What is the minimum daily protein requirement for good health?

Answer 1

There is a great deal of disagreement on this question, even among nutritional experts. There is also a great deal of disagreement regarding the dangers (or lack of dangers) in a diet with too much or too little protein. That said, there are two ways to look at the question. One is protein calories as a percentage of total calorie intake. The recommended numbers given here range from 10-20% (GL Paul) to 30% (Barry Sears). The other way is as a percentage of ideal body weight (usually considered to be your weight at about 15-20% body fat). The average numbers here seem to be about: * 0.4 to 0.6 grams protein per kilogram ideal body weight for sedentary persons * 0.6 to 1.0 grams protein per kilogram ideal body weight for active persons * 1.0 to 1.4 grams protein per kilogram ideal body weight for persons doing regular intensive exercise (such as competitive bodybuilders or triathletes) Pregnant women, nursing mothers, and growing children will have somewhat higher requirements - the most common way to handle this is to bump up the activity level by one (in other words, a sedentary nursing mother would use the protein requirements for an active person). Note that these are average ranges from several different sources - it will probably be easy to find sources which recommend higher or lower amounts of protein. Also, comparisons are complicated by the fact that some sources list requirements in terms of lean body mass (body weight minus fat), while others do so in terms of total body weight (not ideal weight). Vegetarians and vegans, in addition to watching overall protein intake, need to make sure they are getting complete proteins (proteins which include all the essential amino acids). Eating foods from at least two of the three non-meat protein groups (grains, beans/legumes/soy/peanuts, and nuts/seeds) at each meal (others say just throughout the day) should take care of this without much difficulty.

Answer 2

The amount of protein that you need depends on stuff like your age, size and how much excersise you do. There is a mathematical problem for it and if you like to use your body weight in pounds then you would multiply your body weight times .37 so if you weight 150 pounds then you would need 55 grams of protein everyday.