Several years ago I set out to answer to my own satisfaction the question of "how much protein is 'enough'?"

Using myself as a guinea pig, for eight months I gradually and deliberately cut the amount of protein in my daily meals down to a point which I knew to be inadequate. Every twenty-four hours I would consume only one medium-sized portion of either cheese, eggs, meat, fish or poultry. And about once a week I would skip the protein meal entirely.

During the first several months after the experiment began, I felt reasonably well. That is, nothing to brag about, yet not exactly unwell in any recognizable way. But I did notice that an evening on the lecture platform or a day at my desk writing would leave me feeling head-and-body weary.

This was the first definite symptom that all was not well with me, because my usual strenuous daily routines, either while traveling or at home, had never before induced in me this kind of fatigue. All I wanted to do was to sink into a chair and remain there in an exhausted kind of half-stupor, too weary to read or to converse with my family.

About the end of the seventh month of my self-imposed protein deficiency, I began noticing that my ordinarily good appetite was no longer so good. Mealtime became merely a routine that I must adhere to because it was "time to eat." My customary pleasure in people and events was also gone; I noticed that even commonplace little matters would irritate me out of all proportion to their importance. I found myself "too tired" to have fun with my two young sons, and any crisis, however petty, would find me without my former ability to make quick decisions.

In other words, I was not the man I used to be. If I had not been aware of the cause for my "slipping/' I would have been panicked by that unpleasant discovery which many of you have already faced: / was losing my grip on youth.

The time had now arrived to discover whether or not, after deliberately sending my youth on its way, I could coax it to return by building up the amount of protein in my daily meals. Within a month after starting to eat three high-pro­tein meals a day, I could sense a marked change for the better in my disposition. And not only was my zest for life definitely on the increase, but my face had lost its strained, weary expression, while the same daily routines no longer left me fatigued and chair-bound at night.

I hope that you, too, may experience that inexpressible joy of once more feeling like your old self. There didn't seem to be hours enough in the day for me to catch up on all the things I had been missing during those long months of wake-up-go-to-work-come-home-then-climb-into-bed-again.

This is what my experiment proved to me: "Some" pro­tein is not enough when you have that not-exactly-sick, yet not-exactly-well feeling commonly associated with "beginning to get old."

Although I had eaten three high-protein meals each day for years, during the experiment my body could not fall back in­definitely on its protein reserves for the reason that the body cannot store protein as heavily as it can fats, sugars, some minerals and certain vitamins. When not enough protein is supplied in the diet, your body turns into a heartless cannibal and begins to feed upon itself.

When a protein deficiency exists, certain body cells are consumed in order to feed the more necessary ones. Not that the destroyed cells are unimportant. But cells even more vitally important to a living body must feed on those that can be spared, at least for the time being. It is this continued form of protein cannibalism that is the real cause of disease, of premature aging.

At least 70 to 100 grams (21/2 to 31/2 ounces) of protein every twenty-four hours has been established as a minimum daily requirement for the average person with a good di­gestion. But here's the catch in this minimum figure: If your digestive mechanism is not working efficiently, you may receive the benefit of only 40 to 60 grams of the 70 to 100 grams of protein you are eating each day. It's well to re­member that along about the fortieth birthday, in many persons the digestive secretions tend to become less and less acid, meaning that the stomach acids become less able to digest protein foods thoroughly enough so that maximum assimilation can take place through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream. (Drinking sweet milk with meals, or taking baking soda and other "alkalizers" after meals, are sure ways of preventing the stomach juices from doing an effi­ciently acid digestive job on the protein foods you’ve eaten.) More than enough is safest with protein.

The food portions mentioned below will provide a daily minimum of 75 grams of protein, that is, provided you can be certain that all this protein food is going to be digested thoroughly enough to assure complete assimilation into your bloodstream. These minimum portions of protein foods are listed merely that you may judge approximately how to double, even treble, this minimum protein intake to meet your own bodily needs. By no means am I recommending the following portions as adequate protein for three meals. These quantities are given for the sole purpose of allowing you to compare your own daily protein consumption with the absolute minimum for good health, so you may decide for yourself how far above, or far below, this minimum standard your meals will average:

1 average serving of meat (fish, poultry included)

1 egg

3 slices of whole grain bread

l pint of milk (or its equivalent as powdered skim milk,

buttermilk, sour milk, cottage or other cheeses)

l serving of dried lentils, whole grain or seed cereal

l serving of cooked green vegetables

l green salad

l serving of egg custard

l serving of fresh or cooked fruit

There is no protein in air, in water, in a cigarette, in a cup of coffee or in an alcoholic or carbonated drink. The one and only place where you can obtain this imperatively needed repair material for your body cells is from the food you eat each day. (Concentrated protein in the form of amino acids is available to persons who, for some reason, can­not consume enough protein to supply their full needs. These amino acids are usually given only as a remedial or pre­cautionary measure where it's a question of healing bad burns, severe wounds or surgical incisions.)

Even 100 to 150 grams of protein food a day (approximately double the arbitrarily established minimum) may not be enough to keep you from becoming a victim of premature aging. Why? Because we are not nourished by what we eat, but rather by what we digest and assimilate. The cells in your body are not fed by what goes down your esophagus into your stomach; cell nourishment must come from the amount of wholly digested food that is assimilated through the intestinal walls into your bloodstream.

The same portions of meat, eggs, cheese, milk and seed cereals that would be enough to meet your neighbor's protein requirements for the day might fall far short o£ meeting your own needs—and vice versa. The reason? Because, as mentioned above, your stomach acids might not be plentiful enough or strong enough to break down all the protein in these foods into the form of protein (amino acids) that can be assimilated into your bloodstream.

(Also, two identical steaks coming from two different kitchens will yield two varying quantities of digestible pro­tein, all depending on the care—or carelessness—with which they are cooked. See Part II for the proper ways to cook all protein foods with an eye to obtaining maximum nutritive values from them.)

Although it's easily possible for every man, woman and child in this country to get enough protein for optimum health, recent surveys have disclosed the alarming fact that the diets of from 60 to 80 per cent of the approximately i4o,~ 000,000 persons in the United States are dangerously lacking in protein. Because meat, eggs, cheese and milk are the most expensive food items, when the budget requires trimming these protein foods are either decreased or eliminated al­together in favor of low-cost starches. Milk is pushed to the background as a protective food by millions of children and adults who turn right around and indulge a perverted prefer­ence for coffee, tea, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. And thousands of persons, mostly women, eat little or no cheese, milk, whole grains or seed cereals because they're afraid of "getting fat."

It may come as a surprise to you to learn that not all proteins are alike. Frequently it's not so much a question of "plenty of protein" as it is a question of making certain to eat enough of the right kind of protein—of complete proteins. The youth-protecting value of the protein foods you eat depends not so much on the quantity as on the quality of the proteins you select.

In recent years you've probably heard or read about "the 23 amino acids." What this means is that all food protein is broken down in the chemical laboratory of your body into amino acids. Amino acids might be well described as the traveling form of protein in the human body.

From these amino acids, after they reach the bloodstream, your chemically efficient body proceeds to construct the kinds of body proteins needed to repair or replace the varying types of worn-out body cells.

To draw a comparison: The contractor who builds a house does not use sand, gravel and cement in the form in which these building materials are unloaded at the construction site. You wouldn't have much of a basement or a foundation if he tried to lay down the unmixed sand, gravel and cement in their original form. To obtain the durable material needed for your foundation and basement, the contractor must pre­pare concrete from these raw materials.

In like manner, the food protein contained in an egg, a piece of cheese, a slice of meat, a serving of milk, or a bowl of seed cereal is not usable by your body for cell-building material until it has been broken down into its separate amino acids, and then reconstructed into the hundreds of varieties of body protein needed by the many different types of cells.

Up to the present time, food chemists have identified 23 different amino acids in our food proteins—some appearing in one protein food, others in another type and so on. It is also known that only 10 of the 23 amino acids must be ob­tained from the protein foods we eat, since our bodies have the marvelously efficient power of being able to manufacture the other 13 amino acids, provided the essential 10 are sup­plied in each day's meals.

The truth about these various kinds of food proteins was first suspected when laboratory animals were noticed to be slowly starving to death on an exclusive diet of certain pro­teins, and yet thriving on an exclusive diet of still other proteins.

From these observations it was discovered that some foods are complete proteins, while others are incomplete. What this means is simply that some foods (the complete proteins) con­tain all 10 of the essential amino acids, and other foods do not. You could live to a healthy, youthful old age by eating nothing except the foods that are complete proteins (witness the exclusively meat-eating Eskimos and Gauchos), whereas slow starvation, with the onset of debilitating diseases, would be the inevitable result if you attempted living exclusively on the incomplete, not wholly digestible proteins found in vegetables and fruits.

Nutrition experts usually classify protein foods as com- plete, partially complete and incomplete.

Lean meat (this includes gland meats, fish, and poultry), eggs, cheese, milk, millet and sunflower seeds are complete proteins, that is, they contain all 10 of the essential amino acids in correct proportions for maximum human nourish­ment. Whole grain products, soybeans, legumes and some nuts are classed as partially complete proteins— meaning that their amino acids are not in balanced proportions to meet all body needs. However, these proteins are valuable "second­ary" foods that should be generously included in every diet, particularly the whole grains; whether you use soybeans, legumes or nuts depends entirely upon your ability to digest them.

(The Eat-and-Grow-Younger menus provided in Part II are built around liberal use of complete proteins, supple­mented by the partially complete and incomplete proteins. In this way, a high-protein diet is obtained without relying exclusively on meat which, although a valuable complete pro­tein, is also quite an expensive item to be served three times a day in most American homes.)

Vegetables, fruits and some grains are classed as incomplete proteins. Corn, for instance, contains only 7 of the 10 essential amino acids, while cabbage has even fewer. Yet by no means does this lessen the value of vegetables, fruits and whole grains in your diet; what "incomplete" means is that you would eventually starve to death trying to subsist entirely on these low-grade protein foods. But these incomplete pro­teins can be used to great advantage in a diet as supplements to the high-protein foods.

(When I say that you would starve to death on a diet of fruits and vegetables, I can imagine you thinking, "But how about the vegetarians?" We'll get to them a little further along. Like many other things, there's more to vegetarianism than meets the eye.)

Each plant or animal food we eat contains a special variety of protein. For instance, vegetables contain types of protein that cannot be used by the human body, and which conse­quently are excreted by the kidneys. It may come as a surprise to many vegetarians to learn that less than half of the protein content of legumes can be utilized by the human body. There­fore, to obtain that safe surplus of protein so vital as a safe­guard against deficiency diseases and premature aging, the vegetarian must consume at least three times more legumes in weight than would be necessary if he had no prejudices against animal proteins.

The closer a food protein resembles human protein, the more valuable it is for human nutrition. That is why we speak of high-grade proteins, meaning those foods that yield a maximum of protein nutrition in relation to the quantity consumed; and low-grade proteins, meaning those that furnish the body with only small amounts of usable protein.

To illustrate: 100 grams of meat protein (high-grade) are far more valuable to human nutrition than 100 grams of carrot protein (low grade).

A diet built around foods containing all 10 of the essential amino acids is a youth-protecting, health-promoting diet be­cause it is a high-protein diet. If any doubt still lingers in your mind that a high-protein diet is imperative if you are to look younger and live out your allotted span of years (four score and more), let me remind you again that you are made of protein. Your blood plasma, red blood cells, hor­mones, muscles—in fact, every organ, fluid and tissue of your body (except urine and bile) are composed of amino acids.

As I often tell my lecture audiences: I wish the food chemists had been foresighted enough to christen these vital body chemicals with a name more descriptive, more appealing to the public than "amino acids." I would like to re-christen them "youth restorers," "body rebuilders" or "pep proteins." For that is exactly what they are.

Let me outline briefly what we know to be the direct effect of the 10 essential amino acids on the human body.

Arginine is called the "fatherhood amino acid" because it comprises 80 per cent of all male reproductive cells (sper­matozoa). When seriously lacking in the body, the sex instinct undergoes a marked decrease in men and women alike, caus­ing impotency in the male. (Such a deficiency is often asso­ciated with early loss of sexual powers in men not con­scientious about proper diet.)

Tryptophane is known to help ward off signs of premature aging such as cataracts, baldness and sex gland deterioration; it is also vital to the female reproductive organs. Your diet must contain this form of protein if vitamin A is to be properly utilized by your body, since a lack of sufficient tryptophane will cause symptoms similar to vitamin A starva­tion (eye disorders, easy susceptibility to colds and respiratory disorders and general weakness of the mucous membranes).

Valine is directly related to the nervous system (one part of the body that really takes a beating as we grow older), and your diet must contain plenty of this protein if you want to avoid nervous disorders and digestive upsets. A per­son starved for valine becomes abnormally sensitive to touch and sound, and has trouble controlling his muscular move­ments.

Histidine is principally a tissue repairer, and is active in producing normal blood supplies.

Lysine, when inadequately provided by the diet, has been linked with pneumonia, acidosis, headaches, dizziness and incipient anemia. It also has a direct influence on the female reproductive cycle.

Methionine, if seriously lacking in the body, may cause hardening of the liver (cirrhosis), and nephritis (a serious kidney disease). It is also necessary to maintain normal body weight and aids in keeping a proper nitrogen balance in the body. (Nitrogen, a protein, is as vital to human life as it is to plant life.)

Phenylalanine is closely linked with the body's most effi­cient use of vitamin C. This means that not enough of this amino acid in the diet can result in susceptibility to infec­tions, and to other diseases connected with insufficient vitamin C.

The three remaining amino acids of the 10 essential ones are leucine, isoleucine and threonine. Their specific functions in the body have not as yet been completely explored by the scientists, although it is known that these three amino acids play a vital role in helping maintain the body's nitrogen balance, that is, the intake of proteins and the discharge of wastes and dead cells.

All 10 of these essential amino acids, plus the literally thousands of different protein combinations manufactured in your body from the original 10 (the red coloring matter in your blood, or hemoglobin as it's called for example, may contain as many as 576 different amino acid groups) must do an uninterrupted job of building, repairing and replacing, if you are to remain a living animal.

A red blood cell lives about thirty days. This means that every month a fresh, newly processed red blood cell must be recruited from your bone marrow into the bloodstream as a replacement for the defunct cell. The same is true of white blood cells. Kidney, bladder and intestinal cells are constantly being lost and must be replaced if these organs are to do a good job of removing wastes from your body. Skin, hair, fingernail and toenail cells are continually being destroyed and new ones must be provided. Internal and external secre­tions (such as hormones, enzymes, digestive juices, tears, skin oils) must be produced without interruption in a healthy body, since these secretions are continuously being manu­factured and produced each day in such extremely intricate body functions as digestion and sexual activity.

I don't know whether you've ever thought of it this way or not, but the fact remains that the sole reason why you eat is to provide your body with energy, and to assure your cells of enough protein for all the vitally needed repairs and re­placements.

You may think you eat because you "get hungry," or be­cause food tastes good, or because it's pleasant to share a meal with congenial companions. But actually you eat because your cells demand material (protein) for energy, and for repair work. A cell can't taste, and it isn't convivial! There­fore, Nature tricks you by your taste buds into eating, so that vital energizing and restorative processes can go on without interruption.

Please ponder this last fact for a few seconds—then re­member it the next time you are undecided between a plate of high-starch foods such as white rice or macaroni, or a plate of body-rebuilding proteins like meat, eggs, cheese, milk or seed cereals.

Dr. James S. McLester, well-known professor of medicine at the University of Alabama and one of the pioneers in treating nutritional deficiencies, says: "If a man would enjoy sustained vigor and would experience his normal expectancy ... he must eat a liberal quantity of good protein." Good protein means, of course, a complete protein—one containing all 10 essential amino acids. Meat, fish, poultry, cheese, eggs, milk and seed cereals are "good proteins." Notice, please, that Dr. McLester specifies a "liberal quantity" of good proteins, not a bare minimum.

In order to make sure that you have the correct answer to the nutrition riddle: "How much protein is enough?" your safest bet is to eat more than enough. The menus compiled for you in Part II are designed to provide at least 100 to 150 grams of high-grade protein a day. This may be fur­ther increased by between-meal snacks such as those listed in Part II.

Getting "more than enough" protein is the only way I know of to make absolutely certain that you have bolted the door against premature aging of your precious body.

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