of your body. This is pure nature. Bacteria are feeders, cleaning and feeding
upon your wastes, the by-products of digestion and metabolism. Remember,
your intestinal flora changes with your diet.
Success is nothing more than a refined study of the obvious.
— Jim Rohn, success philosopherMODULE 4.2
Proteins—The Whole TruthLook back to Module 3. 3 in the previous chapter for an introduction to the
subject of protein and how it is metabolized. As you may recall, “protein” is a
word meaning a “structure.” Like a house, it’s already built. It has form to it,
like muscle tissue. However, like a house, it is built from various types of
building materials. Protein structures are built from building materials called
amino acids. Amino acids therefore are the building materials that your body
requires and uses for building (growth), maintaining, and repairing itself. It
also uses proteins (amino acids) for immune factors, transporters, and cat-
abolic factors. A protein is also a general word for the total nitrogenous
substances of animal or vegetable matter, exclusive of the so-called
nitrogenous fats.
Proteins, or the total nitrogenous (nitrogen-based) substance of a food,
consist of a variety of chemical compounds of two main types: proteids and
non-proteids. Examples of proteids, both simple and complex, are
albuminoids, globulins, proteases, peptones, glutinoids, etc. Examples of
non-proteids, or simple compounds, would include creatine, creatinine,
xanthine, hy-poxanthine, amides and amino acids.
The human body requires numerous amino acids, and these are divided
into two groups. First, are the essential amino acids, of which there are
eleven. These are said to be mandatory for proper growth and repair.
(Personally I do not agree with this conclusion as I have seen people with
extreme cases of neurological weakness, repair and rebuild themselves solely
on fruits.) Secondly, there are many nonessential amino acids the body also
uses. The list at the right will show you both groups.