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i don't understand why your comment scores so low. It's pretty clear that our bodies will absorb 500 sugar/carbohydrate calories much more quickly than 500 prot

by snewk 10y ago

i don't understand why your comment scores so low. It's pretty clear that our bodies will absorb 500 sugar/carbohydrate calories much more quickly than 500 protein/fat calories. You will get a much greater insulin response when eating a pastry than a chicken breast.

jasonjei 10y ago
I suspect I'm being down voted because I said I don't believe carbohydrates are required for survival. While glucose is essential for life since the brain cells die quickly without it, glucose does not have to be obtained from carbohydrates. It can be obtained from protein or fat by breaking down the protein or fat into glucose. In fact, a good percentage of protein (~50%) becomes glucose when it enters the body. Protein is favored over many other energy forms since it contains amino acids, one of the most useful sources of nutrients to your body. Your body cannot store amino acids and yet it needs a daily intake of amino acids to survive. Additionally, protein conversion to fats is costly, so your body under normal conditions does not usually convert much of it, compared to fats and carbohydrates (carbs almost immediately undergo storage). Good fats, however, are beneficial (essential even for health) than carbohydrates in all cases. Or perhaps someone might enlighten me why I'm wrong (at the time of this writing, my original comment has 0 points of karma). I've cut bread and processed sugar to a large degree from my diet and stick to lean proteins like seafood and chicken, and have found myself to be quite lean and healthy (bulking even with my anterior/posterior chain, triceps/biceps). I haven't counted calories since I switched to a diet that focuses on lean protein and seafood (and I suspect there are days where I eat more than 2000 kCal).
- DrScump 10y ago
  <While glucose is essential for life since the brain cells die quickly without it> Not true at all. The brain runs just fine on ketone bodies in the absence of dietary glucose. The few organs that do require glucose are supplied by protein conversion (gluconeogenesis).
- greendestiny_re 10y ago
  I can't add anything constructive to your glucose conclusions, though I can say that eating 2 medium chicken drumsticks with skin has made me satiated to a degree I never thought possible. I too experienced a certain effortless growth of muscle mass after eating enough protein for my daily needs, too.
lukeschlather 10y ago
It's a function of diet and exercise. "Absorb" also begs the question "for what?" Your body can absorb protein and repurpose it into other proteins for muscles or whatnot, but turning that protein into energy is harder. It's like saying that a city can absorb a terajoule of gasoline more easily than a terajoule of coal or a terajoule of lithium batteries. It's true, but "which is absorbed faster?" is a vast oversimplification of a more complicated question, which is "how much is needed?" To extend the analogy further, if a city had mostly electric cars and a coal power plant, it would have no trouble absorbing the lithium batteries or the coal, but would have more trouble absorbing the gasoline.

by snewk 10y ago

jasonjei 10y ago

I suspect I'm being down voted because I said I don't believe carbohydrates are required for survival. While glucose is essential for life since the brain cells die quickly without it, glucose does not have to be obtained from carbohydrates. It can be obtained from protein or fat by breaking down the protein or fat into glucose. In fact, a good percentage of protein (~50%) becomes glucose when it enters the body. Protein is favored over many other energy forms since it contains amino acids, one of the most useful sources of nutrients to your body. Your body cannot store amino acids and yet it needs a daily intake of amino acids to survive. Additionally, protein conversion to fats is costly, so your body under normal conditions does not usually convert much of it, compared to fats and carbohydrates (carbs almost immediately undergo storage). Good fats, however, are beneficial (essential even for health) than carbohydrates in all cases. Or perhaps someone might enlighten me why I'm wrong (at the time of this writing, my original comment has 0 points of karma). I've cut bread and processed sugar to a large degree from my diet and stick to lean proteins like seafood and chicken, and have found myself to be quite lean and healthy (bulking even with my anterior/posterior chain, triceps/biceps). I haven't counted calories since I switched to a diet that focuses on lean protein and seafood (and I suspect there are days where I eat more than 2000 kCal).

DrScump 10y ago
<While glucose is essential for life since the brain cells die quickly without it> Not true at all. The brain runs just fine on ketone bodies in the absence of dietary glucose. The few organs that do require glucose are supplied by protein conversion (gluconeogenesis).
greendestiny_re 10y ago
I can't add anything constructive to your glucose conclusions, though I can say that eating 2 medium chicken drumsticks with skin has made me satiated to a degree I never thought possible. I too experienced a certain effortless growth of muscle mass after eating enough protein for my daily needs, too.

lukeschlather 10y ago

It's a function of diet and exercise. "Absorb" also begs the question "for what?" Your body can absorb protein and repurpose it into other proteins for muscles or whatnot, but turning that protein into energy is harder. It's like saying that a city can absorb a terajoule of gasoline more easily than a terajoule of coal or a terajoule of lithium batteries. It's true, but "which is absorbed faster?" is a vast oversimplification of a more complicated question, which is "how much is needed?" To extend the analogy further, if a city had mostly electric cars and a coal power plant, it would have no trouble absorbing the lithium batteries or the coal, but would have more trouble absorbing the gasoline.