Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Protein Debate

The Protein Debate

Loren Cordain, PhD
T. Colin Campbell, PhD

Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:42 PM

    What a rude so and so that Campbell is. "My philosophy of nutrition is subsantially different from Professor Cardain if, in fact he even has a philosophy of nutrition, given his very negative views of this field".

    Campbell's philosophy of nutrition has increased diabetes, auto-immune diseases - to name but a few. But hey its not his fault, it's our fault for eating too much!!

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  2. Anonymous9:59 AM

    Campbell holds the pompous view that somehow we can "know better" than evolution. The Paleo Diet should serve as the basis forthe Nutritional Null Hypothesis...prove you have something better...head to head, without confounding variables. The Truth will out.

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  3. Anonymous4:02 PM

    A careful reading of this debate should lead the reader to the same conclusion that I came to a couple of years ago after reviewing the literature: a safe level of protein consumption is in the range of 15 to 25% of calorie intake (from a mix of protein sources). Beyond that, protein is really a non-issue. The real fight is over carbs vs. fat, and types of fat.

    With respect to Campbell, I find it difficult to respect the views of someone who spends so much time telling us about what he "believes" to be the case, rather than dealing with the evidence. He did make one not-so-small point, however, that I think is worth noting: the value of a diet may depend upon what one's goals are, and these goals may differ from the best diet from an evolutionary perspective.

    In other words, the optimal diet may be different if your goal is to be pleased with the food your're eating, vs. living a long time, vs. creating a lot of offspring, etc. A diet and lifestyle that ensures maximum longevity, for example, may be quite different from the one our ancestors grew most accustom to (the longevity diet probably involves near-starvation with many distasteful foods). Of course, Campbell doesn't know the answer to the question of longevity either.

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