HarperOne

The longest-lived people in the world get an average of 10 percent of their total calories from protein. Our average is as high as 15 to 20 percent, and of course, if you’re on a high-protein diet—Atkins, Paleo, or the diets recommended by many of my colleagues, and formerly by me—that figure goes up to 40 or 50 percent.

For example, the German physiologist Dr. Carl von Voit studied the diets of late-nineteenth-century laborers and found that they ate about 118 grams of protein per day. Von Voit then made a couple of classic errors. He confused description with prescription, and he extrapolated from heavy laborers to the population at large. He assumed that the workers ate what their bodies needed, so therefore 118 grams of protein must be the optimal daily amount for everyone

I’ve never seen anything, no light, no shadows, no nothing. A lot of people ask me if I see black. No, I don’t see black. I don’t see anything at all. And in my dreams I don’t see any visual impressions. It’s just taste, touch, sound, and smell. But no visual impressions of anything.
The next thing I recall I was in Harborview Medical Center and looking down at everything that was happening. And it was frightening because I’m not accustomed to see things visually, because I never had before! And initially it was pretty scary! And then I finally recognized my wedding ring and my hair. And I thought: is this my body down there? And am I dead or what? They kept saying, “We can’t bring her back, we can’t bring her back!” And they were trying to frantically work on this thing that I discovered was my body and I felt very detached from it and sort of “so what?” And I was thinking, what are these people getting so upset about? Then I thought, I’m out of here, I can’t get these people to listen to me. As soon as I thought that I went up through the ceiling as if it were nothing. And it was wonderful to be out there and be free, not worry about bumping into anything, and I knew where I was going. And I heard this sound of wind chimes that was the most incredible sound that I can describe—it was from the very lowest to the very highest tones. As I was approaching this area, there were trees and there were birds and quite a few people, but they were all, like, made out of light, and I could see them, and it was incredible, really beautiful, and I was overwhelmed by that experience because I couldn’t really imagine what light was like. It’s still…a very emotional thing when I talk about this…because there was a point at which…at which I could bring forth any knowledge I wanted to have.15
Vicki goes on to explain that in this other world she was welcomed by some acquaintances. As Ring and Cooper point out:
There are five of them. Debby and Diane were Vicki’s blind school-mates, who had died years before, at ages eleven and six, respectively. In life, they had both been profoundly retarded as well as blind, but here they appeared bright and beautiful, healthy and vitally alive. They were no longer children, but, as Vicki phrased it, “in their prime.” In addition, Vicki reports seeing two of her childhood caretakers, a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Zilk, both of whom had also previously died. Finally, there was Vicki’s grandmother—who had essentially raised Vicki and who had died just two years before this incident. Her grandmother, however, who was further back than the others, was reaching out to hug Vicki.16
Vicki’s experience concludes with a forced reentry into her body:
And then I was sent back and then I went back into my body and it was excruciatingly painful and very heavy and I remember feeling very sick.17
The fact that somebody who has been blind from birth as a result of an atrophied eyeball and optic nerve and who has an undeveloped visual cerebral