I don’t know why people think eating no meat is a good idea. We are omnivores, that is why we have pointed canine teeth as well as flat molars.

It all comes down to amino acids. Amino acids play central roles both as building blocks of proteins and intermediates in metabolism. Of the 20 amino acids found in protein, the human body can produce only 10. The remaining 10 amino acids must come from the food we eat. Unlike carbohydrates and fat, the human body does not store excess amino acids for later use; this means we need to get these amino acids every day, at every meal.

Protein is made up of a chain of amino acids. Not all protein is the same due to the fact that it can be made of different chains of amino acids.  This means that you need to eat a variety of protein sources, or at least, more complete sources of protein. I am a strong advocate of real food and I myself eat meat. Vegetarians have a hard time getting the complete array of amino acids from their limited protein sources.

Now if you’re a vegetarian that eats fish then you’re not a vegetarian, you’re a hypocrite. If you have a detailed list of things you will or won’t eat don’t try to sell yourself as a noble ethical eater, you’re picky. Straight up. If we weren’t supposed to eat animals they wouldn’t be made of meat ok?

With that in mind, there are good sources of meat and less good sources. I would suggest going grass-fed for your meat, free-range for chickens, and wild for fish. Your run of the mill grain fed mass produced beef is unnaturally high in omega-6 and it’s normal amino acid content is out of whack as it is an unnatural diet for a cow to live on. Also, being grass fed means that it roams a pasture to find the grass and is a healthier beast. Free-range chickens will not only be a healthier bird, but it will have a complete array of amino acids and a richer flavour. Farmed fish is just bad news; they are sickly and destroy natural fish populations. Oh I almost forgot about eggs. Eat eggs, real whole eggs. Getting the Omega-3 eggs is better but at the very least eat the whole eggs.

What about organic meat? I thought you’d ask. Organic doesn’t mean the same thing for meat as it does for vegetables. Organic beef can still be fed grains and be unhealthy, it’s just fed organic grains. Same goes for chickens. Remember you are looking for grass fed/free-range meat.

What about soy? Well… soy is ok in some preparations but not in the ones typically seen as meat substitutes. To give you an idea as to why the soy based “meat substitutes” are bad news, just take a look at this description of soy processing via The Guardian

“Soya veggie burgers and sausages generally use the same chemically extracted fraction of the bean. This meal is the product of the industrial crushing process the vast majority of the world’s soya beans go through. The raw beans are broken down to thin flakes, which are then percolated with a petroleum-based hexane solvent to extract the soya oil. The remains of the flakes are toasted and ground to a protein meal, most of which goes into animal feed. Soya flour is made in a similar way. The oil then goes through a process of cleaning, bleaching, degumming and deodorising to remove the solvent and the oil’s characteristic “off” smells and flavours. The lecithin that forms a heavy sludge in the oil during storage used to be regarded as a waste product, but now it has been turned into a valuable market in its own right as an emulsifier.”

Yum… sounds delicious and healthful! Not only that, but while getting the required amount of protein from vegetarian sources you get a lot more carbohydrates then you do with meat. However, if you eat less processed soy, you know, real food and not food products, you will be ok. Things like edamame, tempeh, and traditional miso, things that are much closer to the original source.

So to sum up, we need so many amino acids to completely function and rebuild and repair out bodies. Our bodies produce half of what we need and the rest needs to be consumed via food all day every day. Meat is complete; soy is not, and in some cases down right wrong! Eat real food, from clean sources and you will be healthy. Try to force unnatural types of nutrients and you’re asking for less then ideal body function.

Chris Walls is a Personal Trainer at the Crossfit Kelowna training centre.  For more information on Crossfit, please visit http://www.crossfitkelowna.com