Story-I am sitting in elementary school. The teacher has brought out a colored chart and is telling us kids how important it is to eat meat, drink our milk, and get lots of protein, I am listening to her and looking at the chart, which makes it all seem so simple. I believe my teacher, because I sense that she believes what she is saying. She is sincere. She is a grown-up. It must be true. Protein, I hear-thats whats important. And you can only get good quality protein from meats, eggs, and dairy products. That is why they make up two of the four basic food groups on the chart.II. How was she to know that the pretty little chart was the outcome of extensive political lobbying by the meat and dairy industries, that millions of dollars had been poured into the campaigns that produced those charts? My teacher believed what she taught us and never suspected that she was being used to relay a commercial message. Our innocent minds soaked it up like sponges. And most of us have been willing and unquestioning consumers of large amounts of meat and dairy products ever since.III. We have come to believe that we need lots of protein, but is the belief justified? According to The World Health Organization, the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Research Council we need at the very maximum only 8 percent of our total daily calories from protein, they arrive at this 8 percent figure and also add a safety factor of 30 percent---This extra 30 percent is explained by nutritional expert Dr. David Rueben, The people who sell meat, fish, cheese, eggs, chicken, and all the other high prestige and expensive sources of protein are able to increase their income by 30 percent if they increase the suggested daily amount by 30 percent. It also increases the amount of protein in the sewers and septic tanks of your neighborhood by 30 percent as you merrily urinate away everything that you cant use that very day. It al...
