HarperOne

The longest-lived people in the world get an average of 10 percent of their total calories from protein. Our average is as high as 15 to 20 percent, and of course, if you’re on a high-protein diet—Atkins, Paleo, or the diets recommended by many of my colleagues, and formerly by me—that figure goes up to 40 or 50 percent.

For example, the German physiologist Dr. Carl von Voit studied the diets of late-nineteenth-century laborers and found that they ate about 118 grams of protein per day. Von Voit then made a couple of classic errors. He confused description with prescription, and he extrapolated from heavy laborers to the population at large. He assumed that the workers ate what their bodies needed, so therefore 118 grams of protein must be the optimal daily amount for everyone

I’ve never seen anything, no light, no shadows, no nothing. A lot of people ask me if I see black. No, I don’t see black. I don’t see anything at all. And in my dreams I don’t see any visual impressions. It’s just taste, touch, sound, and smell. But no visual impressions of anything.
The next thing I recall I was in Harborview Medical Center and looking down at everything that was happening. And it was frightening because I’m not accustomed to see things visually, because I never had before! And initially it was pretty scary! And then I finally recognized my wedding ring and my hair. And I thought: is this my body down there? And am I dead or what? They kept saying, “We can’t bring her back, we can’t bring her back!” And they were trying to frantically work on this thing that I discovered was my body and I felt very detached from it and sort of “so what?” And I was thinking, what are these people getting so upset about? Then I thought, I’m out of here, I can’t get these people to listen to me. As soon as I thought that I went up through the ceiling as if it were nothing. And it was wonderful to be out there and be free, not worry about bumping into anything, and I knew where I was going. And I heard this sound of wind chimes that was the most incredible sound that I can describe—it was from the very lowest to the very highest tones. As I was approaching this area, there were trees and there were birds and quite a few people, but they were all, like, made out of light, and I could see them, and it was incredible, really beautiful, and I was overwhelmed by that experience because I couldn’t really imagine what light was like. It’s still…a very emotional thing when I talk about this…because there was a point at which…at which I could bring forth any knowledge I wanted to have.15
Vicki goes on to explain that in this other world she was welcomed by some acquaintances. As Ring and Cooper point out:
There are five of them. Debby and Diane were Vicki’s blind school-mates, who had died years before, at ages eleven and six, respectively. In life, they had both been profoundly retarded as well as blind, but here they appeared bright and beautiful, healthy and vitally alive. They were no longer children, but, as Vicki phrased it, “in their prime.” In addition, Vicki reports seeing two of her childhood caretakers, a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Zilk, both of whom had also previously died. Finally, there was Vicki’s grandmother—who had essentially raised Vicki and who had died just two years before this incident. Her grandmother, however, who was further back than the others, was reaching out to hug Vicki.16
Vicki’s experience concludes with a forced reentry into her body:
And then I was sent back and then I went back into my body and it was excruciatingly painful and very heavy and I remember feeling very sick.17
The fact that somebody who has been blind from birth as a result of an atrophied eyeball and optic nerve and who has an undeveloped visual cerebral

Next up is the account of Vicki, a woman who was born blind. She was born extremely premature in 1951, after a pregnancy of only twenty-two weeks, and immediately placed in a very primitive incubator and administered 100 percent oxygen. Such a high concentration of oxygen damages the development of the eyeball and optic nerve, which doctors were not aware of in the early days of the incubator. Thousands of premature babies who survived such early incubators went completely blind as a result. Vicki suffered complete atrophy (withering) of the eyeball and optic nerve. The visual cortex, the part of the occipital lobe of the brain that processes light stimuli into images, also fails to develop properly when it receives no light stimuli from the nonfunctioning eyes and optic nerves.
Vicki’s near-death experience is described in Kenneth Ring and S. Cooper’s book, and she was also interviewed at length in the BBC documentary The Day I Died. In 1973, when Vicki was twenty-two, she was hurled out of her car in a traffic accident. A basal skull fracture and severe concussion left her in a coma, and she had fractured neck and back vertebrae and a broken leg. She caught a brief glimpse of the car wreck from above (as a blind woman she could see and recognize the smashed Volkswagen van), and later in the emergency room, where she had been taken by ambulance, she was able to see from a position above her body. In the room where she saw a body on a metal gurney, she also spotted two people and could hear them talking and expressing their concern. It was only when she recognized her wedding ring, which of course she knew only by touch, that she realized that it was her own body. And after she had gone up “through the ceiling,” she saw the roof of the hospital and trees

In all times and all cultures and during every phase of life—among them the birth of a child or grandchild and confrontations with death and other serious crises—these essential questions are asked again and again. You may have asked them yourself. Yet we seldom receive satisfactory answers. Whatever happens in our lives—whether we meet with success or disappointment, no matter how much fame, power, or wealth we acquire—death is inescapable.

We seemingly cannot get enough of protein, and this reality is leading us down a very dangerous road. In fact, “eat more protein” may be the worst advice that “experts” give to the public.

recently, a survey done by the International Food Information Council Foundation found that 63 percent of Americans are looking for protein foods when deciding what to eat, and a whopping 57 percent said they are trying to eat as much protein as possible!

So what is the problem? In a word: confusion. Some of us eat protein to lose weight, while others eat protein to gain weight. Ponder that paradox for a second.

“Experts” argue about good fats and bad fats, or good carbs and bad carbs. This is very much part of the reason we are so confused about what to eat. But in protein we all seem to feel safe. No one would dare to argue that protein is bad for you.

According to the philosopher of science Ilja Maso, most scientists employ the scientific method based on materialist, mechanistic, and reductionist assumptions. It attracts most of the funding, achieves the most striking results, and is thought to employ the brightest minds. The more a vision deviates from this materialist paradigm, the lower its status and the less money it receives. Indeed, experience shows us that the upper echelons of the research hierarchy receive a disproportionate percentage of funding, whereas the lower echelons actually address the condition, needs, and problems of people. True science does not restrict itself to materialist and therefore restrictive hypotheses but is open to new and initially inexplicable findings and welcomes the challenge of finding explanatory theories.