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By Jim Rix
The impetus for this red herring is the commercial I saw this morning on the Today Show. “Start your morning with the power of protein – MILK.” Really? Does protein provide the power/energy for the human body? I think we all know that the body gets its energy from carbohydrates and not proteins. After all, do marathon runners protein-load or carbo-load before a race? Protein builds our muscles but it’s carbohydrates that provide the energy that powers them. In fact, the human brain operates exclusively on carbohydrates. That’s why under periods of starvation the human body will convert its protein (muscles) into carbohydrates to keep the brain and hence the body alive. (This process is called gluconeogenesis.)
