Originally Posted by
hemprider
Like i said in my first post, these deficiencies only manifest if you vastly under eat. There is no way to be protein deficient on a plant based diet if you eat sufficient calories. Just look at the wiki's for marasmus and kwashiorkor both only happen when your severely malnourished.
These are obviously extreme examples, but that is one way hypotheses are tested in math and science. Insert zero or infinty for a variable and see what happens. In this case, it demonstrates that it is possible to cause a medically-defined illness by protein deficiency, while eating sufficient calories.
If its so obvious why don't they have scientific fact to back it up? Feel free to try to prove plant sources are some how inferior, you won't find any literature to back you up.
Biased websites don't qualify as "literature." As a rule you don't cite things that are considered general knowledge, anyway. It's when you diverge from common wisdom that you need to show your reasoning. I couldn't find a modern study specific to human cellulose digestion, because it was figured out so long ago.
What do you think insoluble fiber is? it's largely cellulose we can't digest, because we don't harbor the bacteria that produce cellulase. There are some plant substances we can't digest, and that block the absorption of nutrients. Though there is some coevolution between us and the plants we eat (ignoring selective breeding for a second), they still evolved defense mechanisms without us specifically in mind. Some of the very substances we are finding to be beneficial to us are defense compounds, such as the lsrge class of bitter alkaloids. Other species can't eat them, and some of us don't like the taste. There are other substances that are potentially harmful to us in the same plants.
I personally avoid foods that contain oxalic acid and tannins, there are only a few and there easy to get by without.
Those were used as examples (e.g. , not i.e.). Most leafy greens are rich in both antioxidants and minerals (like calcium). You can't get to the minerals very well without cooking them well, though, and this decreases the antioxidant concentration.
Link to this value system?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_value a reasonable explanation. BV actually does not include digestibility. Something to consider.
B-12 isn't from meat... its made by bacteria
Though vegetarians often say they get B12 from decaying plant material, since we don't harbor those bacteria in our guts,
some people in your own camp seem to disagree with that.
Generally accepted by who? our brain washed culture? according to that formula i would need 132 grams of protein a day. Do you realize how insane that is? Babies only need 6% protein and that's the time in your life when you need the most protein! According to the government(who i think is still overestimating) i need less then half that amount of protein...
The range is usually given as 0.8-2.0 g/kg/day. Sedentary people get by with less. Highly active individuals need more. The top of the range about (over 1.8) is generally reserved for those trying to gain muscle mass, though you'll see claims of benefits up to 4g/kg/day (although you are way into diminishing returns there, and it would probably only apply to bodybuilders.) We are not talking health here, we're talking athletic performance. Just as there is a large gradient of activity levels in the population, there are going to be differences in hutrient needs. It isn't what's necessary for survival, it's what is optimal for your lifestyle.
And this is the real problem with a lot of nutrition arguments. Most of the government recommendations for micro- and macronutrients are based on the amounts you need to keep a certain percentage of the population from developing diseases of deficiency. They are
not the amounts that support optimal health, and they are
not necessarily applicable to special cases, such as high-volume athletes.
I appreciate your questioning of the system, and I agree with the healthfulness of a mostly vegetarian diet. I think you would really find a course in nutrition interesting. I'm not telling you to get indoctrinated, but you seem passionate about the subject, and you can always object to the system better with more knowledge of it. It's good for us to have dissenting voices around.
Veganism isn't perfect, though, because we aren't perfect herbivores.