The number quoted is the pre-processing weight. A lot of mass is lost during processing, drying, aging, in transport, to spoilage, and so on.

The real number for meat consumption at the end consumer is about half that amount.

Bodybuilder? Powerlifter? Curious what specifically you mean that requires you to bulk vs. cut

well im not bodybuilding anymore, so i guess im just in a constant bulk/caloric parity. i still think like that tho lol

Have you considered not bothering to bulk or cut and instead just maintain? Maybe you are saying that but I can’t tell. I lift 5-6 days a week but neither bulk nor cut. Just eating/consuming whatever is necessary to maintain and/or hit goals when I feel like it.

I too try for 200g of protein/day, with meat and supplements by shakes. It’s difficult to eat more meat than that, because of how it fills you up, its prep requirements and its cost.

I don’t believe that the average American eats nearly a pound of meat per day. I do believe if the average American ate meat before carbs, we could get there, and all be a lot healthier, though.

For me, processed carbs make me much hungrier, but the kale salad I’m eating right now makes me less hungry.

I cut out mammal products and replaced with plant protein like lentils and wild rice.

I can eat 200g of lentil noodles in a sitting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEqV0Bjcs - that lecture refers a simple formulae to compute protein content from the amount of nitrogen. They count nitrogen in grams, then multiply by 6 to get amount of "available" protein. But, any antinutrients such as cyanides will count as proteins by this calculation.

Lentils contain trypsin inhibitors, which contain inordinate amount of nitrogen that is counted as protein.

While you do not eat these directly after cooking your lentils, you do not eat as much protein as you would think you do.

lentils carb/protein ratio isn't great. you still need to supplement it with protein (whey or pea). i eat a fair amount of lentils, but mostly as a carb source (like white rice). even tofu's ratio isn't good enough. i do eat a lot of tofu though, because i like it

back of the hand math suggests id have to eat a kg of dry lentils a day to reach my protein requirements. that's gotta be what, 2800 cal? edit: 800g of lentils for 200g of protein, 2500 cal.

im just thinking out loud here, but lentils alone wouldn't be adequate for me.

> 800g of lentils for 200g of protein, 2500 cal.

> im just thinking out loud here, but lentils alone wouldn't be adequate for me.

This seems in line with maintenance calories for a moderately active man, am I missing something?

If the goal is both strength training, cardio, and both weight gain and building muscle mass to competitive levels, then that can be not enough.

Scale that up to 5000 kcal/day needed for heavy activity (like for an Olympic swimmer) and it still seems like a sufficient, if not excessive, amount of protein: 400g of it. Not even NFL linemen eat that much protein.

Depends on "adequate". The average western diet over-consumes protein.

I started tracking everything I ate, every single bite.

The average western diet may over consume meat, but I have to work my butt off to hit my protein goals for strength training.

A slice of bacon has 3g of protein. 150 calories though. Eating enough protein through bacon isn't the best of ideas, even if someone is doing a ketogenic diet!

60-80g of protein is about right for a man who has a moderately physical job or who exercises some small amount. 100g is the minimum for putting on muscle and getting stronger.

The average western diet over consumes everything, it could do with less sugar, less processed foods (which are hyper palatable and don't satiate hunger), and more pure protein.

Why are you quoting raw protein grams instead of using a g/kg of body weight metric?

Because American men average around five nine and given the average lean muscle mass needs on that frame size, something within 60-90g (which is a huge range!) will work for most American men.

Like if someone is a 6 foot 10 body builder, they know their needs.

Also the suggested range of g/kg ranges from .8g/kg to 1.2g/kg, which is also a huge range, but that is primarily for building strength, not maintaining.

Given the goals here are "rough guidelines on eating healthy", I'm fine saying most men should aim for 60-90g of lean protein a day. That isn't exactly a hot take.

> strength training

why do you think you need to do that? most people don't.

That question is, honestly, kind of stupid. It is akin to asking why eat healthy or why go outside in the sun.

But hey, here we go.

1. Intense physical exercise is the only known way to increase IQ. (Admittedly pure strength training is not the best for this, HIIT workouts are better)

2. Muscle mass is a huge factor in the early death in seniors. Basically people who lack muscle mass are more likely to fall over and fracture something, at which point they are much more likely to die.

3. Lean muscle mass, up to a certain point (e.g. extreme body builders have worse mortality numbers), decreases mortality across the board.

4. I like living w/o pain, and you can choose to either have your joints take the load or your muscles take the load.

5. I enjoy being able to move my body and be active in the world.

6. I'm vain and I like to look good.

> most people don't.

Most people in America die of a heart attack. Most people in America are obese and have troubles moving around. Most people in America don't read books. Most people in America don't enjoy mathematics. Most people in America don't go to art museums.

People should have aspirations to do more than average.

Most people experience severe mobility problems in old age that would likely have been preventable by strength training.

you don't need to do anything. why try? sit at home and watch tv.

i can hike elevation all day which is great for backpacking, i look great with a shirt off, and i can stand up from the couch without using my hands.

yes, im taking it a bit far at this point, but really that just means eating the average american's protein intake and then a protein shake or two on top

okay? i said "adequate for me", not "adequate for the average western person".

You would just eat more protein dense plant foods like tempeh, extra firm tofu, and seitan which is the most protein dense food.

If the only food in your pantry were seitan, you’d have to eat 260g (960cal) of it to hit 200g protein. It’s not that much food.

Most people haven’t tried it but asian stores may sell it next to tofu as “vegan chicken/beef”. It has a nice texture that you can cube and treat like chicken in a stir fry.

I eat it weekly.

Tofu's ratio is really good, though? I can get 162kcal/18g of protein tofu here. Anything where P*10 > KCAL is a very good protein source, imo.

chicken breast is more than twice as "good" ratio wise.

> Anything where P*10 > KCAL is a very good protein source, imo.

for the average person's protein intake, yes.

try doing 200g of protein a day with tofu. for firm tofu, that's over 5 pounds of tofu a day! and that's over 2000 calories.

it's doable but i also challenge you to eat 5 pounds of tofu every day of a week and tell me if that's any fun, lol.

> chicken breast is more than twice as "good" ratio wise.

Yes, at more than twice the price for me.

> for the average person's protein intake, yes.

The average person doesn't need that ratio, reaching 60-90g of protein is trivial. That ratio is good for bodybuilding purposes. Now, eating that much tofu, that sucks. Generally, getting 200g of protein sucks, even when you eat protein powder.

> The average person doesn't need that ratio

That's fine for the average person.

> Generally, getting 200g of protein sucks, even when you eat protein powder.

I have a some days where I hit 120g and it's not a recovery or workout day and I just give up lol.

I've been cooking more with lentils as well, so many cheap tasty recipes. I've been following this chickpea hack (cooking in microwave for like 5ish) to great success. Microwaving the chickpeas splits them into a crispy texture, then after that it's very flexible to create all kinds of dishes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EU76q3Vf3Q

My favorite is pan frying them in a hot sauce + aromatics for a quick chickpea rice bowl, I even gotten into the habit of using chickpeas as a chicken replacement for many of my Mexican dishes.

If you're use to the typical American diet, please try cooking more lentils! Very tasty, filling dishes, low on costs and high on nutrients.

chicken 100g/27g of protein

chickpeas 100g/19g of protein

That's a good ratio for something that costs less than a dollar a can compared to chicken.

fwiw at the level of protein i need to eat to build muscle mass (im weight training 3x a week), even that 27 vs 19 difference starts to become a problem.

people don't realize how challenging it is to eat 200g of protein a day, every day, for months, without eating like 3000cal lol

that said, i do eat a lot of plant based protein. i love chickpeas and i also fuck w tofu a lot.

There’s a pretty versatile and tasty milk product called tvoroh in eastern/Central Europe. It has about 18g of protein, and 0-10% fat depending on what you’re buying. So for low fat options it can be as low as 70-90kkal/100g with 18g of protein.

What is the problem of consuming say 80-100% of whey protein? Not all of it has sweeteners.

(I am from Eastern Europe). "Tvorog" / "Творог" is almost identical to commonly available cottage cheese. I buy the latter in big tubs from Costco and eat it almost every day for breakfast.

Yeah, I actually learned how to make it myself, although it requires access to kefir/piimä, or making it yourself first. Once you have it, it’s very easy to make it, although often unnecessary when local eastern shops have it quite cheap.

Not sure about availability in the US, in EU cottage cheese often is sold as much more creamy spread, like Philadelphia cheese.

You may be calling it "quark" then? From a quick search:

"The two most common translations of tvorog are cottage cheese (common in the US) and quark (common in Germany). The process of making these different cheeses is quite similar: you take fermented, acidized or sour milk, and separate the curds from the whey. For cottage cheese, cream is added to the curds before they’re packaged, and for quark, the curds are not overly dried so the curds come out quite soft and creamy. Tvorog, on the other hand, is most often packaged as dry grainy pieces of curd."

> What is the problem of consuming say 80-100% of whey protein?

Well, for starters, that'd be completely fucking joyless. And on top of that, meat contains other nutrients that I'd have to account for (which is not hard tbh, but requires a little bit of studying and planning).

> tasty milk product called tvoroh

My gallbladder has never been at 100% and as a result, I have to eat a relatively low fat diet. This is not something a normal person faces. I eat a fair amount of low fat greek yogurt, though. Similar concept.

Lentils are about 9% protein by weight; that's only 18g of protein.

(Beef is about 25-30% protein by weight. Whey protein isolates are about 80% protein by weight.)

> mammal products

Makes me think of the song:

https://youtu.be/14jjo7MtSzE

I like that term. I assume that means you cut out beef, pork, mutton, goat, cheese, and milk but eat seafood and birds/eggs.

I may start that diet!

I think this is person dependant. A Kale salad makes almost no impact on my hunger, but a piece of bread makes me feel pretty full.

Just as an example of an opposite experience.

(american, vegetarian for 13 years, athletic, former meat eater, long carb centric diet that i'm trying to change)

This is very true, and something that people pushing keto (myself included) had to learn the hard way.

There are satiety indexes for different foods but they are not universal. I can eat almost unlimited carbs and never feel full. I'll eat multiple plates full of bread or a thousand calories in french fries and then move on to the main course.

6oz of lean meat and some salad and I'm good with 500 or so calories on my plate.

I honestly don't get how potatoes supposedly fill people up. I have made twice baked potatoes before and eaten an easy 2000 calories of them along side thanksgiving dinner.

In contrast right now I'm eating clean and doing a body recomp. Eating clean is super satiating, for me at least!

Right. My wife doesn't feel full unless she has protein. I don't feel full unless I have a bunch of carbs. It makes life interesting.

> I have made twice baked potatoes before and eaten an easy 2000 calories of them along side thanksgiving dinner.

Try plain boiled potatoes. I bet you feel like stopping long before 2000 Calories. Tasty things are tasty and often easy to eat an unhealthy amount of.

This is the thing that makes any conversation about broad categories of food difficult—there’s just a huge range of ways to package those carbs, and people eat a ton of “hyper palatable” foods. A few hundred calories of Smartfood popcorn with a day’s worth of sodium and addicting flavors is quite different in my experience than, say, a few slices of chewy, crusty sourdough bread.

Well, if you've ever cooked down a cabbage or spinach or whatever, you'll see it basically takes up no space whatsoever... so yeah, kale on its own will take a while to fill you up.

Maybe true! I eat a bunch (like the formal term of 1 unit) of kale in my daily salad. That seems to be enough, alongside some Greek yogurt and blueberries to maintain me for a few hours.

Can’t help eating junk carbs when I see them, though.

I'm cursed with having a good wide palate - your salad sounds delightful - but nothing ever seems to make me feel full until it makes me feel Too Full and then I wish I hadn't overeaten. Normal plain satiation, where are you?

200g a day? Are you a big guy? I did an experiment in my 20s on building muscle on a plant based diet, and managed to gain 10kg in one year (muscle mass, confirmed by a DEXA scan). Total weight gain was about 16kg. Most of the surplus was water.

I started at 70kg (181cm), so pretty skinny, and without prior resistance training. I ate between 120and 140g of protein per day, without any shakes.

I am aware that these gains would not have continued, but my body obviously had more than enough with 130g to build muscle. I did eat a calorie surplus, but

200g seems like A LOT.

The latest in body building science recommends 1g of protein per day per 1lb of body mass (or 2.2g per 1kg for metric folks).

    > I ate between 120and 140g of protein per day, without any shakes.

How did you do that in a plant based diet? What were your largest sources of protein? (To be clear: I'm doubting that you did it. I am genuinely curious.)

Definitely possible - I used to get 100g easily. Simple example would be some granola (with lots of nuts/seeds) with soya milk for breakfast, big tofu scramble for lunch, poki bowl with lots of veg, edamame and tempeh for dinner. You could probably just do this with big portions to get to 130 tbh.

> The latest in body building science recommends 1g of protein per day per 1lb of body mass (or 2.2g per 1kg for metric folks).

I wasn't that serious about the whole thing, but I read somewhere that the benefits decline rapidly after 1.6g/kg bodyweight. That was the reason I didn't do any shakes.

> How did you do that in a plant based diet

Beans and whole grains. I realized that fat intake was limiting my protein access so I cut fat down do between 10 and 20% of energy intake. That means you have to chew down a whole lot of bulgur and beans. I ate about 3000 calories (I do a lot of swimming) and then you only need about 18% of energy from protein to reach 140g. Easy peasy.

I also made my own firm tofu (i was cheap). I could easily eat 200g of tofu a day.

> And to find out that's average???

I think you’re conflating 200g of protein with 200g of meat that has protein.

They said “I eat pretty close to about a pound of meat a day during bulk, usually about 12-14oz”

A pound of meat is 450g of beef, which has about 110-140g of protein in it.

Depending on the type of training you're doing, you're likely eating lean meat too, like chicken breasts and fish. Most people are much less picky about the kind of meat they eat, opting for fatty cuts or meat products high in salt and saturated fats.

yes that's true

im probably more conscious about what i eat than the average person, just on virtue of watching macros lol

I guess it's a matter of perspective and what you're used to. Some indigenous North American peoples used to subsist largely on bison for at least part of the year and often consumed 5 pounds or more of meat and other animal products per day. Was that too much?

They also had an average lifespan of 40 years. Now obviously, high meat consumption isn't the cause of that, but we now know that eating large amounts of red meat leads to an overall reduced lifespan in societies where people make it to 70 on a regular basis.

> Was that too much

I challenge you to eat 5 pounds of animal products in a day, for three days.

I am not a weightlifter, I am an amateur powerlifter, and I do pretty intense resistance training for my age (54yo) and my weight (112kg) and I eat about 800g to 1kg a day of meat - duck, pork or beef. Even if I eat 1kg Wagyu beef, it would give me about 3000 calories, slightly less than 3500 calories I need to keep my muscle mass. I would happily eat even more meat but circumstances prevents me to do so.

I used to drink protein shakes, but now I am actively against these. Artificial sweeteners provoke insulin release [1] [2] that leads to type-II diabetes.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887503/

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10568...

you can get protein powder that doesn't contain artificial sweeteners. You can get protein powder that doesn't contain any sweetener. You can even buy pure protein powder without any additives at all.

Humans are top predators. We eat more meat of various kind than any other predators, including other predators like bears.

Lions can't eat ducks or chickens. We can and do.

Why should I, as a top predator, drink a protein powder instead eating a meat of a big mammal?

I, okay? Next time don't make it sound like the reason you dislike protein shakes is sweeteners!

Why did you drink them before, if you appear to fundamentally object to the idea?

I did not know better that's why I drink them.

Now I know better and I don't.

"know better" in what way, that applies to sweetener-free protein?

You must have always known humans were apex predators, and that was the only non-sweetener reason you listed.

I learned that humans are apex predators a couple of years ago.

Meat contains essential fats to various degrees while protein powder does not at all. Usually, protein powder ([1] as an example) is not exactly matched to the human profile of amino acids [2], that means extraneous amino acids will be converted to glucose and stored as fat.

[1] https://explosivewhey.com/blogs/fitness-nutrition/what-is-wh...

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11291443/

Notice that ratio between leucine and methionine is 3/1 in consumption profile and is much higher in the whey protein profile. This leucine most probably will be wasted.

You need to burn thousands of calories every day. Most of the protein you eat should get burned.

By storing 10g of fat (90 calories, 3.5%-5% of daily calories) per day you accumulate 3.5 kg of fat after an year. By eating protein that cannot be utilized by your body fully (wrong amino acid profile) you are storing extra fat and build less muscle.

Whey protein most probably would bound muscle protein synthesis by methionine available, and make substantial (I think 40%) amount of calories from leucine in it to be converted to glucose. Two 33g servings of whey protein can be converted to 1g of fat, just from leucine alone.

Whether you store fat is based on whether you eat an excess of calories. Some protein being only usable as fuel is fine, because you need fuel. If that fat isn't being immediately burned, then eat slightly less.

> I learned that humans are apex predators a couple of years ago.

I'm afraid you're going to unlearn it, as humans are below big felines in the food chain.

If humans are considered apex(-ish) predators, it's because there's mostly nothing "above" us in the food chain. We aren't typical prey for any other animal, so we are at the top-ish.

It doesn't mean the diets of humans are biologically supposed to consist of huge amounts of meat.

Most apex predators are of course obligate carnivores. But humans are probably near the top because the use of weapons and tools makes us highly dangerous, so most land animals are wary of humans. Even many predators don't prey on humans for food.

(Although some large land predators do, mostly when they're desperate for food.)

Humans aren't even, in fact, apex predators. We are the preys of big felines (tigers in Asia, Jaguar in South America, Lions in Africa and Asia) which are the true apex predators in their respective ecosystems.

> Why should I, as a top predator, ...

I can't imagine anyone actually saying this with a straight face (also I am totally using this line for everything now). What a way to view oneself!

agree with the people that say you are moving the goal posts, but to answer this question anyway...

As someone who lifted for a good handful of years, there are a few reasons i used protein powder, it was a very affordable way to add 25-50g of protein and some random fruits or peanut butter or whatever(i'd usually blend up a shake).

It was also a good way as someone who struggles to eat a surplus, to hit my goals as it just went down way easier than an additional full meal.

It is ALSO easier to cut weight and maintain protein goals by utilizing simply water and protein powder.

when it came time for me to cut, im simply swapping milk for water, and removing the peanut butter, and suddenly that "meal" is ~400 calories less.

So the very simple answer? convenience/affordability.

I use intermittent fasting, 18+ hours fasting between meals. It is convenient, it is affordable, it gives me ketones to squat 140kg for twenty (20) reps being 54 years old without, literally, breaking a sweat, and, before all, raises blood concentration of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

Fat's thermal food effect is 3% of fat's energy, while sugar and amino acids have 8 to 10 times more of their energy converted to heat (25% and 30%). That thermal effect raises the body temperature and makes body to sweat.

Ketogenic diet also allow for fat burn through the year, not at the cut stage only. I once managed to burn fat and bulk at the same time, burning 2 kg of fat and adding 4.5 kg of lean mass in three months, just by switching to intermittent fasting and hypertrophy-specific training. Without PEDs - they interfere with thinking.

Hello, very similar story here. Been weight training for 30 years and focusing on natural body building for the past 5 years.

I struggled a lot with my nutrition and eating "regular food" always mad me fat. I tried various keto and low carb variants but never made it work and always hit a wall after 2-3 weeks. UNTIL I discovered intermittent fasting. After having done the intermittent fasting for about 5 years I started another low carb/keto journey but this time I went all in on fat and protein. No holding back. And I also cut excessive vegetables (especially the raw stuff). So now I'm eating all the eggs, meat, butter, bacon as much as I want. About a year in. The results so far.. dropped 4kg body fat and put on 2kg of muscle.

>It was also a good way as someone who struggles to eat a surplus, to hit my goals as it just went down way easier than an additional full meal.

Which is hilarious since current bro-science is that protein is the most filling macronutrient.

You should acknowledge when you shift the goal posts.

No, I don't. I should not and don't shift them.

OK. Well, the way you wrote this sentence :

> I used to drink protein shakes, but now I am actively against these. Artificial sweeteners provoke insulin release [1] [2] that leads to type-II diabetes.

makes it read , structurally, like the artificial sweetener is the reasoning behind why you're against protein shakes.

Call it what you want , but to an outsider reading in it looks like you're later moving the goal posts from 'artificial sweetener is bad' to 'unnatural diets are bad' later in the dialogue.

What most people would have done , if their opinion was that unnatural diets were bad, would be to say that rather than a specific subset of that unnatural diet (artificial sweetener).

With that explained as such can you see why some might think of it as goal-post moving ? If not, why?

  > If not, why?

Because it was only one of points ("goal posts") that had to be addressed during the conversation on diets.

I addressed the point of artificial sweeteners, I then had to address other points.

You see it as "moving goal posts," I see it as a continuation of conversation.

Dawg, you buy meat at the grocery store. you aren't an apex predator out here running down water buffaloes and dik-diks on the savannas of Africa with spear in-hand.

our genetics haven't had the time to figure that out, yet.

that's parents' point ( I think ? )

> Lions can't eat ducks or chickens. We can and do.

As in they can't catch them? Or they can't survive on a diet of them? I'd be surprised if it was the latter.

The cannot catch them so they are not adapted to them.

Our cat does not eat lamb as he is not adapted to lamb, but he does eat a lot of duck purring to the skies.

Do you have a source for lions not being able to subsist on a diet of poultry?

Seems like it would take a lot of chickens to maintain a lion, and that would possibly require a large amount of effort for little gain compared to larger game. Lions can definitely catch chickens if there are some around and they care to.

I meant in a zoo. Of course it's not realistic for a lion in the wild to live exclusively off poultry.

The person I responded to seemed to seems to believe lions eating only poultry would develop nutritional deficiencies of some kind. Maybe that's true but I'm interested to learn if there are sources. Not just gut feel "they don't eat them in the wild so they can't do it".

Lions can subsist on a diet of poultry, but suboptimally.

If we assume that lions' best diet is beef [1], then chicken [2] would be less optimal for them.

[1] https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/171797/100g/...

[2] https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/171140/wt9/1

Look at the amino acid ratios. Leucine to valine ratio is about 0.66 for chicken and 0.8 for beef. This means that protein synthesis will be bound by valine in case of chicken and what is not used in the protein synthesis will be converted to glucose and then stored as fat. Chicken will be about 80% (0.66/0.8) as nutritious as beef, judging just by two essential amino acids ratio.

What is not used in protein synthesis will be converted to glucose and then used to power their cells.

You're badly misusing that amino acid data.

> If we assume that lions' best diet is beef

I was asking for a source for this assumption. Lions in the wild eat gazelles, giraffes, zebras, and buffalo, not cattle. I guess there isn't a great source so I'll leave it.

When was the last time you caught a duck?

My dad told me of one Christmas he spent in Sheffield in the early 60s. He'd been ill or something and missed his train back home so he was moping about miserably. Then his Polish flatmate came home, took him to a park and taught him how to catch a duck (he mimed the actions used, with some string as a snare) which they roasted for Christmas dinner. There's something grim, damp, probably illegal, but also convivial and ingenious about the story that makes me think of Withnail and Marwood in Regent's Park.

> including other predators like bears

Bears are a terrible example to pick, as they aren't real “predators” in the first place. They are omnivorous, eating more fruits, roots and insects than meat, by far. Depending on their species and where they live they may eat fishes as well, but not that much meat at all.

And of course as omnivorous ourselves, we eat far less meat than actual predators like wolves and felines.

Actually humans are most similar to chimpanzees and bonobos, which eat meat but very little and mostly eat fruits, nuts and seeds.

Chimpanzees have greater gut to support their longer intestines, which they need to digest fibrous food.

One has to be very careful when drawing parallelisms from the animal kingdom.

Lions challenge the dominant male, and if they win, they kill all of their offspring and take all of their females.

Hopefully you are not doing that with every male you encounter that happens to be physically weaker than you.

thanks for the dietary advice, b00ty4breakfast

You can get protein powder without flavoring. I drink that either pure or with a little bit of flavored protein mixed in (something like 3:1) because the flavored stuff is so sweet I can't drink it. Some brands I could literally do 3 parts flavorless, 1 part flavored and it would still taste too sweet.

Why you get protein powder of unknown origin instead of the meat?

The origin is not unknown.

Whey has the same origin as beef meat you know?

Yeah, they both come from Costco.

And from cow, ultimately.

It's convenient. I have no idea where the meat came from either.

Your best evidence is a rat study and a narrative review?

Kinda makes zero cal sweeteners look good.

It is hard to experiment on humans. Here is an experiment on monkeys: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39978336/

At least aspartame increases insulin secretion in them.

TIL the amount of animal suffering that goes into each person trying to be swole.

Would be important to see how that number is being computed? If it is the amount of meat sold divided by number of people it may be misleading since there is a fair amount of wastage particularly in places like schools etc with kids filling plates that are never consumed.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. There is even more trimming that goes on as well. Chefs trim what's ordered, tallow may be rendered for non-consumptive reasons, and so on. Like a poster above, as an athlete I eat more meat than most people, and I don't seem to eat those numbers... I feel like we are missing some data points.

The thing is though you’ll be eating (I presume) mostly lean meat. Chicken breast, white fish etc.

When you compare the macros of that to sausages or ribs or even steak it’s quite drastically different.

Also I’d guess you aren’t covering your meat in thick sugary sauce every time…

A 16oz ribeye can easily be eaten in a single meal by most people who are large enough (90kg) to need 200g of protein per day.

I'm not a weightlifter, and 1lb steak (pre-cook weight) is a normal amd very reasonable sized dinner for me. Weird to hear that called "challenging".

Cheese is probably there due to lobbying. I don’t understand why it would be that high.

Cheese _is_ delicious.

(But I doubt the cheese I find so delicious is that same as the cheese that's so prevalent in American diets...)

I'm not a weightlifter but I'm a carpenter. Meat is like a healing potion on my body. Makes the pain go away. And without meat, it doesn't.

Eggs work too.

That's an immense amount of cholesterol. You might consider replacing some or all of it with plant-based sources. (Many protein shakes are made with whey powder, which also contains cholesterol.)

Heart disease is a real risk. Don't ignore it. It's not something that only happens to other people.

David Bars, while not even close to anything resembling a whole food, have made hitting macros so much easier. End up being cheaper than chicken, per gram of protein per calorie, sometimes too!