Top 10 Foods High In Protein That You Should Eat

Hello Health Champions.

People often ask how much protein do I need to eat, but the answer is no one really knows.

No one can pin down an exact number so rather than that we're going to take a look at understanding

protein understanding what it does and what the different factors are so instead of asking

how much do we need we want to understand there's more to it than just reading the label

and adding up the grams of protein what about digestion if you can't digest it if you can't

break down protein then you can't absorb it and then it's no use to you .

Also the quality is hugely important because the quality determines how much of the protein

becomes tissue and how much of the protein is converted into glucose and we'll cover

that in some detail and we also want to understand how difficult it is to get protein toxicity

and what happens when we do and talk about something called rabbit starvation i want

to go over 10 different foods and 10 different categories of foods that are often promoted

as great protein sources and i want to explain and help you understand what are the different

factors that make them a good or not so great source of protein now soy is often a vegetarian's

choice it's often promoted it's included as in food bars and textured vegetable protein

and it's in a million different forms one of the more common is soy milk and i don't

think that's usually such a great source because it often comes loaded with sugar it is typically

a gmo food genetically modified and it is very hard to digest and because it's hard

to digest then it is also a very common allergen it is consistently among the top three or

four things that people are allergic to because of the way that we eat it and because it's

hard to digest another problem with soy is phytoestrogens and these are plant compounds

that can mimic estrogen so they fit into receptor sites in humans females particularly and now

they can either block it and keep the body's estrogen from fitting in or they can fit in

and stimulate it so they can actually inhibit or over stimulate either way they can unbalance

your hormone system if you're going to eat soy i would recommend that you do it in a

form like tofu or tempeh or miso because these are fermented now you have bacteria that have

helped you digest them and all of the countries all the cultures that have traditionally used

soy in their diet they always eat fermented soy we'll talk about some other factors that

relate to this also on the quality of the protein but nevertheless it is an important

source of protein it's not my favorite it's not the best but it's a very important staple

for people who are vegetarian because it is more difficult to find quality proteins for

them protein is essential and that means you cannot live without it and you have to add

it through the diet on a regular basis carbohydrates are not essential fats and proteins are essential

so the first thing that proteins do is they are building blocks fats provide a few structural

elements like insulation for thermal insulation and electrical insulation and they are insulating

the surface of the cell from the inside from the outside that's what fats do everything

else that's a structural component is basically a protein so hair skin nails bone muscles

connective tissue you name it the rest of it if it's a building block it's protein hemoglobin

is also a protein the thing that carries your oxygen that delivers oxygen to the tissues

that lives inside red blood cells next we have albumins and globulins.

Albumin is the main protein that provides osmotic pull that holds the water inside the

bloodstream without enough albumin the water leaks out causing edema and with globulins

you want to think immunoglobulin as related to the immune system but also carriers so

most things in the blood are not just floating around freely they're carried by a globulin

so minerals and hormones they have carriers that's globulins protein also makes up many

of your hormones and many of your enzymes now these are the things that are essential

about it and this is why we want protein the purpose of protein is to provide these things

when they don't fit this when the pieces don't fit when they don't have the right composition

now the excess gets turned into glucose either if they're not the right mix or if we just

have way more than we need the excess gets turned into glucose and even this is part

of something that's happening all the time and it always will this is not what makes

proteins essential right this is the essential part this is just kind of the leftovers number

nine on the list is beans and legumes and this also includes things like peanuts which

is actually a legume now these are difficult to digest a lot of people know this they get

gas when they eat them and also it's a fairly common allergen not even close to soy but

it is pretty common and it is also high in carbohydrates so yes you're getting some protein

but along with that you get a lot more carbohydrate than you get protein now out of that protein

only about 17% gets utilized meaning it gets converted into tissues the body can use that

ratio of building blocks to actually make tissue and that means 83 percent of it the

body cannot use for building blocks and it can get turned into fuel as glucose and it's

pretty typical for plant proteins to get used at about 17% so what does that mean let's

talk about utilization when we eat protein we eat things that are strung together like

a pearl necklace basically and these are amino acids side by side hundreds or thousands of

them and then we digest them we break them apart one by one and then the body puts them

together your dna puts together the amino acids in certain sequences to make new unique

proteins and these amino acids there's eight or nine of them that are essential meaning

we can't make them from other amino acids depending on who you talk to it's eight or

nine so think of these amino acids as letters in a word that if you have the the sequence

of the letters make up different words just like the sequence of amino acids make up different

proteins and if we have to make a nine-letter word with nine different amino acids then

if we have one of each letter we can make one word but if we have one of each and ten

of the o's we can still only spell that word one time so the closer the sequence the ratio

is to what your body is trying to make which is animal tissue that yes we are animals then

if we eat an animal protein that's going to be closer to human the ratios are going to

be closer to human than a plant protein and therefore we have a utilization rate of about

30 percent so 30 of all the amino acids gets turned into building locks and tissue about

70 percent gets converted into glucose and burned as fuel now that doesn't seem like

a whole lot but it's still much higher than plant protein because plants are not very

close to humans the ratios the type of tissue is even though the parts are all there the

ratios are just not that close so therefore we utilize about 17% just over half as effective

if you will number eight on the list is egg white and this is a big surprise for people

because this often tops the list people think this is the perfect protein it's they've heard

all kinds of good things about eggs and they think well egg white that is the pure protein

of the egg and they are so sadly mistaken because we talked about this sequence of amino

acids the ratios and the egg white is incomplete without the yolk a lot of the letters that

the body needs to use this is actually in the yolk so when we discard it now we have

an incomplete protein and while animal sources are usually absorbed utilized at about 30

percent this is the worst animal source once we discard the yolk this is the worst animal

source for protein just like plants it's at about a 17 utilization level meaning 83 percent

of what you think is protein actually turns into glucose and it's a common allergen while

it's not nearly as common as wheat or dairy or soy or corn it is still quite common a

certain percentage of people will have a sensitivity to it and when they do it's often more so

to the egg white than the egg yolk and then in my opinion it is terribly boring everything

that to me that makes egg interesting is the yolk and if you eat the whole thing then it's

a nice combination it's another example of throwing away the good part for all the wrong

reasons number seven on the list is nuts and seeds now again it's a plant so we're gonna

have the same utilization ratio again these are still good proteins they're just not as

good as an animal protein you can still get protein out of these just not as much now

the good thing about nuts and seeds is they also have a good amount of fiber and they

have a good amount of fat so even though a lot of this turns into glucose protein is

converted rather slowly into glucose and fiber and fat slows it down even further so you're

not going to have much of a glucose response you're just not going to have a tremendous

amount of protein come out of this and typically you're going to get more fiber and protein

with the seeds like flax chia and pumpkin and you're going to get more fat from the

nuts like macadamia pecan and walnut and less fiber but again variety is good so eat a little

bit of everything and you should be fine just don't turn these into staples thinking that

they're going to provide everything number six on the list is pork turkey and chicken

so what do these have in common they are animal proteins they are utilized at about 30 percent

into building tissue 70 percent gets turned into glucose and the problem that i have with

them is that it's hard to find good quality meat and fish it's pretty straight forward

to find good quality animals that lived a normal life for that species but it's very

difficult to find pork turkey and chicken that have been pastured and raised organic

and so forth now i still eat some of these i enjoy them but i don't eat them as much

as i would have if there were plenty of healthy sources available.

Now here we want to remember something also about the nature of fat that most pesticides

most toxins are fat soluble so an animal will concentrate toxins in their fat tissues so

if the animal was very clean then the fat will be also clean and healthy if the animal

is toxic then that fat will be toxic so unless you can find a clean animal then you don't

want to eat high fat if you find a clean animal go for high fat if you can't now you want

to go with the low fat but then on the other hand now the lean chicken breast etc is pretty

dry and boring now let's look at how much protein we need and how much we're actually

getting from different things that we're eating and the standard recommendation for protein

is 10 to 35 percent of your calories to come from protein and now the green numbers they're

my suggestions and i dropped the 35 down to 25 and i'll show you with some numbers why

i feel that way because it's rather difficult to get to 35 percent and then you say oh well

i know people are carnivore they eat nothing but meat they eat almost a hundred percent

protein right no they don't so let's take a look at some numbers now if you're carnivore

meaning you eat meat only no plants nothing else at all and let's say now that you're

eating meat with 15 fat and 85 percent lean then this is a huge surprise to a lot of people

now you're going to get 36 of your calories from protein you're almost twice as much from

fat 64 so almost two-thirds from fat and one-third from protein even though you're eating all

meat this would be a scenario where you manage to get up to 35 but that's not all that easy

to do furthermore most carnivores learn that they feel the best get the best results the

meat is the tastiest and most satisfying if it has a little bit more fat so if we go up

to 20 percent fat now it's almost one quarter to three quarters almost 75 percent of the

calories are coming from fat so now you're eating 20 percent fat all carnivore now you're

fitting into my 25 here so you can see it's not that easy to get up to 35 percent and

if we increase the fat a little bit further like we have 25 percent fat now the numbers

change further and if we go to 70 30 30 fat like in a lot of wagyu ground beef that's

becoming more and more available it's going to be around 28 to 30 percent fat now more

than 80 percent of the calories are from fat and 19 less than 20 percent are from protein

so you're down in the middle of this range even though you're only eating meat so none

of these numbers will give you protein toxicity but it can be done and that is if you start

eating very lean protein extremely lean and the leanest is often referred to as the rabbit

starvation rabbits are just over two percent fat 98 percent lean meat so if you eat nothing

but rabbit then you would get 81 of your calories from protein and 19 of fat and this is where

you create some severe imbalances in your body and we'll take a look at that you can

actually end up starving to death let's say that we eat only meat and all the calories

in one day come from meat ground beef or wagyu or something real fatty that has 30 percent

fat now that's very satisfying so we're going to be completely full with 2 000 calories

a day and because it's so dense because it's so rich we only have to eat 613 grams to reach

the 2000 calories that's a little under a pound and a half now we get a total of 86

grams of protein and 184 grams of fat in that diet and it's kind of funny here because you

have a carnivore you have someone eating only meat that is actually on a relatively low

protein diet but now let's contrast that with very lean meat so let's talk about rabbit

starvation and there's been reports of this throughout history where people have been

stranded in various remote locations and if they have nothing but extremely lean meat

to eat then they get really really sick and they starve to death why when you eat lean

meat only remember the purpose of protein is to turn into tissue but when we have nothing

else to eat and we put protein in now virtually all that protein is going to turn into glucose

and that's a very unnatural process for the body that's not ever really supposed to happen

and now if we eat only rabbit with about 2.3 percent body fat we're actually gonna need

more calories because this conversion from protein to glucose is quite inefficient okay

and the body can do it and it will do it with excess or if we don't have anything else but

it's not efficient it costs a lot of energy so to get 2 000 calories out of it we're gonna

have to eat more so that translates into 2.3 kilograms or about five pounds of rabbit of

lean rabbit meat so now compared to the 86 grams we get with wagyu now we have to eat

506 grams of protein and only 53 grams of fat so you can see the difference in these

ratios that this people do really really well with when the protein is low to moderate and

the fat is high that's the kind of fuel the body is looking for when we turn it around

it's very unnatural and there is a limit to how much protein can be converted into glucose

because the liver has to do that and it's like the machinery only has so much capacity

and when you exceed the limit now the rest of it can't be converted so as a result now

you get very very hungry so you eat more and more and more and your belly is full even

distended from all that food but you're still not able to convert that protein into the

energy the body needs so you get hungrier and hungrier and when the body can't process

it when it can't convert this it doesn't know what to do with all that lean meat now you

get diarrhea typically within a few days and a byproduct of all this protein is nitrogen

and down the road becomes ammonia and this ammonia when it's excess like we get from

excess protein now it starts affecting the nervous system so now you get confusion and

brain fog and delirium and so forth and all sorts of nervous system effects and after

a few weeks of that you actually reach death so i'm going over this more as an academic

example because unless you find yourself in the wasteland somewhere with only rabbit to

eat this is not likely to happen but it's still a good idea to understand what's happening

and what protein toxicity actually is it's very difficult to get there so most people

don't have to worry about it now one thing to understand is this is not about rabbits

right any lean meat would do this any very lean meat so if someone got the idea of eating

chicken breast only which has about 3.3 percent fat and they managed to force themselves to

eat that dry boring thing with no additional fat in the cooking now they would probably

need about 2250 calories they would need to still eat roughly five pounds of that stuff

and they would get almost the same amount of protein as you would from rabbit over 460

grams and that would certainly become toxic and you would have very little fat to live

off if you don't have enough fat or carbohydrate then your body would try to convert all that

protein but it's not going to be successful and you're going to have all these side effects

number five on the list is dairy and this is an animal protein so it's going to be utilized

at about 30 percent unless we are foolish enough to break it apart and turn it into

whey protein because now that utilization drops right down to the level of plants so

again there's virtually no protein powders or food bars with protein in them that are

utilized at any significant level we want it to be grass fed because along with the

protein we want those healthy fats and if it's grain fed that fat balance is off balance

if it's grass-fed then it's a good healthy fat and we also want that to be organic if

possible if i had to choose between the two i would go grass fed over organic but ideally

i'd like to get both if i can allergies is the one drawback again with dairy because

in my office the one of the top two allergens is processed dairy wheat is probably number

one and if we ferment it now we add back the bacteria the bacteria start digesting some

of the protein they start consuming some of the sugar and they start making some enzymes

and healthy bacteria lactobacillus now it's a completely different food it is much much

better for us it's much easier to digest it's not just because it has some probiotics in

it it is much easier for us to tolerate number four is cheese which is another form of dairy

but more concentrated the protein utilization is the same if you eat cheese you want to

try to find raw cheese that's not super super important but it is a great plus you also

want it to be grass fed so that the fat ratio is favorable ideally you want it to be organic

so if you can find all three raw grass-fed and organic that's the best but you do the

best you can now this is higher on the list more favorable than other dairy simply because

more people tolerate it it is still a relatively common allergen but most people tolerate cheese

pretty well number three on the list is red meat and this to me is lamb and beef the protein

utilization is like for most animal products about 30 percent and I like these because

it's pretty easy it's pretty straightforward to find good quality grass-fed is becoming

more widespread organic is becoming more widespread you can find it in a lot of places number

two on the list is fish and why is fish higher on the list than red meat the protein utilization

is about the same it is also easy to find good quality wild fish much like the high

quality of of red meat the reason it's higher is because it also has fish oil it has essential

fatty acids that are difficult to get anywhere else the EPA and the DHA the EPA is a natural

anti-inflammatory the DHA is a building block for your nervous system some of my favorites

are salmon mackerel and sardines because they have the highest rates of EPA, DHA and they're

pretty readily available fish is also a little bit easier to digest than meat for most people

but if you don't have a problem with it then either one will be fine in that regard so

i'm not saying eat one instead of the other but i'm just explaining why they're sort of

ordered this way i would certainly recommend that you eat both for variety and what about

the other fish well there's lots of others that are good you want to look at my other

video to see which ones are lower in mercury typically but things like cod and flounder

and sole etc they still have the same level of protein the same utilization and they're

beneficial they're easy to digest you just don't get the benefit from these essential

fatty acids and the number one food source for protein would be the whole egg so it's

kind of ironic that the whole egg tops the list whereas the egg white is almost at the

bottom when most people think that the egg white is where the protein comes from the

nature packages things for us in wonderful packages and the egg yolk actually has more

protein by percentage than the egg white does but we've been taught to throw it away because

it also has cholesterol now cholesterol is not a problem that's not any kind of reason

you shouldn't eat eggs that's a myth i've done lots of other videos talking about cholesterol

so take a look at those for more details so the egg is the most complete food source we

have the combination the ratio of amino acids allow us to utilize it at 48 which is way

higher than any animal source now make sure though that it's still the high quality because

again the fat the types of fats the ratios they all matter and if the chicken was pastured

if it had a natural life eating real chicken food then you're going to have healthy components

healthy fats if the chicken was not healthy it can't make a healthy egg the only food

that's slightly better is mother's milk now that's not going to be a viable option for

most people and if you can get your hands on it it wouldn't be a bad idea just make

sure that the baby gets theirs first and the only reason pretty much that you would not

want to eat a lot of eggs on a regular basis would be if you have a sensitivity or an allergy

so again sometimes people notice these things and sometimes you don't so just be very sensitive

to it it is a great food unless it's not great for you if you enjoyed this video you'll love

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