Although protein has not gotten as much bad press as fat, it certainly has had its fair share.

The key with protein is obtaining just the right amount. I need to share an interesting story with you about knowing what that right amount is.

Last summer I was composing the manuscript for my new book, The No-Grain Diet, and my co-author, Alison Levy, was grilling me on what my recommendations were for the right amount of protein. Amazing as this may seem, this question stumped me as I needed a precise answer that I was comfortable "immortalizing" in my first book.

I searched the Net and my resources widely, and I still was not comfortable with an answer. This search eventually led me to Metabolic Typing. I had actually read the book when it first came out about three years ago and was impressed, but I never understood how to practically apply it.

Fortunately, I had met Bill Wolcott, the author of The Metabolic Typing Diet, the year before at Dr. Klinghardt’s retreat so I called him up and he explained his system in terms of my protein question. After a three-hour phone conversation I finally ‘got it,’ and the system made perfect sense to me.

In retrospect, I really believe the best advice I received for writing my book was finally learning how Metabolic Typing worked. Metabolic Typing was the only system I could find that accurately answered the question how much protein you should eat.

The answer is: It depends on your specific metabolic biochemistry. Some people can get by with very little protein (Carb/Vegetarian Types), while Protein Types may require 300 percent to 400 percent more protein.

So protein is not intrinsically evil. We all need it. I have seen magnitudes of patients who have had problems resulting from too little protein rather than too much. This is despite the common urban legend that we are all eating too much protein.

While Metabolic Typing is certainly not the only system on the planet that can answer this question, it is the one I am familiar with and the one that I have seen many hundreds of people improve with.

Some people have objected to its lack of "scientific" support. Well, let me tell you, I review many hundreds of studies every week and have reviewed tens of thousands of studies to compose this newsletter over the last five years.

If you have read the newsletter for a while you will know that just because a scientific study was published in a good peer-reviewed journal, it does not mean that it is true. Studies can easily manipulate truth.

Studies also require money. Most of this money comes from government grants and drug companies, and when they're doing the funding, do you really believe they're going to back something that doesn't have outcomes likely to benefit them overall? Ask yourself this, for instance: though the low-carb diet has been increasingly and immensely popular for decades, largely because of Dr. Atkins, why haven't any major studies been on it been funded by the government up to this point? Well here's why: it contradicts the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid approach, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a strong interest in aiding corn and grain farmers, of course.

In other words, when searching for "scientific" support, take a very close look at the institutions behind that "support," and consider what their motivation for funding that study might be in the first place. Also ask why they're reluctant to fund studies in certain areas, such as preventative medicine... could it be that they have other interests in mind? I highly recommend the book "Trust Us, We're Experts," for a lot of eye-opening information on how corporations and the government spin people into belief through "scientific" study.

Metabolic Typing, meanwhile, does not have access to such high-level funding for studies--and I seriously doubt the drug companies, for instance, would ever want to support such studies, as metabolic typing leads to eating foods right for you, which leads to preventing disease and illness, which means far less of a need for pharmaceuticals. However, what metabolic typing has had is over 25 years of clinical improvement and proof in tens of thousands of patients overall, and already hundreds of patients in my own practice.

I have done Metabolic Typing in my clinic for almost nine months now, and my impression of it only continues to improve. This is one of the reasons why I resonated with it so strongly early on. It embraces one of my favorite concepts, to listen to your body and adjust the program based on what your body is telling you. It's worked for me personally, and it has worked for my patients.

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