Low- Cal sources of protien?

Please folks, this thread was posted by someone asking for low-cal sources of protein.  I am all for a good debate, but let's please have it in the appropriate place.  If you want to continue the discussion, please start a seperate thread, or even continue the debate that was already begun last week here:  http://caloriecount.about.com/forums/post/535 31.html

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but please try to keep this on-topic so the OP can continue to get answers to her question.

Thanks,
Jenn

Look, nothing wrong with pop science, as long as it's honest science presented honestly. While pop science falls into the lies-to-children category, there's nothing wrong with oversimplifying a complex subject so that non-specialists can grasp the basic idea of it. However, when the pop science is slanted to make a particular ideological conclusion obvious when the science itself doesn't support the same results... then we have a problem.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But they're not entitled to their own facts.

And the nutritional science just doesn't support the broad claims made in the book - because of the way the results are aggregated from each of the test sites there are only 65 data points, not hundreds. Which means that the study design itself is flawed if the goal was to draw conclusions that would be valid for individuals.

However, it's an ecological study, which is not intended nor designed for individual application - it's designed to generate hypotheses which must be further tested in individual studies to give valid results that are applicable to your diet as an individual.

In other words - it's the misuse and misrepresentation of the author's opinion and ideology as science that gets my dander up.

I have no issue with the ideology itself, only with attempts to disguise opinion as science.

Though you do have a point about the lack of reference for the citation - I too find the omission curious, and one I didn't note myself when reading the site.

Though your scepticism to the vegetarian site is rather unfounded - quoting from their front page

 

Why Beyond Veg was created--

(SOMEBODY finally had to) The material presented on this site comes from individuals with years of hard-won experience either practicing alternative diets or observing those who do. As you'll find, no two writers will necessarily agree on all topics. A unifying theme, however, is the intent to squarely acknowledge and discuss the sometimes serious problems that can occur on alternative diets but often go unreported, and to go beyond the simplistic dogmas readily available elsewhere--in fact almost everywhere--to "explain them away."

A sense of admirable idealism is often a motivating factor encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health and to explore different diets. However, the development of emotional attachments to philosophies underlying such diets can often end up becoming far more important for some individuals than the results they obtain--or fail to. One result has been widespread refusal in the alternative diet community to face health and behavioral problems that may arise on these diets. A common thread in what you'll read here is that a kind of subjective, "blinded naturalism" has become more or less endemic in the vegetarian, raw-food, and alternative diet movements, which can lead to serious health troubles.

We hope the range of views presented here will encourage--perhaps even force--you to think for yourself and go beyond the need for reliance on any single authority in evaluating the worth and workability of a diet. Especially if you have experienced problems yourself, you will know how crucial it is to remove the proverbial rose-colored glasses and face the issues discussed here openly, rationally, and realistically.

In other words, it's written by vegetarians for vegetarians - and I've found reading the site an enjoyable experience even if I'm not personally a vegetarian for more than short streches at a time currently.

 By the way - correlation is not causation. It's merely an indicator of areas of interest for further research - and I'm going to be interested in seeing any papers that the Phase II of the study generates eventually.