MODULE #2 - Lesson 1 - Amazon S3 · will vary depending on our health status. This chart shows both...

Intro to Proteins and High Protein Foods

MODULE #2 - Lesson 1

2Super Nutrition Academy – MODULE 2 - Lesson 1

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This lesson is an introduction to proteins and high protein foods. You will learn what a protein is and how it’s metabolized in the body. We will cover the role of specific amino acids in the body, uncover protein’s acidifying effects in the body, talk about how much protein you need, and cover the best protein foods, from both animals and plants and how raw vegans can make their protein requirements.

Protein BasicsProtein is a macronutrient, so we need to consume it in high amounts just like carbohydrates and fats. It provides four calories per gram and is made up of amino acids, which are made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Nitrogen is the most important component of amino acids. When amino acids combine, they form dipeptides, tripeptides, oligopeptides and polypeptides. A dipeptide is a chain of two amino acids while a tri is a chain of three amino acids. An oligo is comprised of three to 20 amino acids and anything over 20 is called a olypeptide.

Amino acids are the building blocks of our body. When we eat, proteins are broken down into amino acids. Our body uses amino acids as the building blocks for our physical structures and they comprise approximately 20% of our body weight.

Our hair and fingernails, our bones, and neurotransmitters in our nervous system are all amino acids. Our DNA and RNA, and even the anti-bodies in our immune system are made of amino acids.

Proteins are not only physical structures; they also regulate things in the body. Insulin and thyroid hormones are both amino acid based. Muscular contraction, digestion, the maintenance of water balance, protection against

What We Will Be Covering Today

Module 2 - Lesson 1


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disease, hormone production, blood clotting, and many more processes rely on amino acids.

Amino AcidsThere are 20 known amino acids. There are 9 essential amino acids that we must obtain from food because our body cannot create them. There are also non-essential amino acids, which the body can produce. Then we have conditional essential, in which case the body can convert, from essential into non essential in the presence of a healthy body, a healthy liver, and in the presence of nitrogen as well.

And the other important thing is our need for amino acids can vary from month to month, for instance if you have a gut issue there might be a higher demand for glutamine versus at other times. That’s a basic example of how our needs will vary depending on our health status.

This chart shows both nonessential and essential amino acids.


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For Your InformationAspartic acid, glutamic acid, glycine, torrin and histamine are all neurotransmitters that assist in nervous system communication. Neurotransmitters are essential any time there is a nerve impulse or signal in the body. Isoleucine and lucene are used in energy production. Lysine assists in calcium absorption from the GI tract. Methionine is a sulfur rich amino acid that is good for the skin and nails and hair. It’s also the lowest occurring amino acid in plant foods other than nuts, seeds, corn, rice and grains.

Tryptophan is a precursor for serotonin which influences mood and sleep. Serotonin is a very important neurotransmitter in the brain and it gives you that sleepy, good feeling. Tryptophan is the least plentiful in foods.

Clinical Use of Amino AcidsIf you were to see a naturopath or a nutritionist and you had specific issues, we might be able to look at the supplementation of specific amino acids. Now, I must say that if you are taking individual amino acids, you would use these for six to eight weeks and then take two to three weeks off before repeating that cycle. The reason for that is because you don’t want to cause amino acid imbalances.

Many amino acids have an L in front of their name. That just shows the direction in which they spin in the presence of light. It’s not really important, but you’ll see L-tryptophan as opposed to tryptophan. If you have problems with sleep and anxiety, tryptophan will help. If you have any herpes simplex, L-lysine will help. L- carnitine you probably know in terms of weight loss, cardio vascular disease, and chronic fatigue, but do you need it? Probably not, but some studies show its benefit.


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Glutamine is actually one amino acid that I highly endorse for gut repair and for dealing with alcohol and sugar cravings. L-tyrosine is helpful for depression and fatigue.

Protein DigestionSo let’s look now at how proteins are digested in the body. This is important to understand.

First proteins are broken down in the stomach by hydrochloric acid, pepsin and protease, which are protein enzymes that split peptide bonds into polypeptides. Remember the polypeptides we mentioned earlier? In this the sticks represent peptide bonds. When hydrochloric acid and these enzymes work they need to access those peptide bonds in order to break them up. In the stomach, these long protein chains are broken down into smaller chains of polypeptides.

In order for hydrochloric acid to convert pepsinogen to pepsin, which breaks down protein, your stomach must be very acidic in order for protein breakdown to occur efficiently.

The second step occurs in the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. As food leaves the stomach it becomes known as chyme. It makes its way into the small intestine and the pancreatic enzyme tryptone, that’s right, trypsin and chymo trypsin, turn long chained polypeptides into shorter ones, so tri and dipeptides. The green triangles here represent the enzymes working at those peptide bonds to break down the longer polypeptides into smaller chains of amino acids.


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The third step occurs when the amino peptidases and dipeptidases break down the tri and dipeptides into single amino acids. This is the ideal situation. We have a complex protein, broken down into its individual building blocks. These building blocks are transported through the small intestine, into the portal vein and then move on to the liver.

This example here would be the amino acid tryptophan. It goes through the pores in your small intestine and then into your blood stream. That is a blood vessel, which will transport the tryptophan to the liver for processing. That is protein digestion.

Amino Acid MetabolismSo the amino acid has now made its way out of the small intestine, out of the digestive system and into the blood and to the liver where it is metabolized. After being metabolized in the liver it is sent to the blood stream where it will be delivered to individual cells.

Each cell has different needs and it will build proteins depending on those needs. Your DNA and your RNA guide protein synthesis, and they are found in the nucleus of each cell. Each protein has a specific sequence of amino acids. Something important to understand is that 60% to 70% of the amino acids in your body are recycled from old tissue proteins.


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That means leg muscles will be recycled and some of those amino acids will be freed for use around the body. Recycled amino acids are known as endogenous amino acids. The body will store them in amino acid pools which will complete future proteins.

Protein Metabolism By-ProductsProtein metabolism has several bi products. This is partially why high protein diets are not advisable. For now understand that amino acids that are not used for the synthesis of proteins and other biological substances will be burned as energy.

If you’re consuming a lot of protein, your body knows how to up regulate and down regulate it. If there’s too much protein, your body will start to burn that as energy, yielding urea. This occurs mainly in the liver, and to a small extent in the kidneys, 90% in the liver 10% in the kidneys. This urea will be sent to the urine and excreted. Ammonia is more toxic than urea, which is another byproduct of protein metabolism due to the nitrogen content. If ammonia is allowed to accumulate in your body, it will raise the ph in your cells to toxic levels, and that is dangerous.


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Remember that being too acidic is not good but being too alkaline is not good either. Ammonia is alkaline and if your cells become overly alkaline, it becomes toxic. Therefore, ammonia is converted to urea in the liver once again which is then sent to the kidneys for safe removal in your urine.

We talked about fructose and glucose in the last module and how it is processed through the liver. The liver is working to metabolize proteins and amino acids as well. If the liver is not working properly problems can arise. One of those problems is known as the potential renal acid load (PRAL). It is how we measure acid alkaline in the body.

Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL)PRAL calculates the acid or alkaline load of a specific food. If you add the PRAL values for all the foods you eat, you will get the net acid or alkaline load for that day.

When we talk about alkaline foods that leave an alkaline ash or an alkaline residue or an acidic residue in your blood, this is how it’s calculated. You don’t have to know the specific equation, protein plus phosphorus and subtract potassium, magnesium and calcium.

Potassium, magnesium and calcium are alkalizing minerals and we subtract those from the protein in phosphorus residue of specific foods and the difference is PRAL, the load that ends up in the kidneys. Whether it’s acidic or alkaline is dependent on five criteria, how much protein, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium are in those foods.

Here’s a very simple way of looking at this, if a food has more protein than phosphorus, versus calcium, magnesium, potassium it will be more acidic. Meats, dairy, etc. are very high in protein and phosphorus and a lot lower in the calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Fruits and vegetables are very high in alkalizing minerals and a lot lower in their protein and phosphorus making them alkaline forming once metabolized.


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Vegetarian vs. Meat ProteinVegetable and fruit proteins have less of an acidic effect in the blood than meat because they contain more alkalizing minerals such as calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. Animal proteins leave a greater acid load in the blood due to their higher concentrations of acidic elements, specifically protein and phosphorus but also nitrogen, chloride and sulfur.

This table is based on research by Remer, one of the first scientists who quantified the acid/alkaline balance topic. He developed this scale by looking at foods and their potential renal acid load. His initial research was controversial in 1995.

At the top of the chart we have acidic foods, while at the bottom we have alkaline foods. Alkaline foods have a negative number, so you’ll see -16.7 for beet greens, -11.8 for spinach, and -8.1 for Swiss Chard. On the opposite end of the spectrum we’ve got items such as low fat cheddar which is 26.4, that’s


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why dairy and cheese are really two of the most acidifying foods that we can bring into our body.

Also notice that sunflower seeds are on the acidic side as well. It’s helpful to understand which foods are alkalizing and which foods are acidic so you can balance them out. The chart on the right shows the PRAL by food, for example, Meat: 9.5. Milk, dairy and eggs: 23.6, massive. That’s six times greater than sugar and sweets in terms of the acidic residue it’s leaving in the body. Vegetables and fruit are the only ones that leave an alkaline ash in the blood. Grains are fairly acidic while legumes are more neutral as are fats and oils.


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Why Does This Matter?

It matters because acidic blood is correlated to diseases such as: LES osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, high levels of cortisol and hypothyroidism just to name a few. You may be wondering, does it matter where I get my protein? Yes and no. As long as you are getting a variety of foods you will almost always be getting all the amino acids you need, but remember to consider the health consequences of your choices.


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How Much Protein Do We Need?

Ah, the holy grail of protein questions. Here is the answer: the recommended daily allowance is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. This comes from tons of different scientific studies. Again if you’re eating a lot more then you’re going to oxidize it as fuel.

If you’re a 175-pound person you will need about 64 grams of protein per day. That is not a lot. Based on a 2500-calorie diet, that would be about 10% protein intake. That is not as much as we’ve been lead to believe.

There will be about 2% of the population, such as high performance athletes and tri-athletes who might need a little bit more protein, but just understand that the recommended intake works for roughly 98% of the population. That would probably include you and me: 0.8 grams of protein per day, per kilogram of body weight.

The interesting part is that this number was developed using college men exclusively. They didn’t look at menopausal women or elderly men, but that number is pretty accurate even though it is based on a very narrow sample size. The study looked at nitrogen balance, which we’ll look at in lesson three.

Now, what are the best sources of protein? Spirulina, one of my favorite super foods, is 60 grams of protein per 100 grams serving. Now, there is a difference between percent protein in a food and the actual amount of food you need to eat to get the required protein.

Spirulina has the highest concentration of protein out of all foods. Roughly 60% of spirulina is protein. In order to get 60 grams of protein, which would be pretty much your daily intake for an individual, you would have to eat one cup of spirulina.


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I’m okay with one to two tablespoons, but one cup is really pushing the limits. An important thing to understand is that one cup of spirulina is very different than two or three ounces of beef, but will give us the same. For example, an 8oz steak will give you about 60 grams of protein and that’s a lot easier for some people to eat than one cup of spirulina.

Don’t be confused by the figures you see set forth by doctors trying to sell products. To understand this further here are a few examples. An apple has 0.3 grams of protein while a banana has 1.3 grams of protein per 100g. Alfalfa sprouts, parsley, spinach, kale are all very low on the total amount of protein they’re giving off per serving size.

In most cases, greens have a much lower percentage of protein when you look at the actual serving size. Lentils are great source of protein, but look at the difference between raw and cooked, 26 grams raw versus 9 grams cooked. We’ll look at the effect of cooking proteins in lesson 2 – that’s a pretty significant difference.


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Milk only has 3.5 grams per half a cup. One cup of spirulina has about 10 times the amount of protein one cup of milk does.

One white bagel has ten grams of protein. But is a bagel considered a high protein food? No. Should it be? Maybe, but do we even need to classify food as high protein or not? A white bagel has more protein than an egg! An egg has 6 grams of protein, but a white bagel has 10. One-third of a papaya has 0.7 grams of protein. Now look at the protein content of walnuts, quinoa, hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds: 14 grams, 14 grams, 31 grams, 20 grams, 18 grams. It is very important for all you vegans to understand this.

Can a VEGAN Meet All Their Protein Requirements?Yes, but the most important factor will be variety in caloric intake since many vegetables are low in calories even if they are higher in protein. You’re going to need more calories to meet the amount of protein you need.

For example, I showed you that a banana has about 1.3 grams of protein per banana, and there are fruitarians; extremists out there who believe that human beings are only supposed to eat fruit and that’s the way we’ve evolved and that’s what we should eat exclusively, nothing else. Well, if you eat 30 bananas a day like some people do you’d be getting 39 grams of protein. Is that enough?


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Well, in a lot of research, yes, but not if you’re active, and a lot of fruitarians are very active because they need to metabolize all that fructose, as we looked at last module. But again, is 39 grams of protein enough if you’re very active or even building or looking to build muscle? Based on what the research says, not really.

For the average individual who’s not doing anything, in terms of exercise, maybe. But is eating 30 bananas a day, every single day of your life very healthy? Absolutely not. So here’s a vegan dinner example from myself. The other night I had a vegan brown rice bowl with one cup of brown rice, half an eggplant, one zucchini, one sweet potato, half an avocado, and eight cherry tomatoes. This is an absolutely delicious meal. You can add a little bit of soy sauce or Bragg’s amino acids or some sesame oil to add a little bit more flavor, but it is just incredible.

According to Fitday.com this meal had 22.8 grams of protein. So I got less protein than one eight-ounce steak. An eight-ounce steak would be about 55-60 grams of protein. The bowl had 1000 calories, that’s actually quite a bit for a bowl. You know, obviously a lot of that came from the rice itself. Without the rice the calories would be chopped in half. But just with that dinner I got one-third of my daily protein intake and that meal was only 8.3% protein. So not a lot of protein there, but if I charted breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and a couple of snacks in between, I would hit my protein intake no problem.


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How Could I Bump Up The Protein In That Meal?

I could add one-ounce of chopped walnuts for 4 extra grams of protein plus omega 3 fatty acids. This picture shows how much one-ounce of chopped walnuts would be.

Or you could add one-ounce of hemp seeds. Hemp seeds are huge in terms of protein. If you compare one ounce of hemp seeds to one ounce of chopped walnuts, hemp seeds have double the protein. Hemp seeds are incredible in terms of protein content and omega-3s and fiber. You get 9 grams of protein just by adding 2 tablespoons.

I’m going to give you an example of one of my favorite post-workout vegan smoothies. Two bananas, one cup of blueberries, two tablespoons of almond butter, one tablespoon of chia seeds, one tablespoon of hemp seeds, and two to three cups of water. There you have 15 grams of protein and 645 calories: perfect for post-workout.


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If you combine this protein intake with my previous vegan dinner, we’re at about 40 grams of protein, which is almost my daily recommended intake. This specific vegan smoothie is just under 10% protein. Plus the bananas, blueberries, chia seeds, hemp seeds have huge health benefits. So yes, a vegan can get all the protein they need as long as they know which foods to eat.

Percent vs. CaloriesYou can easily get all of your essential amino acids as long as you eat enough calories from varied sources. Fruits, veggies, legumes, seeds, nuts, pseudo-grains, which are optional, these all contain everything you need, right? You can easily get everything you need, just from being a vegan, whether it’s raw or cooked doesn’t matter. If you want to add some meat and animal products you’ll get more than enough protein. It’s very easy actually. Assuming a 2500 calorie diet per day and 9% protein intake you would need only 60 grams of protein.

Using the examples that I showed you, and assuming my daily caloric intake of about 2500 calories, I’m getting about 56 grams of protein. My intake should be about 60 grams so it’s right there without adding protein powder or eating a lot of nuts and seeds. If you want more protein you can eat more calories or eat more nuts and seeds, but in moderation. There are several raw foodists out there who actually look overweight and the reason for that is because the majority of the recipes are heavy in nuts and seeds.

They’re getting so many calories because they’re making crackers, dehydrated patés, and crusts and stuff. Understand that if you eat a lot of nuts and seeds you’re getting a huge number of calories and a lot of fats that’s coming in with that protein as well. Half a handful of almonds or walnuts is really all you need. If you want more protein go more toward the chia and hemp seeds. Those two are amazing in terms of their protein and health properties.


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What About Greens?

I talk a lot about greens and how green smoothies and green juices are amazing. The reality is that they’re not that high in protein, that doesn’t mean that you should not base the majority of your food intake on greens. They’re the most important food in our diet. They are nutrient dense, not necessarily calorie dense, but other than protein they’re very dense in terms of the minerals and vitamins they provide.

Since they contain a lower percentage of protein per serving, it means you need a lot of them to meet your needs. The biggest, strongest animals, rhinos, elephants, cows, giraffes, apes, they all eat leaves. But that’s all they do. A giraffe will spend 18 hours out of the day eating. They need to fuel that huge body so they must eat constantly, and they sleep only a few hours.

I firmly believe that eating more greens, and eating more raw foods in general is the way to go. You don’t have to be a raw foodist, but I also want to be very objective about this and show you the facts and the science.

For example, one liter of wheat grass juice gives you only 28 grams of protein. If you drink wheat grass juice you’re most likely going to be taking it in ounces. You’re going to take an ounce shot, maybe two. We are talking about one liter of wheat grass juice.

Now, is that to say that if you drank one liter of wheat grass juice that it’s not worth your while? If you drink one liter of wheat grass juice you will fly. It’s so powerful in terms of the nutrients it provides you. Now let’s look at kale. If you put a kilogram of kale together, you’re looking at 10, 15, or 20 heads of kale. You’re only going to get 27 grams of protein and 227 calories. Kale is less than 3% protein. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat it; it’s amazing for you. But for protein, it’s a lot easier to get your protein requirements in a slab of steak.

There is almost 10 times more protein in steak than kale, 27% protein in steak versus 2.7% protein in kale. Look at the caloric difference though; eating the same one-kilogram of kale versus steak, you’d only be eating 227 calories versus almost 2,000 calories in one kilogram of steak. So we need to


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understand this. When people talk about a food having a high percentage of protein, how much of that food are you going to have to eat? Yes, one cup of spirulina has 60 grams of protein, your daily requirement, but you’re not going to eat one cup of spirulina every single day.

Greens provide a tremendous array of alkaline minerals and vital nutrients that you don’t get anywhere else, especially meat. So, you can get all of your protein requirements while eating a vegan diet but if you want to continue eating meat understand that there’s going to be some health consequences, given its acidity, so at the very minimum buffer it by eating a lot of greens. So if you want to have steak, have some kale with your steak, have some steamed spinach or whatever it is.

Health Considerations Of ProteinFoods need to be chosen based on more than just their protein content. People ask me all the time, “Yuri, what is the best protein food?” I could say spirulina, right? But is that food applicable to your every day diet? Probably not. But now you know what the highest protein foods are based on the previous charts. You need to make choices based on more than just the protein content of food. Is eating cheddar cheese every single day a very good thing to do? Not really. Animal products have nowhere near the nutritional value provided by plants, it’s as simple as that.

Here is an interesting quote from T. Colin Campbell, who put together the China study. He wrote, “The concept of quality really means the efficiency with which food proteins are used to promote growth. This would be well and good if the greatest efficiency equaled the greatest health, but it doesn’t, and that’s why the terms efficiency and quality are misleading. In fact, there is a mountain of compelling research showing that low-quality plant protein, which actually allows for slow, but steady synthesis of proteins, is the healthiest type of protein.” “Plant proteins may be lacking in one or more of the essential amino acids, as a group they do contain all of them.”

Furthermore, “does plant protein, tested in the same way, have the same effect on cancer promotions are casein, which is the milk protein in milk. the answer is an astonishing ‘NO’. In these experiments the plant protein did not promote cancer growth, even at higher levels of intake.”


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This is important stuff to understand. There is more to food than just their protein content. Let’s follow this with some information from Dr. Fuhrman’s book, “Cholesterol Protection for Life.”

Health Considerations of ProteinLet’s look at broccoli and kale versus steak, all roughly the same serving size: 307 grams, 266, 240 grams, more or less the same. Steak has 54 grams of protein, in relation to our RDA that’s right about there. It has a little bit more iron than kale and broccoli. Our RDA for iron is 8-18 mg, it’s higher for women, especially those who still have their menstrual cycles. Quite a bit more zinc in steak too and that’ll pretty much meet your RDA compared to broccoli and kale but let’s look at a couple of other things.

Look at the difference in magnesium. The magnesium in broccoli and kale versus steak is almost double. Calcium is much greater in both vegetables versus the steak. Vitamin C is basically non-existent in steak so it is much higher in broccoli and kale. There is no cholesterol in vegetables and a little bit of cholesterol in steak right there. Now let’s look at folic acid. 307 grams of broccoli almost gives you your entire daily intake of folate, which is pretty powerful.


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RecapThere is more to food than just protein; there are minerals, vitamins, and vital nutrients. Let’s recap what we’ve learned in this first lesson: protein digestion leads to individual amino acids, which become the building blocks for the physical body and numerous processes inside of it. Animal proteins and grains have a higher acid residue than fruits and vegetables. Animal products generally have the most amounts of protein per serving, but plant foods are more nutrient dense and better for your health; raw vegans can meet their protein requirements if they have the right knowledge and eat enough varied calories.


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Your Assignment

Here is your assignment for today. I want you to go back over your FitDay.com food journal and calculate how much protein you’ve eaten, averaged over the week.

Divide the number of grams by the number of days you’ve tracked, this will give you how many grams of protein you’ve eaten per day on average. For bonus marks, divide your daily protein intake by your body weight in kilograms to see if you’re above or below your daily protein requirements of 0.8 grams per kilogram per day. In most cases it will be more protein than you actually need, and that’s the key to this assignment, to get you thinking and looking at things differently, making you more aware, and for more bonus marks, how much of this protein is coming from animal versus plant sources? That is interesting to observe.

Just to give you a numerical example, let’s say I ate 400 grams of protein in seven days. That would mean 57 grams of protein per day, because I do 400 grams divided by seven days. Since I weigh 75 kilograms, 165 pounds, that would mean I’m getting 0.76 grams of protein per kilogram per day, because I divide 57 grams per day divided by 75, and that’s right about where it should be for me. But here is the important thing, I don’t count calories, I don’t worry about what food am I eating or if I’m getting enough protein. I just eat naturally. I eat as my body needs me to eat, and I get everything I need, at least from a protein perspective.


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Coming In Lesson TwoWe are going to look a lot deeper into how much protein we need. We will look at complete versus incomplete proteins, the six myths about protein, how to maximize protein usability and digestibility, raw versus cooked proteins, what the science says, and conclusions about plant versus animal proteins.

MODULE #2 - Lesson 1 - Amazon S3 · will vary depending on our health status. This chart shows both...

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