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Enough With the Protein, America

  • November 09, 2016

With a national craze for protein working itself into a frenzy, food companies are raking in the profits with protein-loaded packaged foods to the tune of $3.8 billion in sales in the past year. But, important as protein is to a healthy diet, it isn’t making you healthy if you’re one of those who are wolfing down twice as much protein as you should, Bloomberg reports.

The fact that you may be getting your protein in the form of packaged, processed foods is an issue all by itself, but there truly are some very real risks of consuming too much protein, no matter what form it’s in. The fact is excess dietary protein can lead to elevated blood sugar, weight gain, kidney stress, leaching of bone minerals and stimulation of cancer cells.

Eating more protein than your body needs can also interfere with your health and fitness goals in other ways, including packing on extra body fat, causing stress on your kidneys, promoting dehydration, and leaching of important bone minerals. That’s why I advise a specific protein dietary formula of 1 gram of protein for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body mass.

And, be very selective of where your protein comes from: I can’t say it enough that packaged, processed foods are NOT good for you in any way, no matter which “nutrient” their labels say they contain. Eat good quality animal and vegetable proteins that are organically grown and raised, without herbicides, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics or other drugs.