'vegetarian' but continues to occasionally eat chicken. I'd like to convince him that chicken is unhealthy too, Help!"

My response:

Our children are taught in kindergarten that animal protein consumption is essential for their good health. Year after year that lie is reinforced with only one side of the scientific story, and that is criminal.

Why do nations with the highest rates of bone disease also have the highest animal protein consumption rates?

The Key to Bone Disease

It's not how much calcium you eat. It's how much calcium you prevent from leaving your bones. Real science has taught that dietary calcium plays little or no role in preventing bone loss. Bone density is genetically determined.

Why Does Calcium Leave Bones?

There are 28 amino acids in nature. The human body manufactures 19 of them in the liver. The other nine aminos are called "essential." We must get them from the foods we eat.

One of those "essential" aminos is methionine.

One needs methionine for many human metabolic functions including digestion, detoxification of heavy metals, and muscle metabolism. However, an excess of methionine can be toxic.

Methionine = C-5, H-11, NO, S

Methionine is a great source for sulfur. That's the problem. Rotten egg smells come from the high sulfur content. Imagine rotten egg smell infusing into every cell of your body.

Eat foods containing too much methionine, and your blood will become acidic. The sulfur converts to sulfates and weak forms of sulfuric acid. In order to neutralize the acid, in its wisdom, the body leaches calcium from bones.

"Dietary protein increases production of acid in the blood which can be neutralized by calcium mobilized from the skeleton." {American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1995; 61,4}

Animal proteins contain more methionine than plant proteins. Let's compare cow's milk to soymilk:

Methionine in 100 grams of soymilk: .040 grams
Methionine in 100 grams of whole milk: .083 grams
Methionine in 100 grams of skim milk: .099 grams

Now, let's compare 100 gram portions of tofu to meat: (All of the meat products are lean and without skin)

Silken soft tofu: .074 grams
Hamburger: .282 grams
Hard boiled egg: .392 grams
Roast ham: .535 grams
Baked codfish: .679 grams
Swiss cheese .784 grams
Roast chicken: .801 grams

In 1988, N.A. Breslau and colleagues identified the relationship between protein-rich diets and calcium metabolism, noting that protein caused calcium loss. His work was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology (1988;66:140- 6).

A 1994 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Remer T, Am J Clin Nutr 1994;59:1356- 61) found that animal proteins cause calcium to be leached from the bones and excreted in the urine.

Additional Supporting Evidence

"Osteoporosis is caused by a number of things, one of the most important being too much dietary protein." {Science 1986;233, 4763}

"Even when eating 1,400 mg of calcium daily, one can lose up to 4% of his or her bone mass each year while consuming a high-protein diet." {American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1979;32,4}

"Increasing one's protein intake by 100% may cause calcium loss to double." {Journal of Nutrition, 1981; 111, 3}

"The average man in the US eats 175% more protein than the recommended daily allowance and the average woman eats 144% more." {Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, 1988}

"Consumption of dairy products, particularly at age 20 years, were associated with an increased risk of hip fractures... metabolism of dietary protein causes increased urinary excretion of calcium." {American Journal of Epidemiology 1994;139}

Can it get worse? Absolutely.

The Framingham Heart Study is the largest and most exciting heart study in the history of mankind. Some of the highlights of this exhaustive 50 year study:

In 1960, Cigarette smoking was found to increase the risk of heart disease.

In 1970, high blood pressure was found to increase the risk of stroke.

During the 1980's, high levels of HDL cholesterol were found to reduce risk of death from heart disease.

In the 1990's, homocysteines were identified as key factors in heart attack deaths.

Homocysteines are normal breakdown products of Methionine and are believed to exert a number of toxic effects in the body.

Dr. Castelli has suggested that an elevated homocysteine level is a risk factor for heart disease. The first evidence of this was published in the American Journal of Cardiology (Glueck, 1995;75:132–6) .

Two recent publications resulting from Framingham data indicate a positive correlation between cardiovascular disease mortality and blood serum levels of homocysteine.

Bostom AG, et. al, Nonfasting plasma total homocysteine levels and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in elderly Framingham men and women. Arch Intern Med 1999; 159:1077-1080.

Bostom A.G., et. al, Nonfasting plasma total homocysteine levels and stroke incidence in elderly persons: the Framingham Study. Ann Intern Med 131[5], 352-355, 1999.

Visit your local hospital and ask how many patients occupy beds as a result of eating too little protein. The answer will be zero. Then, if only you were able to investigate each occupant, you would determine that his or her stroke, heart attack, cancer, diabetes, etc, can
be traced back to a diet containing an overabundance of dietary animal protein. America is the sickest, wealthiest place to raise children, and we are doomed to invest our assets in a ravenous health care system which devours dollars while continuously reinforcing pain.

The Problem With Eating Chicken - Part 2

In yesterday's Notmilk column I wrote about the perils of eating a diet containing chicken and poultry products. See:

http://health. groups.yahoo. com/group/ notmilk/message/ 3273

I received many complaints and commentaries from people who felt that I had committed two (excuse the expression) Cardinal sins while
acting like a (excuse the expression) bird brain. Did I have (excuse the expression) egg on my face!

Many Notmilk readers have rescued chickens and some have chickens as companion animals. Chickens are actually quite loving critters. To learn more about chickens, visit the most wonderful pro-chicken website:

http://www.upc- online.org

Second...many "you-are-what- you-eat" type A-1 personalities took issue with the way I presented my data. I reported the amount of methionine (a sulfur-based amino acid) per 100 gram portion of each food. Instead, it was suggested that I compare levels of methionine by the caloric value of each food.

In yesterday's column I revealed that a 100-gram portion of soymilk contains .04 grams of methionine, and a 100 gram portion of roast chicken contains .801 grams of methionine.

Today's calculations:

I re-determined how many calories of various foods one would have to eat in order to ingest one gram of methionine.

Bananas = 11,125 calories
Watermelon = 5,000 calories
Soymilk = 1,025 calories
Hamburger = 960 calories
Silken Tofu = 743 calories
Whole Milk = 723 calories
Swiss Cheese = 485 calories
Hard Boiled Egg = 395 calories
Skim Milk = 354 calories
Roast Ham = 293 calories
Roast Chicken = 208 calories
Baked Cod = 155 calories

So, if your goal is to smell like a rotten chicken or a dead fish, continue to gobble up high doses of methionine. Eat bananas and watermelon and smell like a vegan.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk. com