Of all the asinine things that I read about diet—and let me tell you, I read a lot of them—this 1 has got to be the asininniest: Broccoli has more protein than steak.

I've seen this idiotic meme repeated many times, but the primary source of this stupid—run across also: delusional, ludicrous, and absurd—notion seems to be Dr. Joel Furhman. My mom—bless her little osteoporotic soul—keeps his books down at the embankment cottage. I don't think she does information technology to taunt me, but y'all never know. I was a bad kid, and payback may be in order. My family has forbidden me to read Dr. Furhman's books, to option them up, or to even glance at the covers because the resulting full-on diet-bluster kills everybody's beach buzz.

However, as of last week, I have officially maxed out my tolerance for merely ignoring this nonsense. So, note to my family: Read no further, it will kill your beach buzz.

Co-ordinate the Dr. Furhman's volume, Swallow to Live, a 100-calorie portion of sirloin steak has 5.4 grams of protein, and a 100-calorie portion of broccoli has 11.2 grams of poly peptide. This is rubbish. Co-ordinate to the USDA'south Agronomical Research Service's Nutrient Data Laboratory database, 100 calories of broiled beef, top sirloin steak has exactly 11.08 grams of poly peptide and 100 calories of chopped, raw broccoli has exactly 8.29. I'm not sure what universe Dr. Furhman lives in, but in my universe, 8.29 is less than 11.08.

I tin explicate the discrepancy in numbers past the simple fact that Dr. Furhman and I used different sources for our information. Dr. Furham wrote his book—the one that contains the piece of drivel under consideration—in 2005, but he chose to reference a nutrition book written in 1986 (Adams, C. 1986. Handbook of the Nutritional Value of Foods in Common Units, New York: Dover Publications). Just to put things in perspective, in 1986, the internet and DVDs had not yet been invented, no 1 knew who Bart Simpson was, and it would be another couple of years before Taylor Swift even draws her first ex-boyfriend-bashing breath.

Hither'due south what I can't explain: Why, oh why did he dig up a reference almost two decades old and not just use the USDA internet database, which is—and has been since the 1990s—available to anyone with a library carte du jour and a one-half a brain? While I do not wish to speculate on exactly which of these tools Dr. Furhman might be lacking, suffice it to say that it would take less than x minutes for whatsoever blogger interested in the truth of the matter to find a more recent source of data—assuming of course that bloggers who perpetuate this particular fiction are interested in the truth.

Only wait—earlier you foam at the oral cavity besides much, Adele—8.29 grams of protein is fair chip of protein.  There is only a difference of a couple of grams of protein between broccoli and steak.  Yes, I would agree, those numbers are a lot closer than you lot might expect, and this might actually be nutritionally of import, if—Big If—all protein were created equal. Which information technology isn't.

While I am a big fan of coming at diet from an individualized perspective, and I am aware that diet scientists don't take whatever monopoly on truth, we take managed to nail down a few essential things that human must acquire from the food that they eat. In terms of essentiality, after calories and fluid comes protein—or more specifically, essential amino acids (there are more essentials, merely they are non the topic of this particular bluster). Because these amino acid requirements are so of import (a detail form of starvation, kwashiorkor, involves not overall calorie deprivation, but protein deficit in the context of adequate or near-adequate calories), the World Health Organization has established specific daily requirements of the essential amino acids that are necessary for wellness.

Let's see how similar caloric intakes of steak and broccoli stack up when comparison how these two foods provide for essential amino acrid requirements. A 275-calorie portion of steak (4 ounces) has 30.5 grams of poly peptide and comes very close to meeting all the daily essential amino acid requirements for a lxx kg developed. A 277-calorie portion of broccoli is not merely way more food—yous'll exist chewing for a long time equally you lot attempt to go far through ix ¼ cups of broccoli—exactly NONE of the daily essential amino acid requirements for an adult are met:

EssentialAmino acids (one thousand) Daily requirement 70 kg developed (g) Essential amino acids (g) in 275 calories of steak (four oz or 113.33 thousand) Essential amino acids (g) in 277 calories of chopped, raw broccoli (9.25 cups)
histidine 0.70 0.975 ( +0.275) 0.48 (-0.22)
isoleucine 1.400 one.391 (-0.009) 0.643 (-0.757)
leucine 2.730 2.431 (-0.299) 1.05 (-1.68)
lysine ii.100 two.583 (+0.483) ane.099 (-ane.001)
methionine 0.70 0.796 (+0.096) 0.309 (-0.391)
cysteine 0.28 0.394 (+ 0.114) 0.228 (-0.052)
threonine 1.050 one.221 (+0.171) 0.716 (-0.334)
tryptophan 0.280 0.201 (-0.079) 0.269 (-0.011)
valine 1.82 one.516 (-0.304) 1.018 (-0.802)

In reality, it takes twice that much broccoli, or over xviii cups, containing well-nigh twice as many calories, in order to get anywhere about meeting all essential amino acid requirements.  While I'k willing to concede that private amino acrid requirements may vary considerably, I am not willing to concede that like caloric amounts of steak and broccoli provide a similar supply of those requirements.  I'm no broccoli basher (it'southward sooo yummy broiled with cheese & a piddling bacon on tiptop), only as a protein source, fifty-fiftya lot leaves a lot to exist desired.

Oh yeah? Well and so, "how on earth do animals like elephants, gorillas and oxen get so big and potent eating only plants? A diverse plant-based diet tin can obviously back up a big, powerful trunk." Sure it can. If y'all're an elephant or a gorilla or an ox.

In general, man bodies don't work very efficiently without a regular dietary supply of all essential amino acids: "It would be difficult to find a protein that did not have at least one residuum of each of the common 20 amino acids. Half of these amino acids are essential, and if the diet is lacking or depression in fifty-fifty ane of these essential amino acids, and then protein synthesis is non possible" [Emphasis mine; reference: Campbell & Farrell'south Biochemistry, sixth edition]. Protein synthesis allows the states to grow, heal, reproduce, and role in general. One of the specific outcomes of poly peptide deficiency in humans is stunting, i.e. where humans who would otherwise grow bigger, don't.

Dr. Furhman seems to recollect that those of us who "believe" that nutrient from animals provides a more biologically consummate source of protein than food from plants "never thought also much about how a rhinoceros, hippopotamus, gorilla, giraffe, or elephant became and then big eating only vegetables." Hmmm. I have to say, I'yard thinking the aforementioned affair virtually Dr. Furhman. Maybe he is unaware that humans aren't really all that much like rhinoceroses, hippos, gorillas, giraffes, or elephants. Only and then maybe he just hangs out with a different oversupply than I do.

Once over again, armed with a library card and half a brain, it is not as well hard to effigy out—assuming you did retrieve about how those animals got and so big eating only plants and didn't just mindlessly parrot Dr. Furham's poorly-researched blather—that, as Gomer Pyle would say, surprise! surprise! Humans and other big mammals ARE different.

While non-ruminants (similar humans) must go their essential amino acids from their diet, ruminants (like giraffes) "may also acquire substantial amounts of these amino acids through the digestion of microbial protein synthesized in the rumen" (see: Amino Acids in Beast Nutrition, edited by J.P. Felix D'Mello). This may come as a bit of a stupor to Dr. Furhman and his readership, but humans don't actually take rumens and utilizing this detail approach to the acquisition of essential amino acids from institute affair ain't gonna work for us.

You can become plenty of protein from a plants-just diet past eating like a hippo.

Other non-ruminant grazers—encounter elephants, rhinos, and hippos—take a different eating strategy. They "eat for book and depression extraction." In other words, the relatively low availability of protein in the nutrient is overcome by the loftier volume consumed. In that regard—assuming you aspire to an elephant-like, rhinoceros-like, or hippo-like bod—it may be possible to get sufficient protein from a strictly plant-based diet. If you don't heed eating all the fourth dimension. And pooping. Less than half of what is consumed past the high-volume grazers is utilized by the body; the balance—like a handsome stranger—is just passin' through (run into: Nutritional Environmental of the Ruminant, by Peter J. van Soest). If the thought of literally flushing over half of what you swallow down the toilet doesn't bother you lot, then this strategy actually might work.

ooooh! Can we? Please?

Then what well-nigh gorillas? This particular primate-to-primate comparison has been tossed all around the internet. Why tin't nosotros but eat plants like gorillas do? Gorillas, although not then proficient at Jeopardy, are large and stiff and they're vegans, so nosotros should all be vegans too, correct? Bated from the fact that nosotros don't really know exactly what gorillas are eating much of the time, information technology does seem that they eat a lot of bugs along with their plants. So unless you have a particularly captious gorilla, some dietary protein won't be vegan. Compared to humans, gorillas also have a much larger proportion of the gut devoted to fermentation—once again, another source for microbes to contribute to the nutritional abyss of a plants-just diet. And, once more, a high book of nutrient is consumed to compensate for the low nutritional value of it. You won't have to worry most half your food going down the toilet, though. Those who want to live similar gorillas can just eat that poop instead of flushing it. This provides the body with another opportunity to extract nutrition from the substance formerly known as food and may also assist explain the willingness of Dr. Furhman's readers to swallow what he'due south shoveling.

I have nothing against a plants-just diet—in whatever form it takes—if that'south what a person want to exercise and it makes him/her happy. I accept no more interest in converting a vegan to omnivory than I practise in having a vegan endeavour to convert me to swearing off bacon. I am as well aware that at that place is more than—much more—to nutrient choices than the nutritional content of the food chosen.

Merely I'1000 agape this is but one of those situations where credo has been sent to practise the work of science. Credo has its identify, and science has its flaws. Truth, facts, and behavior can exist difficult to define and harder all the same to separate. I go all that. But – to quote Neil deGrasse Tyson – "The good affair about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." Unfortunately, for all those gorilla-wannabees out there, the reverse also applies: Believing in something doesn't make it truthful. You can believe all yous desire that broccoli is a amend source of protein than steak, but your ribosomes don't have access to a keyboard and they might vote differently.

Now, dear readers, if you lot always run across some library-card-challenged blogger out there perpetuating Dr. Furhman's little myth, you have a link to help spill some sunshine on the matter.