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"  I&amp;#039;ll admit my journalistic bias right off the bat: I&amp;#039;ve been rooting against Atkins and the other high-protein, low-carb diets since they first got popular more than a decade ago. First of all, I&amp;#039;m not a big meat, fish, or dairy fan, so those programs don&amp;#039;t appeal to me. And second, my mom is a registered dietician who&amp;#039;s spent her career trying to persuade people to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Atkins et al., which limit even those healthy carbs, seem to be thumbing their noses at everything she stands for. Low-carb diets are literally against my mom and apple pie. So you can imagine my delight this past year when vegan and plant-based diet books began landing on my desk with astounding frequency. Kris Carr&amp;#039;s Crazy Sexy Diet and Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman, MD, made the New York Times best-seller list. There&amp;#039;s Alicia Silverstone&amp;#039;s The Kind Diet and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau&amp;#039;s The 30-Day Vegan Challenge. The president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Neal Barnard, MD, released 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart, based on his PBS show, and spiritual wellness guru Kathy Freston published Veganist. The China Study, a formerly obscure nutrition book by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, a Cornell University researcher, has, over the past six years, stealthily sold half a million copies, becoming one of the country&amp;#039;s best-selling nutrition books. Campbell, with his son Thomas as coauthor, advocates a plant-based diet, drawing on a giant epidemiological study in China that found that cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and many other modern ailments are linked to meat and dairy. Campbell got a shout-out from Bill Clinton last fall when the former prez discussed his weight loss and efforts to reverse heart disease through diet. And Clinton isn&amp;#039;t the only A-lister hitting the carbs: Freston persuaded Oprah to try going vegan, and Russell Simmons, Ellen DeGeneres, and Natalie Portman have all talked repeatedly about their veganism recently. At the same time, the high-protein craze has reached a fever pitch of extremity (the hallmark of played-out health fads and military regimes, I&amp;#039;d say). New York Times journalist Gary Taubes&amp;#039; pro-protein-and-fat manifesto Why We Get Fat advocates the complete exclusion of even whole grains for weight loss\u2014and preposterously suggests that a vegan who cut out grains and lived on mostly leafy greens would still be at increased risk for obesity because of glycemic load. The Dukan Diet, made famous by the Middletons before the royal wedding, prescribes fasts that include nothing but lean protein and oat bran for a week and then every Thursday in perpetuity. And the Paleo Diet, based on our history as hunter-gatherers, recommends pork chops as a healthy snack and excludes beans, starchy vegetables, grains, and dairy\u2014forever. You&amp;#039;d think I&amp;#039;d be waist-deep in a vat of kasha varnishkes and tempeh by now, reveling in the new vegan uprising, but I find myself, after so many years of protein indoctrination, strangely afraid to reduce protein and increase carbs. There was a time when I&amp;#039;d glibly follow any fad diet\u2014cabbage soup, lemonade, Slim-Fast\u2014in an effort to simply lose weight. But now I&amp;#039;m more conscious that changing my habits means changing my health. Over the years, I&amp;#039;ve upped my meat and protein consumption under the hegemony of the protein pushers\u2014almost unconsciously\u2014and, the truth is, I&amp;#039;ve never felt healthier. And yet, the science presented by Campbell, Barnard, and others that meat and dairy can damage our cells, arteries, and immune system is convincing. Then there are the ethical and environmental benefits of a plantcentric diet. Two University of Chicago geophysicists showed that going vegan reduces your carbon footprint by nine tons a year: the carbon equivalent of trading an SUV for a Toyota Camry or giving up your air conditioner, refrigerator, and clothes dryer. The dueling indoctrinations have left me protein paralyzed. How much protein do women really need, and what form is best? For starters, the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of protein set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the equivalent of 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. That works out to roughly 60 grams for the average 165-pound American woman and represents about 10 percent of calories in the average diet. It&amp;#039;s a snap to meet (a cup of oatmeal has 6 grams, a cup of Greek yogurt 16 grams, 4 ounces of tofu 18 grams, and 4 ounces of beef 30), and most Americans get more than enough. The high-protein diets generally advise doubling or even quadrupling the RDA protein level, but the plant-based crowd, unsurprisingly, argues that the RDA is more than adequate, unless you&amp;#039;re an athlete or highly active. Protein is made up of amino acids, 10 of which are essential for humans\u2014meaning you must consume them because your body can&amp;#039;t manufacture them. Animal proteins contain all the essential acids; plant proteins don&amp;#039;t. Years ago, &amp;quot;complementary proteins&amp;quot; were a big concept for vegetarians\u2014nutritionists counseled carefully mixing plant proteins at each meal so all essential amino acids were consumed at once. Meat advocates still point to this to inveigh against plant-based eating, but the American Dietetic Association now says &amp;quot;that an assortment of plant foods eaten over the course of a day can provide all essential amino acids.... Complementary proteins do not need to be consumed at the same meal.&amp;quot; The plantists fire back at the meatists that human flesh is the best protein food\u2014since it contains the perfect ratio of essential amino acids all in one bite\u2014but that doesn&amp;#039;t mean we should become cannibals. Ah, vegan humor! One of my most immediate concerns about backing off on protein and meat is muscle maintenance. Women start losing muscle mass in their thirties\u2014contributing to the appearance of aging and, later, falls and fractures\u2014with the effects accelerating each year, says University of Texas&amp;#039; Elena Volpi, MD, a protein researcher and geriatrician. For the average woman under age 65, she says, there&amp;#039;s no evidence that eating protein in excess of the RDA slows that. For this group, she says, the key is weight-bearing exercise. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;d harp on for younger women, not protein. There is evidence, however, that folks older than 65 don&amp;#039;t absorb or utilize protein as well as the younger set, Volpi says. For them, she recommends getting a bit fussier about protein intake: 20 to 30 grams at each meal, but no more; greater amounts can&amp;#039;t be used by the body and will be either burned for energy or stored as fat. A study by Volpi&amp;#039;s colleague Douglas Paddon-Jones, PhD, a physical therapy professor, demonstrated that timing a high-protein meal for the hour or two after exercise can give older people maximum resources as their muscles recover and rebuild. But he says that, again, young women don&amp;#039;t have to worry about protein timing or source as long as their diet is varied.  Maintaining a lean, fit body for as long as possible helps stave off the number-one and number-two killers of women: heart disease and cancer, respectively. &amp;quot;Obesity is a well-established risk factor for many cancers and diseases,&amp;quot; says Marji McCullough, ScD, RD, strategic director of nutritional epidemiology for the American Cancer Society. &amp;quot;So I&amp;#039;d say do whatever diet helps you maintain a healthy body weight.&amp;quot; And which type would that be? A recent study of 120,877 non-obese Americans found that potato chips and fries, sugar-sweetened beverages, and red and processed meats are the most strongly associated with weight gain; foods linked to weight loss, in order of impact, were yogurt, nuts, fruit, whole grains, and vegetables.  Still, genetics plays a role in how you respond to any particular diet. Researchers randomly assigned 138 overweight or obese women to either the high-protein Atkins or Zone diets; Ornish&amp;#039;s low-fat, plant-based program; or a standard low-fat plan for a year. They also swabbed the women&amp;#039;s cheeks for a DNA sample to hypothesize which type of diet would be genetically appropriate (for example, variations in certain genes seem to mediate fat absorption and metabolism). Overall, there was no difference in weight loss among the diets. But women who&amp;#039;d been assigned to the genetically &amp;quot;accurate&amp;quot; diet lost two to three times more weight than those on the &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; one. Comparing just the two most extreme diets\u2014Atkins and Ornish\u2014the results were even more significant: Women on the right diet lost five times that of those on the wrong one. (The research hasn&amp;#039;t been published in a peer-reviewed journal or replicated, but that hasn&amp;#039;t stopped a Massachusetts company from marketing a version of the cheek-swab test for $149.) Beyond genetics, there&amp;#039;s the obvious factor of being likely to stick to a diet with foods you actually enjoy. I tried each kind of regimen (Dukan on the protein side and the general recommendations from The China Study on the vegan) and lost two pounds a week on both. Dukan was much harder for me, however. All protein all the time sapped me of my appetite, my energy, and my will to live. After buying yet another pile of sliced turkey from a deli one day, I looked through the clear plastic clamshell at the glistening meat and almost gagged. I pitched the turkey uneaten. Even on the days veggies were permitted, I could barely choke down my meals. It was just way too much meat for my taste. The China Study plan, on the other hand, was a delight\u2014the only drawback being the massive amount of time I spent poring over vegan cookbooks (if you&amp;#039;re so inclined, check out Isa Chandra Moskowitz&amp;#039;s excellent Appetite for Reduction). Overall, I felt energized, not at all like I was dieting, and\u2014it may be coincidental\u2014my husband and I both shaved a whole minute off our running paces. But then, I like vegetables, and I like to cook. If you don&amp;#039;t like either, a vegan diet would be nearly impossible. Once you&amp;#039;ve established a healthy weight\u2014however you choose to do it\u2014then you may want to consider how your habits jibe with what we know about cancer and heart-disease prevention. Many studies have found that red and processed meats are associated with an increased risk for cancer. But high vegetable and fruit consumption, as well as choosing whole grains over processed grains, have repeatedly been shown to protect against almost all diseases. These recommendations could be folded into either a high-protein or a plant-based eating pattern. That said, many nutritionists I interviewed suggested that it was basically moronic to focus on protein levels when Americans are easily meeting their needs but failing miserably to get enough fruits and vegetables. Most of the low-carb diets advise at least three cups of vegetables a day, but the average American eats only half that amount. So I&amp;#039;ve got to admit that all the finger-wagging about these plans cheating people of vegetables is a little beside the point. On the flip side, it&amp;#039;s equally silly for low-carb-diet advocates to claim whole grains are making us fat when we&amp;#039;re not really eating them\u2014the average American gets less than a serving a day. Our extra carb calories are coming, by and large, from sugar, the consumption of which has risen every year since 1982 and now stands at 20 teaspoons a day. And, interestingly, the one substance abhorred by every diet book, no matter the ideology, was sugar. Imagine if we ate whatever we wanted but simply cut out sugar\u2014that alone would likely go a long way to solving the country&amp;#039;s obesity crisis. &amp;quot;The reality is, whether you eat high protein, low protein, high fat, or low carb, you can follow any of those diets and eat really, really well,&amp;quot; says Miriam Nelson, PhD, director of the John Hancock Research Center on Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Obesity Prevention at Tufts University and author of the Strong Women series of books. &amp;quot;And you can follow any of those diets and eat like crap. Saying you&amp;#039;re a vegan or an omnivore doesn&amp;#039;t really tell me what you&amp;#039;re eating. It&amp;#039;s what you choose to eat within those patterns that counts.&amp;quot; Thomas Campbell, MD, a family doctor and the younger of the Campbells who wrote The China Study, told me that although his whole extended family now follows a plant-based diet, it was a long process that began in his early teens. First they cut back on meat, then went vegetarian, and then, as his father&amp;#039;s research progressed, they finally switched to an all plant-based diet (they don&amp;#039;t use the word vegan because, the elder Campbell said, it&amp;#039;s become more of an ethical position than a health choice). &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s definitely a commitment, and there&amp;#039;s a learning curve,&amp;quot; Thomas said. &amp;quot;But it&amp;#039;s okay to make gradual changes.&amp;quot; My husband and I were so impressed by the data on the environmental benefits of plant-based diets, and so pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed vegan food, that we&amp;#039;ve decided, as a first step, to stop cooking meat at home and increase our fruit and vegetable consumption\u2014and let the carbs fall where they may. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/advice/a11772/food-fight-596712/>