One gram of protein or of carbohydrate
yields 4 calories. One gram of fat gives 9 calories—more than twice as much.
Since proteins and carbohydrates in equal amounts yield equal calories, you
might think them interchangeable in the diet.
Far from it!
Temperament counts! The new knowledge of
nutrition gives proteins an increasingly important role, especially in reducing
diets.
It is well worth your while, if you yearn
to become a high-stepping, high-protein girl or a gentleman of vigor, to see
what the scientists have to say about the role of these energetic food elements
in giving you a slim figure.
During the World War, thousands of
Europeans became overweight from under-nourishment.
They weren't really fat. They were waterlogged.
Their tissues held fluids in such abnormal amounts that when a fingertip was
pressed into the flesh, a pit-like depression remained for some time. They also
suffered an emotional depression. No steam, no zest for life, no
come-hitherness or even any interest in it.
Later, when well-balanced diets became
available, this torpidity vanished. The fat, puffy bodies became normally
slender and once again the Europeans whistled while they worked. No doubt they
also whistled once more at the pretty girl passing by across the street. The
water retention from which they had suffered is called
edema, and their particular brand of it,
caused by inadequate diet, is called "hunger edema."
What element was it in the new and better
diets that drove out this surplus water? To a large extent, protein! Experiment
has repeatedly proved that adequate protein helps to keep the liquid balance of
your body at normal levels. Since 70% of your weight is represented by water in
one form or another, you can see what a difference protein can make on your
bathroom scales.
A protein calorie is a busy, energetic
little fellow running a high temperature. It is unequalled in what
nutritionists call specific dynamic action. All you have to remember of this
technical term is the exciting word "dynamic". It is an apt
description of proteins.
Suppose that every bite of food you ate
contained within itself some property that stimulated your body to dispose of
every single calorie in the food.
After using what you needed for heat and
energy, the surplus calories would be disposed of by your body's chemical
activities and none would remain to be stored as fat. Happy days!
Food does have this property of stimulating
the body to increased output of energy. That is one reason why you can eat a
little bit more than your theoretical needs and not gain an ounce of weight.
Eat 100 calories of fat and the food itself stimulates you to burn up an
additional 4.1 calories of energy, or a total of 104.1. A like quantity of pure
carbohydrate causes an increased energy consumption of about 6 calories.
But suppose you eat 100 calories of
protein. Miracle of miracles, it causes an energy output of 130 to 140 calories
under ideal conditions!
The beauty of it is that you don't have to
exercise or do any voluntary work whatever to dispose of this 30 to 40 calorie
bonus—it's all done for you by the action of protein in whipping up your
metabolism. In a way, it makes your body exercise internally while you loaf.
Calories flutter away from you in the form of body heat.
These 30-odd calories could just as well be stored
in your body as fat if proteins didn't make them go to work. As slave-driver
calories, proteins are six to eight times as efficient as fats and
carbohydrates.
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