Nutritional Advice: Says Who? And Why? And What Happens If You Don't?

Ever since I read Michael Pollan's "In Defense Of Food," I've been keeping an eye out for cases where nutritional science is just not measuring up.  I had a chance to trot one of these out last weekend, when a friend mentioned her guilt at not being able to consistently drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day.

I cheerfully informed her that it's no problem, since the 8/8 rule is completely bogus.  No one is completely sure where it came from, but most historians' best guess is that it was invented whole cloth by the author of a military survival manual.  Pressed with having to come up with a recommendation for water intake, he invented the 8/8 rule off the top of his head.  And it has persisted both in the American consciousness and in the field of nutrition science ever since.

I ran into this gray murk last week, when I went looking up information on protein requirements.  I gave up eating meat about three months ago, and I started wondering if I was getting enough protein.

The recommendation table I found was, to be blunt, utterly preposterous.  A woman my age should be eating 46 grams of protein per day.  46!  Do you know how much protein that is?  That's 7.6 eggs per day, or 6.5 ounces of chicken, or two pork chops.  Every day!  I wasn't eating that much protein back when I DID eat meat. 

I started wondering if maybe I've been protein deficient all these years.  I take a multivitamin which includes iron, so I'm not eligible for anemia.  So what other problems might I have?  This is where things get hazy. 

Clinical symptoms from lack of protein happen at the point where the sufferer is under truly dire circumstances.  Children in developing countries frequently develop a disease called kwashiorkor as part of a constellation of diseases arising from severe malnutrition.  I doubt that many Americans are likely to come down with kwashiorkor any time soon.  Considering the banquet of nuts, beans, meats, dairy products, and eggs which is laid out before us, you would have to really work at not getting at least a small amount of protein per day.

I should be clear that I'm not talking about protein requirements in top athletes, marathoners, or even people with jobs that require a lot of muscle.  I just mean regular old people like you and me.  What happens if we eat less than that magical 46 grams per day?  Well, as far as I can tell, nothing.  The most I found on the topic was, "You might feel sluggish." 

This magical number, 46 grams, comes from the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI), which was compiled by recommendations from the Institute of Medicine of the US Academy of Science.  I went looking around their website, and I can't find any information on how they came up with these numbers for protein. 

So to sum up: No one will say how they arrived at this magical "46 grams" number.  And as far as I can tell, nothing bad happens when you fall below that number.  Right, okay, I'm willing to go on record as saying that "46 grams" is nonsense.  Entrenched nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless.