Protein is one of the three macronutrients in our diet, along with carbohydrate and fat. Each is used to
build our bodies in different ways, and also can be "burned" to provide the energy to keep our muscles muscling
and our brain braining. An excess of carbohydrate or fat over current needs can be stored for later use (don't
we all know that!); but any protein not needed right away (in one of the thousands of ways that
it is used) will mostly find its way back out to the world.
There are quite a few different molecules that count as carbohydrates, and as fat, but the proteins number in
the tens of thousands, at least, and possibly in the many millions. A particular protein is built up in a
particular spatial configuration using any number of amino acids, of which about 700 have been catalogued. Our
bodies, under the direction of our DNA, use only twenty of them. Eight of these it cannot make, so those must be obtained from food.
"Everybody knows" that too much carbohydrate or too much fat is bad for us, but we seem to have been hypnotized
into thinking that we always need more protein; just can't get enough. Which is why half the foods in the grocery store
brag of being "high in protein" on the package. We always want more, yet few people know, or even think
about, how much they actually need. In nutrition, it is virtually never the case that "more is better". But a
protein overload can be dangerous, overworking the kidneys as they try to eliminate it.
The RDA has been argued about over the years, and yet most Americans not only get more than that, but much more
than they need.
295 words for Brevity Quest 2024