Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Post #7

Protein and Amino Acids have become buzz words to be bandied about by people who know just enough about nutrition to be dangerous yet not enough to really make choices for anyone other than themselves. Reading this weeks chapter took me a while because there is a lot of information that got me thinking, so I had to read it in sections. I have learned quite a bit about what proteins are and the different types of amino acids.

The two I found interesting are Methionine and Cysteine. I hadn't known that there are amino acids that contain sulfur. These help with the health of hair, nails, joints, skin, and connective tissue. I also didn't know that methionine was converted to SAMe (I thought someone had made up SAMe) which helps the body with the detoxification reactions. These two proteins are needed for all processes that require sulfur.

Knowing that these two proteins are mainly found in meat, fish, eggs and dairy products gives reason to my craving for meat on occasion. I had thought that the cravings were for protein and iron. That doesn't mean I will go over board on eating animal proteins, because we only really need a small amount of protein to stay healthy.

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