Hello there. This is Monica Reinagle. Welcome back to the nutrition divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous. I'm glad you're here. I recently got an email from Julie taking me to task for something I wrote in my episode on juicing.

I look to you for valid information information she wrote, but when you said

that vegetable juice has no protein it immediately discredited you as a

reliable source. Lots of vegetables contain protein, she went on. In fact, wheatgrass is supposed to be even higher in protein than meat.

Yikes. Doesn't take much to discredit you in Julie's book.

Even though I found her email a little harsh, I emailed her back to tell

her that she was right. Vegetables do contain small amounts of protein, so I was incorrect

to say that vegetable juice contains no protein.

I should have said that it contains very little protein.

For example, you'd have to drink about a quart and a half of wheatgrass juice to get the same amount of protein as one

serving of chicken. Apparently Julie was surprised to get an email back from me

and if that's the kind of email she typically sends to public figures, it's not surprising that she doesn't get more responses.

In any case, old Julie was willing to give me a second chance.

I confess I'm frustrated by not knowing how to find reliable information, she wrote.

I was trying to find protein sources and I read online that wheatgrass contains 20% protein,

while eggs have only 12.

How do I know what to believe?

Well, seeing as we were now friends, I responded again,

and I explained to Julie that expressing a nutrient

as a percentage can be misleading without necessarily being

untrue.

Confusion about the difference between percentages and absolute amounts leads to all sorts of nutritional myths and

...