| Posted By |
Discussion Topic: Gracie Diet
|
|
LawDave |
04-29-2009 @ 1:12 PM
|
|
|
Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Apr 2009
|
The Gracie newsletter and several of their books all constantly tout the greatness of the "Gracie diet." Is it really that much better than maintaining a "regular" balanced meal system?
Anyone have any opinions or insight on this?
|
|
prodigalson |
|
04-29-2009 @ 3:35 PM
|
|
|
White Belt
Posts: 44
Joined: Apr 2009
|
How are you defining "regular" and "balanced"?
Gauntlet BJJ/Fight Forum MMA where BJJ Legends are made!
|
|
prodigalson |
|
04-30-2009 @ 11:58 PM
|
|
|
White Belt
Posts: 44
Joined: Apr 2009
|
I am still interested in a reply to the follow up question i previously posted, but I should like to begin answering this question in a basic way.
One important thing to think about when determining nutritional value of food is bioavailability. Bioavailability is defined very specifically in terms of nutrition, but that definition moves beyond the scope of this discussion, in this forum.
For purposes of this discussion you may think of bioavailability as how much of what is in the food item that the body actually utilizes.
In other words: if you eat 10 grams (g) of protein, how much of that protein does, or can, the body utilize?
Some food items are highly available, biologically. As a protein source, egg whites are measured to have 100% bioavailability.
If you eat 10g of egg white protein, all 10g will be available to the body to utilize.
Fish is less bioavailable than egg white (over 90%), chicken less than fish, and red meat the least (around 70%).
At a more granular level of analysis one would want to know what factors affect bioavailability of a particular nutrient. I have chosen protein as the nutrient to examine, but I could have just as easily chosen a vitamin (vitamin C), or a mineral (calcium)...you get the idea.
It turns out that in the case of proteins, the very building blocks of proteins, amino acids, can affect bioavailability of a particular protein. So one protein can become more, or less, bioavailable in the presence of other proteins because of the presence of (a) certain amino acid(s) in the other proteins.
One classic example of this is corn and beans. Eaten by themselves corn and beans have limited amounts of protein that the human body can make use of. Eaten in combination, however, more protein is made available to the human body.
That's right: if you eat 5g of beans a day, and 5g of corn a day, but do it seperately you will extract less protein than if you had eaten them mixed together!
This principal of nutritional cooperativity has benefits beyond bioavailability, however. Certain food combinations require less energy to process than others. The converse is also true.
'
If you are doing everything possible to maximize the efficiency of your system, these things matter. They also may have long term effects, beneficial, or otherwise; though I haven't seen, nor looked for, long term studies that address this. I have read of studies that suggest that those who are light eaters may live longer lives, but this has minimal overlap with our discussion here.
Gauntlet BJJ/Fight Forum MMA where BJJ Legends are made!
|
|
bragabjj |
|
05-03-2009 @ 10:46 PM
|
|
|
White Belt
Posts: 39
Joined: Feb 2009
|
Great answer my friend...........
|
|
prodigalson |
|
05-05-2009 @ 7:45 PM
|
|
|
White Belt
Posts: 44
Joined: Apr 2009
|
Thank you sir!
Gauntlet BJJ/Fight Forum MMA where BJJ Legends are made!
|
|
takedown |
|
05-21-2009 @ 8:29 PM
|
|
|
White Belt
Posts: 17
Joined: Apr 2009
|
It was good !
|
Reply to Discussion