Towards A Protein Routine

I am back from the ISENC—International Sports, Exercise and Nutrition conference held in UK, where the very latest in the field of nutrition, sport and exercise is discussed and you get a sneak peak into what top athletes are adopting into their regimen as they prepare for Olympics 2016, and what worked for them in London 2012.

So here’s some food for thought for all you protein mongers—the US Olympic Association has adopted an initiative called ‘Meatless Monday’. It means that the athletes will not eat meat on a Monday, so they make a healthy start to the entire week. (Even Swiss Olympians will not be served meat for dinner). The findings now seem to prove the undervalued traditional food wisdom that ancient cultures like ours have always had. Which is, to meet your protein requirement you don’t have to mindlessly consume protein; you simply have to create an environment in the gastro-intestinal tract to absorb and assimilate the amino acids.

In our food culture, even when meat is consumed, it’s consumed as a part of the meal along with rice/ chapatti and vegetables and never as a meal by itself. This method of eating meat allows for optimum absorption and assimilation of amino acids and minimises the load on the intestines. Most communities already have the practice of ‘meatless day or days’ of the week or month.

Other than the right inner environment for absorption, nutrition bodies world over are now talking about the wrongs we create in the outer environment (pollution) because of CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, Google it). Most processed meats and fast food chains source meat from cafos, as it’s cheap and keeps the bottomline healthy. But know that healthy bottomline for a food giant always spells a bursting belly for its consumers.