*Fuck the USDA- Introducing the ChAoS and PAIN Nutritional Pyramid- Part 1

I realize that I've addressed this issue before, but given the absolute spate of questions regarding my supplementation and diet (and concurrent dearth of training methodology questions), I shall address this issue once more. Furthermore, I'll cover a few popular supplements and my opinion thereof.

The Base:
Meat. Meat is good. Vegetarians might disagree, but this is because they're scared, weak people who are afraid that if the world runs short of cattle, they'll be eaten first. They're right.

I'm hoping you people aren't actually retarded, and that you realize that meat is highly anabolic. I'm not just talking about chicken, either, since chicken breast contains very little fat, is bland, dry, and generally boring. But, fat is bad, right? Wrong, fuckface. Dietary fat in the form of saturated or monounsaturated fat positively correlates with high testosterone levels, because cholesterol is the precursor to testosterone.

Nearly every different kind of meat on the planet is useful, in some form. The only type of meat I'd recommend you to avoid is bear meat, which is renown for containing trichinellosis. Unless you like your meat VERY well done, which is how you apparently need to cook that shit to avoid dropping dead of a parasite infestation, avoid bear meat. I'm personally not a fan of sea food, but fatty fish is incredibly healthy due to the fact that it contains large amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids, and it's a nice change of pace from wings and ground beef, if you can stomach it. Ray Audette recommends eating game meat like buffalo, longhorn (where the fuck would you get longhorn outside of Texas?), and emu as alternatives to traditional beef due to its high Omega 3 content, if you're like me and loathe fish.(1)

The meat section in the CnP food pyramid also is the repository for nuts and seeds, since those are also chock full of protein and healthy fats, and are fucking manly to eat. The paleo guy in me says to avoid cashews, as they're a member of the poison ivy family and are thus highly allergenic if eaten raw, and may cause an allergic reaction even if cooked. Plus, they're cheap bullshit that gets in the way of good nuts like almonds and walnuts, which are two of the healthiest nuts. Seeds are also a good bet for healthy foods, but sunflower seeds are estrogenic and should thus be avoided, as estrogen is the root of all evil.(2) I don't include beans in this section because they're shitty sources of protein and generally difficult to digest. They're fine to eat, by and large (and who doesn't love peanuts?), but I'd avoid lima beans (they contain cyanide) and soy beans (they contain soy).
Protein Supplements:
Though meat should be the base of your pyramid, I'm sure few of us have the time to prepare pounds and pounds of meat every day (though I intend to one day be wealthy enough to have a Korean man follow me around with a hibachi all day cooking bulgogi). As such, protein supplements are immensely important in the pursuit of athletic excellence, and I suggest you use a blended protein to make up the difference between your meat intake and your daily goal. Blended proteins are nice because they come from a wide variety of sources, so they're a more complete source of aminos, and they give you a steady release of protein over time, reducing the chance that you'll become catabolic, and ensuring that you'll be more satiated for a longer period of time.

For those whey-during-the-day advocates, whey does have the benefit of being a very fast-acting protein, in addition to the fact that it's high in L-Glutathione, which plays an important role in neutralizing free radicals and serves as a potent detoxifier in the body. (3) Whey is a good daytime protein, but I find that it's in and out of my system too quickly, and leaves me hungry almost immediately after I drink it. For this reason, I'm not a huge fan.

As for whey as a totally necessary component of post workout nutrition, I believe the strength training community has been snowed by the supplement industry. Whey is a waste product of the dairy industry- it's thrown away as a byproduct of the cheese production process if it's not purchased by the supplement industry. They've found a way to make money off something the dairy industry is really only too happy to give away, and they're making a mint. Whey concentrate and whey isolate have equal absorption rates- the only difference between the two is that concentrate has a lower total amount of protein per serving, because it's not as pure as isolate. thus, unless you're lactose intolerant, concentrate is a far better value because it's much cheaper per serving, by and large. In terms of PWO, WHEN you take protein after a workout is far more important than WHAT you consume. In the 45 minutes after a workout, muscle is tremendously sensitive to insulin, which drives the rebuilding of muscle due to low insulin resistance. Thus, it's better to have an inferior protein within 45 minutes of your workout than to wait 2 hours to have whey isolate when you finally get your ass home. There could be up to an 85% difference in absorption rates between the time immediately after your lift and the time when you chug a shake after hollering at the slut on the treadmill in the short shorts and driving home.(4)

AVOID SOY PROTEIN. Soy contains isoflavones, which have been shown to have an estrogenic effect on the body (they mimic the actions of estrogen, which means they could potentially inhibit muscle hypertrophy). While there's no definitive evidence to show that soy protein is estrogenic, it is always recommended to menopausal women to alleviate the effects of menopause. This would tend to indicate, anecdotally, that soy is highly estrogenic, as it's recommended to women as an alternative to estrogen supplementation.(5)

Gynecomastia and micropenis. Was soy to blame? I, for one ,would rather not find out firsthand. Sweet baby jesus, hand that guy a loaded gun and let him call it a day. Estrogen is bad. Nuff said.

So, how much protein should you be eating?
I shoot for a bare minimum of 2g per lb of bodyweight. That sounds excessive? Well, nothing exceeds like excess, and I'm not in the business of coming up short on anything (other than my height, haha. Fuck you, I like being a midget). Frankly, I'd much rather err on the side of too much protein than too little, for a variety of reasons.

First, there might be a correlation between high protein consumption and high testosterone, as low protein diets show increased levels of sex-hormone-binding-globulin, a chemical that attaches to testosterone and keeps it from becoming bioavailable.(6) This idea is not a new one, either- early vegetarian diet advocates like Sylvester Graham and John Kellogg advocated their diets as a way to suppress sexual urges and masturbation.

Next, lean protein has twice the thermic effect of fats or carbs. Thus, the more you consume, the faster your metabolism, because you're burning twice the amount of calories you would with other foods simply digesting the protein.(7)

Finally, it's difficult to determine exactly what the precise necessary amount of protein one should consume, owing to factors ranging from biochemical individuality in amino absorption, muscle fiber building efficiency, rate and efficiency of protein digestion, etc. Your body's excretion processes will adjust to suit your intake of protein, so there's really no reason (outside of time/financial constraints) NOT to consume massive amounts of protein.(8)(9)

Part 2 will cover why it's important to eat veggies, but not so much the fruits, and stimulants and test boosters but not NO products. Part three will then cover the importance of multivitamins, and anything I haven't covered by then, including random carbs.

I don't mince words... I just mince people. I like my women like I like my coffee- ground up and in the freezer.

1. Audette, Ray. Neanderthin. Pp. 79-80.
   
2. "Phytoestrogens, some good and some bad". http://www.cyst101.com/phyto.htm Coumestrol found in sunflower seeds when fed to the mother rat caused permanent reproductive problems in the rat pups: female pups when grown did not ovulate, and the male pups had altered mounting behavior and fewer ejaculations. Neonatal rats and immature rats exposed to coumestrol had premature estrous cycles.
3. Ivey, John and Robert Portman. Nutrient Timing. Pp. 126.
4. Nutrient Timing. Pp. 10.
   
5. Nutrient Timing. Pp 128.
6. Schuler, Lou, and Jeff Volek. The Testosterone Advantage Plan. Pp. 70-71.
7. Cordain, Loren. The Paleo Diet. Pp. 17.
8. Paleo Diet. Pp. 18. Scientists at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen put 65 people on a high protein diet for 6 months and found that their kidneys easily adapted to increased protein levels, and that their kidney function was perfect at the end of the experiment.
   
9. Eades, Michael and Mary Eades. Protein Power. Pp. 138. A study from Germany showed that kidney function actually improved with increased protein consumption.