Transcript Of Today's Episode
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor is In Podcast, brought to you by martinclinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Well, welcome to another podcast. I'm Dr. Martin, Sr., and today I want to talk to you more specifically about protein and the importance [00:00:30] of it. We don't get enough protein. I used to have a chart in my office that was called, "Protein is the king." So today I really want to talk to you about protein, why it's important for your body. You can't live without it. It's the building block of your body.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Just to start, I want to mention that if you go on Netflix, there's several food documentaries. One [00:01:00] is called the Game Changers. The other one is Fork Over Knives. In Defense of Food is a third one. All of these will try and convince the viewers that all proteins are pretty well the same. As a matter of fact, in The Game Changers, these are world-class athletes saying that their diet is strictly either vegetarian or vegan [00:01:30] and they compete at a very high level. Therefore, you certainly don't need to have proteins from any other source.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Now, I don't agree with that at all. I think that when you watch these documentaries, they are mostly half truths. In The Game Changers, one of the commenters said this - that there's as much protein [00:02:00] in a peanut butter sandwich as there is in a three ounce of beef. That's certainly not true. You need about a ... Who the heck puts a third of a cup of peanut butter to get the same amount of protein as you would in a three-ounce ... and, by the way, who eats only three ounces of steak or beef?
Dr. Martin, Sr.: So it's a half truth. I mean, I love peanut butter, by the way. [00:02:30] It's one of my go-tos in the morning. I like to take my supplements with peanut butter, so I'm not against peanut butter. It's a high-fat, some protein food, and I like it. But I'm not trying to tell anybody that it's the best food in the world, because, folks, the science just isn't there.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I was thinking about spinach, how much calcium is in spinach. Well, [00:03:00] if you had a few ounces of cream or cheese, the equivalent would be 33 cups of spinach for as much calcium that you would get in a few ounces of cream or cheese. So you know what? I mean, look, I think a lot of this ... and you're going to see a lot more of it. I'm just warning my listeners that coming to a theater near you is this whole idea of, [00:03:30] "Don't eat meat. Meat's not good for you. It's not good for the planet. It's not good for the climate." I don't buy it, folks. It's not science. It's not even a theory, in my opinion. A theory is usually based on some observation, and this is more of ... I believe it's an agenda-driven, and so you'll see a lot more of these documentaries coming out, and especially [00:04:00] aiming at young people.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I find that they get the young people believing these things, and, unfortunately, a lot of people believe the propaganda, and, really it's that. I've often said that when they, the so-called experts, tell you something, well, usually you should run away from it. They have been wrong on the sun causes cancer. They have been wrong on [00:04:30] cholesterol causing heart disease. They have been wrong on fat makes you fat, and they have been wrong on cholesterol-lowering medication. They have been wrong on ... Almost everything that you can think of, they've been wrong on. So when they tell you something, generally, the population starts to believe it, and it doesn't make a true.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: So let's talk about protein being the king, and there's two [00:05:00] types of protein, in a sense that you can get protein from both the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom. So that's very true. The key is that all protein is equal. Well, it's not, because there is a big difference between proteins, and I just want to express that today, because, when you think of it, protein is ... How bioavailable [00:05:30] is it? How nutrient-dense is it?
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Okay, so protein, you can get them from both the animal and plant kingdom, but the fact is that you need ... There's two things about animal protein, and when I say animal protein, I mean eggs, meat, and dairy - cheese, mostly. I'm not so big on milk. I think if you've listened to any of my podcasts in the past and any [00:06:00] of the videos that I do, I'm not big on milk, because milk is really not milk anymore. It's not really what comes out of a cow. What comes out of a cow is really cream.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I remember, as a kid, that we'd get a ... The milkman used to deliver milk to our house in the 1950s, back in my hometown, and you'd have to shake that bottle - the glass bottle, by the way - of [00:06:30] milk, because it was really ... Half of it was cream. Today, because one of the lies is that fat makes you fat and fat gives you cholesterol and fat is no good for you, that they took fat out of milk, and now you get skim milk and 1% and 2%.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: These are really not milk at all. I call them white Pepsi, because, to me, they're full of sugar, and they're full of carbohydrates. So you don't really get a good protein drink. [00:07:00] They put the commercials on TV, "Drink chocolate milk because it's like Gatorade. It's such a good thing for you." No it's not. It's full of sugar, and leave it alone.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Here's another false statement that's made: that all proteins come from plants. Well, really, that's not true, because all proteins come from bacteria. Isn't it amazing? Think about this for a minute. Isn't that amazing that animals [00:07:30] can eat grass? I always tell my patients, "Quit eating grass - salad, salad. What do you like, women?" Chicken and salad. Chicken and salad. Salad and chicken. That's women, generally, that come into my office, and I love teasing them, going, "Well, you know what?" I said. "You know what? Spinach or whatever, it's just glorified grass. Why do you want eat grass? Cows eat grass because [00:08:00] they've got four stomachs. You've only got one. So why are you eating so much grass?"
Dr. Martin, Sr.: But isn't it amazing that animals can eat grass? A cow has four stomachs and turns that grass into something that's very good for us as humans, like beta-carotene, and they convert that beta carotene to retinol a, which is Vitamin A. Now, if you eat salad, you can get ... [00:08:30] even carrots, and get some beta-carotene. There's nothing wrong with that. It's good for you. But the problem is it's not Vitamin A, because that beta-carotene has to be converted to retinol, and when you eat animal protein, you're already getting the retinol, because they convert that beta-carotene. Isn't that amazing, that they are the ones that convert the beta-carotene to retinol A, [00:09:00] which is Vitamin A, which is a big vitamin.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: There's a vitamin that gets very little ink, is vitamin A. I don't talk about it near enough, because I expect patients not necessarily to take Vitamin A as a supplement, even though, as kids, we often took Vitamin A in the form of cod liver oil, which is a high source of Vitamin A - and Vitamin D, by the way. But the problem was that we were taking it for our bones, because [00:09:30] in the 1950s, when I was a little boy, we would take cod liver oil. My grandma would give it to me. My mother would give it to me. I can still remember the taste, to this date, of taking it, because they were worried about rickets, which was softening of bones and bowing of the bones.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: But, reallym they didn't realize how important Vitamin A was, because Vitamin A wasn't only for your bones, but [00:10:00] it's a tremendous vitamin for your immune system. So if you want to help the immune system, you need Vitamin A, and Vitamin A, folks, is only found in the animal kingdom. The beta-carotene is found in plants, but it needs to be converted to Vitamin A, and animals do that. We don't. Humans don't convert beta-carotene to Vitamin A. We're not good at it, but animals [00:10:30] are. That's why you eat the animals. That's why steak is good for you.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: So it's really important to understand that there's the bioavailability of protein, and animal protein is much more bioavailable - much more bioavailable. Secondly, animal protein is nutrient-dense. [00:11:00] Now, there's protein like in veggies and soy and pea protein. But I'll tell you what these guys were doing. I mean, when I watched the video on The Game Changer, you know what? They have to live on protein powder. Yeah, they can. What are they going to do, eat spinach, 20 pounds of spinach in a day? You know what they were doing? Their diet consisted of protein powders, and so they would make themselves protein powders [00:11:30] all day. They have to. Four or five times a day, these athletes would be drinking protein powders, like a soy protein.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: By the way, I'm not big on soy. Soy elevates estrogen, and so, when you get a soy-based protein powder, yeah, it's got lots of protein, but it's never like a steak. It's never like an egg. It's never like a piece of cheese. No, it's not. But not only that, soy [00:12:00] elevates estrogen, and we live in an estrogen-dominant world today. Why do you think there's so much breast cancer and prostate cancer, which are both hormone-based cancers, primarily? Well, there's two hormones that will drive cancer. One of them is insulin, and the other one is estrogen. Estrogen is a growth hormone.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Women are not low in estrogen anymore. Doctors often, when they give them hormone replacement therapy, are giving them [00:12:30] estrogen. They give them estrogen in the birth control pill. We're surrounded by estrogen. Look at every chemical in every plastic and everything that you just can't escape from in our world today. It all looks like estrogen. They're called xenoestrogens, and they elevate estrogen.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: So when you're consuming soy, you're elevating your estrogen even more. This is why I never recommend soy, even [00:13:00] as a protein powder, and these pea proteins and vegetable proteins that you get in powder, they're highly processed. I never recommend people to live on that kind of stuff. Why would you eat that?
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Now, I want to talk about some of the consequences now of these plant-based diets. Okay? Plant-based and whether you're a vegetarian or vegan. Now, listen, I understand, [00:13:30] for especially ... I try and aim at the young people here, but look. I understand that this is what they're teaching, and this is propaganda. Unfortunately, the young generation has really, really gone for this. I had a patient in my office the other day and said, "You know, Dr. Martin? I won't eat anything that has eyeballs. So I won't eat fish. I won't eat anything that has eyeballs."
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I said, "Well, why don't you put eyeballs on plants? They're living organisms. [00:14:00] Why are you eating them?" Anyway, but just understand the consequences. I want to give you science on the consequences. I see this on a daily basis in the office, the consequences of a vegan or a vegetarian diet.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: So let me just go over several. One is blood. One is blood. [00:14:30] Look, the vast majority of people that are vegans or vegetarians will be anemic, and the reason is because they do not get enough B12. They don't get heme iron, H-E-M-E, heme or heme or heme. I don't know what you want to call it, but that iron is only found in meat, and that's what your body needs to build its [00:15:00] ferritin, to build its iron levels. You need that to make ... Look, iron makes red blood cells, and B12 fills them up.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: There are a lot of people that have what I call a folate anemia. They are low in B vitamins, and B vitamins, I know you can find some of them in plants. But you can't get B12 in plants. It's not there. It's not enough for most. [00:15:30] So they get fully anemia or they get low ferritin levels, so the consequences is in the blood. You're going to be tired. You're going to have a lack of energy. Anemia can be a very serious condition and can lead to some very serious consequences.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Number two, sarcopenia. What is sarcopenia? Sarcopenia is muscle [00:16:00] wasting because of the lack of quality of protein. Now I know, like I said, these Game Changers, the men and women that were eating strictly a vegetarian diet, were consuming enormous amounts of protein powders. But the general population will suffer from sarcopenia, low muscle quantity and quality [00:16:30] of muscle. Sarcopenia, which is a huge, huge, huge problem, because if your muscles are not strong ... and they've found this, a big connection to the brain is muscle strength.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: This is why I'm so big on weight-resistant exercises. These things are very, very important for you. You need weight-bearing exercises, and you need protein from the animal [00:17:00] kingdom - eggs, meat and cheese. I don't know how many times I have to say it. So sarcopenia, the muscles. If your muscles are not strong, you are going to die young. You will be frail. You will lose your balance. You will not be strong.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Here's another consequence: your brain. Your brain will suffer on a vegetarian or a vegan diet. [00:17:30] Your brain will suffer. Why? You will be much more susceptible ... If someone calls you fat head, take it as a compliment. You'll be much more susceptible to Alzheimer's and dementia, because your neurotransmitters, DHA, DHA and EPA, are neurotransmitters for your brain, and they are found in the animal proteins and the animal fats. [00:18:00] So when you eat a piece of steak, you're getting high levels of DHA. When you're eating hamburger, you're getting high levels of DHA and EPA.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: These are not found in plant foods. They're not found. The long chain fatty acids are found in the animal kingdom. So your brain, your brain, and DHA and EPA are essential for your brains.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: [00:18:30] Osteoporosis, we talked ... I should link that with sarcopenia, but osteoporosis. Again, it's the quality of protein. It's the quality of protein that your bones need that are essential. Your bones need B12, by the way. Did you know that? Your bones need the heme iron. Did you know that? Your bones need all of your minerals, and, look, [00:19:00] I'm not saying that plants are no good for you, but the idea is not only to live ... You get more calcium for your bones. You shouldn't take a calcium supplement. I'm against that, but you should be eating meat and eggs and cheese so that you will not suffer later in life with osteoporosis. Okay? Osteoporosis.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I want to come back to the brain just for a minute, [00:19:30] because, when you think of what animal protein does, animal protein has high levels of zinc. Never mind the DHA and EPA, but the high levels of zinc. We know what zinc does. It repairs your brain. You get Omega 3 and cholesterol. Your brain is made up of cholesterol. Cholesterol is not the boogeyman, guys. Cholesterol is not the boogeyman. Cholesterol doesn't give you heart disease. As a matter of fact, the higher [00:20:00] your good cholesterol is, your HDL, if you ...
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I've proven this to patients, by the way, that within four to five weeks, I can get their levels of good cholesterol, HDL ... HDL is good cholesterol. I can elevate your good cholesterol and lower your bad fats, which what are bad fats? Triglycerides, three sugars. Think about that. Triglycerides, they come out of your liver when your liver is full of carbs [00:20:30] and sugar. That's where your insulin stores. It's one of the primary places your liver will store, where your insulin will store fat in your liver, and that will become triglycerides when the liver is full.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: This is a big, big problem today, but literally by changing your diet, within four or five weeks, and lowering your carbohydrates and increasing your animal protein, [00:21:00] you will get better good cholesterol, HDL, and lower your bad fats, your triglycerides. That happens very, very quickly.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: So these are all reasons, okay? For your brain, for your muscles, for your bones, for your energy. I talked about blood, and let me just talk ... I'll finish with this, about pregnancy. So, ladies, listen. Listen, [00:21:30] pregnancy, you need animal protein. You need animal protein for mama and baby. Healthy babies need high levels of DHA. I even have my patients, when they're pregnant, taking high levels of DHA oil, just so that baby's brain develops, and they need [00:22:00] this. Pregnancy, you need B12. You need to have folate. You know you need folic acid. You need to have good levels of zinc and Vitamin D.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I never even talked about Vitamin D. it's found in the animal kingdom food. Now, much better source coming from the sun. I understand that. I talked about Vitamin A, and I didn't even talk today about Vitamin K2, which is only found in the animal [00:22:30] kingdom. K1 is found in the plants, but the bioavailable K2 is found in animal kingdoms.
Dr. Martin, Sr.: I could go on and on and on and on. I could talk to you today about choline and how important that is for your neurotransmitters in your brain, and choline is found primarily in eggs. That's why I tell people, "Why are you not eating eggs? They're so, so good for you."
Dr. Martin, Sr.: Okay, I'll [00:23:00] end it there. Now, if you want to sign up for these podcasts, it's a good idea to do it. You can do it through our website. You can do it on Google. You can do it on Apple, whatever you want to, whatever it is your your primary choice. So have a great day.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor is In Podcast, with your hosts, Dr. Martin, Jr. and Sr. [00:23:30] Be sure to catch our next episode, and thanks for listening.