What happens to animal protein during digestion?
TCC: We’re able to still break it down into individual amino acids. The whole putrefaction thing is something quite different, it’s when animal flesh lies around and decays and that doesn’t necessarily happen in our intestines, but what can happen is that it can get compacted, so it hangs around our intestines longer, and that’s not a good idea. Plus there’s constipation, to be honest about it. And the other thing is that the amino acids that are present in the animal foods too, have some properties that are not so good – a little more sulfur amino acids, which in turn, when that gets metabolized, creates sulfate ions. Sulfate is an acidic ion, so you end up getting a more acidic type of tissue, and that’s not good. So, we can think of a lot of reasons that animal proteins aren’t very good, other than putrefaction. SC: Some people believe that combining rice and beans also creates sulfur/harmful byproducts. Is that true? TCC: I’m not a big fan of food combining either. The macrobiotic
