meat without gelatin = bad? page

[reamz]

So a friend was telling me since i eat so much steak (ie muscle meat) i should eat plenty of bone broth (gelatin) since too much tryptophan is bad..she sent me this ray peat article : http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/gelatin.shtml

he says " When we eat animal proteins in the traditional ways (for example, eating fish head soup, as well as the muscles, or “head-cheese” as well as pork chops, and chicken-foot soup as well as drumsticks), we assimilate a large amount of glycine and gelatin. This whole-animal balance of amino acids supports all sorts of biological process, including a balanced growth of children's tissues and organs.

When only the muscle meats are eaten, the amino acid balance entering our blood stream is the same as that produced by extreme stress, when cortisol excess causes our muscles to be broken down to provide energy and material for repair. The formation of serotonin is increased by the excess tryptophan in muscle, and serotonin stimulates the formation of more cortisol, while the tryptophan itself, along with the excess muscle-derived cysteine, suppresses the thyroid function."


thoughts?

[blank_faceplate]

Considering the vast differences in cultures across the earth, I'm always suspicious when phrases like "the traditional ways" are thrown around. That said, I love low and slow - bbq and stew are some of my favorite foods - and I think there's something to be said for "nose to tail" eating, though I'd have to be starving to death before I'd ever consider eating organ meats. At the very least it's hard to find an argument against eating more gelatin containing meats, though I'm fairly sure that gelatin as a health promoting food source has been debunked over and over (that it does not build stronger bones, fingernails, hair, etc).

[mdlaw]

Tryptophan seems to be a favorite for completely bogus nutrition claims, like all the nonesense about turkey at Thanksgiving. I am a bit skeptical about the gelatin thing as well, although I am far from an expert. Gelatin's found in a lot of animal parts that Grok couldn't or wouldn't eat... even if he enjoyed marrow, I doubt he was chewing up and swallowing actual bone shards. Sure you can make broth easily, but I doubt that we evolved to be dependent nutritionally on it. Plus, I think it is found in some fatty cuts and so on as well.

EDIT: http://charm.cs.uiuc.edu/users/jyelo...ed/topic9.html certainly suggests there is not much in gelatin that is unique or special. In fact, it apparently sucks as a protein source.

However, broth is a delicious addition to many dishes, and is super easy to make. I recommend it!

[Daemonized]

They may have a point and think it's good throw some offal into your diet as well. I fix liver, heart and tongue once in a while myself. Oh and I love the marrow from bones too. I fixed ribs last weekend and I just destroyed the rib bones to get to the wonderful marrow inside. My guests didn't do that and I think they missed out on the best part (and I wanted their bones too)(the ones from their ribs that is not their actual bones).
The only time that most people in the US (an I realize that you're from London) eat offal is when they have a hot-dog.

[chronyx]

Based on this thread I started eating more offal/organ meat. Out of curiosity I looked up the tryptophan content of sweetmeats (I had some tonight!).

They are indeed far higher in other amino acids. Until recently I was eating mainly muscle meat (Not the lean/skinless stuff, but still muscle).

It will be interesting to see what differences this makes.

[Stabby]

I have read that article and mainly agree. Gelatin is a missing food group and we should include some. Perhaps replace a muscle meat/egg/fish meal with a gelatin meal every day. 2 of the former, 1 of the latter.

[IcarianVX]

Stabby, can you do me a favor and just tell me WTF to eat. Organ meats and make some bone broth? That good enough?

[Stabby]

I can't tell you what to eat but I think that including organs is good and that it is good to eat a lot of gelatin. In actual fact stuff like brains and liver don't have a whole lot less trpytophan than the muscle meat, Ray Peat just thinks that if someone is going to be eating meat it should preferably be the organs as much as possible for nutrition. I wouldn't eat liver more than once a week, though. It has a lot of some nutrients and they can become toxic if consumed too frequently.

Ray Peat's conclusions: limit tryptophan-rich proteins (from what I have seen of other advocates of less muscle protein it should be to 10-15% of calories) and include gelatin if you want more protein. That's all I can say.