Hello, this is Monica Reinagle.

Welcome to the nutrition divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

This week, I want to share some surprising new findings on protein and healthy aging.

No matter how old you are right now, this is stuff everyone needs to know in order to stay strong and healthy throughout life.

It seems like everyone is trying to eat more protein these days,

protein bars, protein shakes, protein powders,

it's everywhere you look.

Now ironically, most of us were already getting more than enough protein to meet our biological

requirements.

According to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, you need to be getting at least 10% of your calories from protein,

and that's around 35 grams of protein for kids, 50 grams for adult women, and somewhere around 62 grams for the guys.

The vast majority of Americans are getting one and a half to two times that much.

So why this big protein push? Well it turns out that although you can get along on a relatively small amount of protein

eating more than the minimum requirement offers several advantages and very few downsides.

I talked about the benefits of eating more protein in episode number 67.

They include better appetite control, a slightly increased metabolism, and more lean muscle tissue, especially for

those of you who do strength training.

But there's still one group of Americans that is not getting enough protein, older women.

On average, protein intake among older women hovers right at the minimum,

and close to 1 in 10 are sinking below that minimum. But now researchers from Purdue University

suggests that the amount of protein recommended for older adults is much

too low and according to this new information a majority of older women may be deficient in terms of their protein intake.

...