In this episode we debunk the most common vegan protein myths. Have you heard any others we didn’t cover? Let us know!
📢 Highlights from this episode:
- Our upcoming travel plans
- Are vegans lacking protein??
- Why vegans feel tired
- The importance of evidence-based practices in nutrition
👉 Tune in for an honest, relatable chat that goes beyond the highlight reels and into the heart of what it means to connect authentically.
✨ Helpful Links and Resources:
🌱 Coaching Application
Take your fitness and nutrition goals to the next level with one-on-one coaching:
http://www.veganproteins.com/personal-training
📖 Free High-Protein Vegan Cookbook:
https://mailchi.mp/veganproteins/xytg8h94zp
💪 Muscles by Brussels Membership:
Try it free for one month:
https://www.veganproteins.com/muscles-by-brussels-membership-free-trial/
✅ Membership Includes:
- Bi-weekly live coaching calls
- Monthly home or gym workouts
- 200+ high-protein vegan recipes
- Exclusive app features
- Habit challenges with cash prizes
- A supportive vegan athlete community
🔗 Follow Us Online:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veganproteins/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeganProteins
- Website: https://www.veganproteins.com/
- Apparel: Muscles by Brussels Tank Tops
SCIENCE:
MASS (Monthly Application In Strength Sport): MASS is one of our secret weapons and it continues to be an invaluable resource for us to keep up to date with the latest research. Don’t get swept up in fads or bogus info. Sign up and stay up to date with easy-to-consume journals and support the evidence-based fitness community.
=================================
🔎 Related Phrases:
vegan protein sources, vegan nutrition, vegan fitness, vitamin deficiency
Transcript:
Giacomo:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Giacomo.
Dani:
And I’m Dani.
Giacomo:
And this is episode 201.
Dani:
Sure is. You know, it’s funny, we still haven’t recorded 200 and we haven’t published 200 either. Because I really wanted episode 200 to be a Q and A with all of the coaches at once, but I can’t get everybody together because of the holidays, etc, etc. So now we’re gonna post 201. 202. 200. I don’t know, I’m not sure. Just keep your eye out for 200.
Giacomo:
Did it have to be by the end of the year? Dani? We could get that episode recorded soon, I hope, if we all stop.
Dani:
The intention was by the end of the year, but just end of year, man. End of year. Happy New Year, everybody. By the way, first podcast of 2025.
Giacomo:
What was the last episode you and I were on?
Dani:
It’s been a minute, I don’t know. And I’m not going to go back and look. So we are kind of scrambling a little bit today because we. It is 4 o’clock in the evening. We fly out at 6am to go to Florida. Well, we leave the house at 6am to fly out to go to Florida.
Giacomo:
We’re basically doing one of those things where wherever we travel to, we move in like we do with Planfield. We’re moving, we’re renting space at Disney for basically the next two weeks we’re gonna have an office there. Not literally, we’re hanging out with family.
Dani:
I don’t understand anything he just said.
Giacomo:
But I’m saying we’re basically gonna be gone for quite some time.
Dani:
10 days. It’s like.
Giacomo:
It’s more than that.
Dani:
No, it’s 10 days.
Giacomo:
Sure.
Dani:
Yep. Okay. So Giacomo doesn’t know what we’re doing, but apparently we’ll be in Florida for 10 days and then we’ll be home for a while. And then six weeks later we head out for the Arnold in Columbus, Ohio. Then we do the vegan cruise. Then I lose track. Actually, in between there, we have the Rhode Island Vegfest, the Providence Rhode Island VegFest on February 2nd
and 3rd, I believe. Or maybe it’s the 1st and 2nd. But that weekend, and I’m excited about that one. I’m probably more excited about that than many of the things on the list.
Giacomo:
This week they have a mandatory meeting for everyone and they’re like, yeah, you all gonna work together with one another for this thing? So let’s all get to know each other. So everyone literally says hi, every single vendor, and just introduces themselves to one another. They have, like, a lot of interesting things going on where they really like to build an experience for the vendors and for the attendees.
Dani:
All right. My feelings around this are changing, as you say.
Giacomo:
I know. I feel like you were gonna say.
Dani:
That we’re gonna have to do, like, icebreakers and stuff. Cause I’m. I’m good without that.
Giacomo:
I’ll talk enough for the both of us. I think we’ll see.
Dani:
All right, so what better way to start off 2025 by talking about the most common vegan topic that there is.
Giacomo:
Way to get your protein, which is protein.
Dani:
And specifically, I thought we could talk about certain protein myths, vegan protein myths, and just go through them one by one and talk about maybe where they came from, why people think this. Is it true? Is it not true? And if not, why.
Giacomo:
Can we pause for a minute before we make this totally all about vegan protein myths? Are there big protein myths in general that you could think of?
Dani:
Ooh, you know, I think that there were. I think that the. I think that for a while, the idea that you needed way more protein than you actually need was pretty huge.
Giacomo:
What else?
Dani:
I don’t. That’s it. That’s all I can. I mean, I guess I don’t know much about protein myths outside of the vegan world or anything like that.
Giacomo:
There were things. Because I was a meat eater and a bodybuilder. Well before I even knew that the word vegan existed, I didn’t even know what the word vegan was. And the protein myths that I remember that were pervasive in general were getting in a certain quality of protein.
Dani:
Well, that. I mean, we’re gonna get into that. That’s all pertaining to this.
Giacomo:
Right? Even in the non vegan world, though, it was like certain kinds of proteins were better than others. And it had nothing to do with their amino acid profile. It was just like, this is a bro food. So this is the.
Dani:
I thought it had everything to do with their amino acid profile and their protein digestibility score.
Giacomo:
Not always. No. It was just one of those things where people were like, well, this is what bodybuilders eat and it’s protein, and this is a better protein because bodybuilders eat this kind of protein more. And it made no sense.
Dani:
There was. There was a lot of stuff in the bodybuilding community that made no sense, but everybody just did it. And I feel like a lot of that stuff has disappeared. Because I actually think that the more evidence based practices are way I was just talking to a client about this this morning, way more mainstream than they used to be. And I think while that pendulum can certainly swing too far in the other direction, I still think ultimately it’s been for the better. No question.
Giacomo:
We got all crazy about getting in a certain amount of protein per meal and a certain amount of meals per day with protein. The evidence that I’ve been looking at in the world in general, like the evidence based world is it’s starting to pull back on the idea of like it needs to be super frequent, it needs to be X amount of protein or else per meal.
It’s more a matter of like, we’ll get in a couple, like just do it normally. Like get in three squares and try to get in least 30 grams of protein. But we got all kinds of crazy with that 10, 20, 30 years ago before we started to collect 10, 20.
Dani:
30 years ago when Giacomo was a wee boy without a chin hair.
Giacomo:
And there was no, there was no science to it yet. We weren’t proving things to be less wrong or completely wrong over time just yet. But anyways, I don’t want to get too off topic, but I felt like it was kind of interesting to maybe start this with protein in general before we go after the tongue in cheek fun kind of stuff when it comes to how people bust out their criticisms about vegan protein. So go ahead, let me hear your first vegan protein myth that you hear a lot, Dani.
Dani:
Well, the first one is just simply that vegans don’t get enough protein. And I don’t know if it’s vegans don’t get enough protein or vegans can’t get enough protein, but I think it is absolutely still a very pervasive myth that vegans are not getting enough protein. Otherwise all the protein questions to vegans wouldn’t even exist in the first place.
Giacomo:
I’m already getting angry, I’m already getting worked up because if it’s like no matter what you do, there’s an argument against the vegan being able to eat well and get in enough protein. And you’re right about the idea that vegans don’t get enough protein in or cannot get enough protein in.
We don’t have the right kind of sources. We can’t get enough protein unless we eat well, more than we should. There’s other kinds of things I think about when it comes to vegans not getting the quality of protein. Am I jumping ahead?
Dani:
You’re jumping ahead Sideways, left, right, backwards and circular.
Giacomo:
All kinds of thoughts on this.
Dani:
But that’s, that’s fine. I think that I, I understand where this came from. Like, I understand why this became the mentality for so many people because people did only think about protein as meat and eggs. I mean, if you think about it, there weren’t even required food labels on everything until the 90s. So it’s not like you could pick up a container of oatmeal in the 60s and be like, oh, one serving has 5 grams of protein. So if all you ever knew of protein was like meat, eggs, dairy
protein, why would you think that you could get protein from a lot of other sources? I get why that was the case. And then a lot of foods that we do eat as vegans that are high in protein were not like just normal everyday foods back then. You know, tofu and tempeh, although certainly it has existed in the United States for a long time. It’s not like it was as, as commonplace as like scrambled eggs because it’s.
Giacomo:
Not common in people’s kitchen or pantry. A lot of these goods are winding up being pre prepared and prepackaged for people. And so it makes it convenient. And then when it comes to packaged goods, people start to scrutinize and criticize things that are in packages and have ingredients in them that they look at. Like if the ingredient list has more than two ingredients, people start to get confused, you know, so in other words, like say you have, I don’t know, soybeans and vital
wheat gluten in your, your kitchen. You can figure it out as a vegan, be like, oh yeah, like I can make protein things. If you aren’t thinking in terms of like being the vegan that gets in protein, just thinking about eating as a vegan, not eating as a vegan who’s like, wants to be fit.
It’s like the vegan gets it much faster. But take your typical omnivore person who has no exposure to a plant based diet and try to explain these things to them. And it’s like you’re speaking a foreign language. So I get where you’re coming from.
Dani:
But I, in my entire time being vegan, I’ve never met somebody that I think was not getting enough protein to live. Like, the only time I’m really trying to think about this, the only time I’ve ever seen a vegan who was not getting enough protein to live is somebody who was hospitalized for, for anorexia and was unbelievably underweight. And that had nothing to do with vegan.
Or even if she wasn’t vegan, she would have still not been getting enough protein to live. So we hear it all the time, like, the only way you’re not getting enough protein is if you’re not getting enough calories. And if I’m being honest, that’s the only time I’ve ever seen it also in my life. So vegans are getting enough protein, like, period. But in the fitness community, I think that it is still a big myth because generally speaking, in the weightlifting bodybuilding
communities, we’re not just looking to get enough protein to live, we’re looking to get significantly more protein than that to adequately build muscle, stay muscular while we’re getting leaner, etc. Etc. And I think because people don’t know how to do that immediately they think it cannot be done, but very obviously it can be done.
Giacomo:
Exactly. Or they are going about it in a way where it’s not convenient and it’s not enjoyable and then they run into problems and they’re like, well, this is, I don’t want to have five protein, I don’t want to have three protein shakes in a day. Or I don’t want to eat just tofu for the day. Or I don’t want to like rely on nothing but protein bars. Like, well, you know, it’s can be a lot different than that. You see all the recipes we put up on our YouTube channel. You see all the kinds of meals
that we talk about, how you can work protein into something. Protein doesn’t have to be something that is separate on your plate from, say, your vegetables and your starchy carbs. Like, it can be worked into your meal if you know how to prepare food in a way where it is reasonably high in protein. I don’t mean like high protein meal. I mean a meal that has enough protein to stimulate recovery and performance, better stimulate performance and recovery from your training.
Dani:
So I remember one time, like there was one prep that I did that at the end of it, my protein was 160 and my carbs during peak week were as low as 60 grams. And that is including fiber and vegetables. And it’s not pleasant. Like, that sucked. I didn’t want to. That sucked. That’s part of bodybuilding, that’s part of peak week. But I could still do it as a vegan. And I didn’t even use protein powder. I remember that clearly. So, you know this idea that vegans can’t get enough protein, I will
fight it every single time there. I can think of almost no macro structure where a vegan can’t make it work with plant based foods. Now, I think there are macro structures that are stupid and people probably shouldn’t, but it can still be done. Case in point, like, that’s, that’s kind of the point. Myth number two that I have here is all plant proteins are incomplete. This is something I thought was very dead in the water, but I still hear about it fairly regularly.
Giacomo:
And then the vegans, of course, chime in and they talk about how you can get in a good combination of amino acids throughout the day, rather than arguing the point that some plant based protein sources are in fact sources that have a complete amino acid profile.
Dani:
Yes. So that’s the thing is like, it’s not a myth in the sense that absolutely there’s are incomplete amino acid profiles in lots of plant based foods, but I don’t know anybody that is just eating one food. But the myth that all plant proteins are incomplete, I disagree. There are in fact whole protein sources that are in singular foods that have all of the amino acids.
Soy being a prime example of that. Soy is absolutely a complete protein unto itself. But this is not a problem in any way, shape or form unless somebody is just eating one food. Right? So every single thing we eat, whether it’s a complete protein or a quote unquote incomplete protein, everything has amino acids in it. And our body will break down every protein we eat into its individual amino acids and toss them into the amino acid pool.
And then as we need protein to repair muscle or build hormones or whatever, it will pull, you know, the right combination of all of the amino acids out of the pool to make it. And our body’s very good at this. So it stands to reason, like, yeah, you’re as weak as your weakest link here. If you’re missing from your amino acid pool, a good ratio of lysine, for example, you know, that could eventually become a problem.
But that I only see that being a problem if someone only eats like the, like one or two foods, period. Because you know, what, one plant food is lacking in amino acids, another plant has it. So when you eat a combination of foods throughout the day, you’re gonna get plenty of amino acids. Full stop.
Giacomo:
Exactly. And if you look at your average athlete, your average person who is into fitness, whether they’re vegan or not, they’re typically eating a little more protein than they actually need to. Even when they look at their overall calorie intake and they’re like, well, I probably don’t need this much Protein. I could stand to get in more carbohydrates and make sure I’m getting enough fats because I can make better use of carbohydrates and fats for energy.
But I’m going to eat more protein because you just wind up enjoying protein and it just helps to not like overthink things and just get in a reasonable amount of protein. And it’s nice to have a little bit of insurance just in case you’re not getting a big enough of a combination of protein dense foods so that you get a variety of amino acids so you know whether you’re vegan or whether you’re not vegan, you’re probably going to get more than enough protein in for the day than you need to
by, I don’t know, like an extra like 10 to 20 grams, the average lifter. And in that regard it doesn’t, it really doesn’t matter. Just get, get in protein and you’re good to go.
Dani:
So hopefully this myth can die forever because I hate this one because people will pull up like, well, look at wheat. Wheat is a terrible source of protein. And it’s like, yeah, I guess if all I ate was wheat you would be correct, good sir. But I don’t just eat wheat, eat lots of things. So you know, and when you look at plant based protein powders, which is actually what I’m going to get into next, we it used to be that most plant based protein powders were single ingredient.
Right? Like I remember when I first went vegan, the only thing you could find was soy protein and then a couple years later you could find pea protein, which fun fact was called gamma back then. I don’t know why, why was it called gamma?
Giacomo:
Wait, see I missed out on this whole gamma thing. Was this on the vegan bodybuilding forum that everyone’s calling on Gamma? Was it bodybuilding.com where did. Cuz I didn’t see any of this.
Dani:
It was like the True protein website, the only place you could get it.
Giacomo:
Okay, gotcha.
Dani:
It’s gamma protein. Then you could get like a rice protein protein or eventually I found a hemp protein. But now I feel like almost every single vegan protein that comes out is a blend. It’s a blend. And specifically for that reason, because they’re trying to make their one item, this, their protein powder have the best amino pro amino acid profile unto itself.
That’s why they’re making them all blends, so they can take their canister of their protein powder and hold it up next to a canister of whey and be like, look, the amino acid profile is just as good as whey by itself.
Giacomo:
Well, what I can appreciate are that there are countless blends, well, more than I could count on one hand, of different kinds of plant based proteins in protein powder formulas that all mirror the amino acid profile of whey. So I kind of dig that. And different ones taste different, they have different textures, et cetera, et cetera. So. So yeah, there’s plenty options out there. There used to be only rice and pea, but now there’s all kinds of blends.
Dani:
Yeah, there’s tons of blends. But the next myth that I have here is actually that. Let me read it how I wrote it. Whoops. You need protein shakes on a vegan diet.
Giacomo:
Really? Is that really still a myth?
Dani:
Yes. And we get these applications in our inbox protocol pretty frequently that they want to build muscle, they want to get lean, but they don’t want to drink three protein shakes a day because that’s what they think they have to do in order to either get the amount of protein they need to get in or hit their macro profile. The way that they need to is that they’re going to need to have one or multiple protein shakes per day. And I just want to say if you don’t want to have protein shakes,
you, you don’t need to have any because I don’t almost ever have protein powder. I don’t use. I don’t do protein shakes. The only time I really ever do a protein shake is occasionally I’ll do the Owen drinks that are like pre made, which I guess technically is a protein shake. But those are not like an everyday. I mean, you know how long we’ve had those bottles? We’ve had them for a long time. I don’t, I don’t care for protein powder. Like, I just don’t like it in your oats.
Giacomo:
Come on.
Dani:
That is disgusting.
Giacomo:
No, no, no, no. We’re not gonna shame pros. People love. I love pros. I think pros is really good when.
Dani:
So Giacomo eats pros once a day. And I’m telling you, I can smell it from up here while he’s cooking it. I can smell when he is cooking protein powder because I don’t like it at all. I. I do not like protein powder. I will, I’ll throw out a couple of exceptions here. One, the Owen drinks.
Two Tolerable. Two. Phytoprotein fyta. That is actually probably the best tasting protein powder I’ve ever had. And it tastes different than all the other ones, all the other ones can take a long walk off a short pier. I do not like them, so.
Giacomo:
Oh, gosh.
Dani:
I don’t even remember the last time I incorporated them regularly into my life. 2012, maybe. Like, it’s been a long time. And I used to be of the same mindset. I was having two to three scoops of protein powder every day when I first got into this vegan fitness thing.
And I think that’s actually probably why I hate it so much now is because I just, like, overdid it. But like I said, I’ve had protein goals as high as like 160, 165. And I’ve been able to hit that without issue. Without protein.
Giacomo:
Oh, it’s super easy. You can make your own seitan. You can get some, say, deli slices and make a nice sandwich. You can get some high protein. But fava bean tofu is out of this world.
Dani:
Oh, yeah, I’ve never used that either.
Giacomo:
Foods One, I think it is. We got it at Hannaford’s over here. I didn’t think we had access to it in the Northeast, but Hannaford’s carries it.
Dani:
I still haven’t even tried it.
Giacomo:
Sprouts, possibly.
Dani:
He’s brought some shirt. Carries it.
Giacomo:
It’s really good. I hope that you can get it anywhere. It’s. The texture is good, the taste is good. It’s got. It’s like almost straight protein. I don’t even know if there’s any carbs and fats in it. And it’s.
Dani:
No, it’s zero carbs, zero fat. And I actually don’t think it’s so there’s quite a few products out there that have these insane macro profiles that are straight lies. I’ll give you some examples. We’re going to go on a. We’re going to go on a journey for a second here. So there’s some branch chain amino acids slash essential amino acid type pills you can take that. Tell you if you take five capsules, you got 25 grams of protein.
Like, how. How could you get 25 grams of protein when you didn’t even eat 25 grams of food, my friend? Because somehow they have skirted some laws where they’re like, no, it’s the equivalent of 25 grams. Get out of here. Like, I don’t understand how that’s legal. 2. What is that ridiculous? Peanut butter. What’s the peanut butter?
Giacomo:
You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking. So we’re on the same wavelength. Cool.
Dani:
I forget the name of the Peanut butter.
Giacomo:
Wow.
Dani:
No, no, it’s like a. It’s like a professor something something.
Giacomo:
Yeah. Kooky label.
Dani:
Anyway, it’s a freaking peanut butter that claims that it has almost no fat because it has fiber in it. And the fiber, you see, binds to the fat, and it just goes right through you. That is quite literally one of the craziest things that I’ve ever seen a company try to pull off. Like, imagine if you could just add fiber to all of your foods that had fats, and just suddenly it wouldn’t have fat in it anymore. I cannot believe this company gets away with that crap.
Giacomo:
Yeah. You could eat as much of this thing as you want because you’re not gonna digest it and you’re gonna poop it. Right? Like one. Do you want to be eating something like that?
Dani:
It’s like the olestra thing, but no, olestra at least made sense. Like, I would not recommend eating olestra, but olestra literally bound to the fat and it took it right out of you. That’s why people were crapping their pants in public.
Giacomo:
Again, this doesn’t sound like a good idea.
Dani:
This thing we’re talking about, it’s just peanut butter and fiber. What? Ugh.
Giacomo:
There’s gotta be a better way to stick to your calorie deficit than eating foods that are literally going to make you sick digestively like that.
Dani:
So we’re going to come back from my side rant for a second. The fava bean tofu, that’s zero carbs, zero fat. You’re probably like, no, that can’t be right. This is one of those foods. I actually think that it is right, because soybeans are particularly high in fat compared to other legumes. Right. And when you make tofu, you remove most of the carbohydrates. A serving of Tofu is like 2 grams of carbs, but it’s still got like 5 or 6 grams of fat, depending, because soybeans are high in
fat. Fava beans are not high in fat. So there’s no fat left over because there was no fat to begin with. So if they are also extracting the vast majority of the carbs, as long as they can get the carb count per serving, under a half a gram per serving, they can legally write 00 under carbs and fat.
Giacomo:
Okay. And I wonder, though, if they’re doing this where in the same way that other companies pull moves where it’s like, okay, it’s this thing has 1 gram of carbs, you know, grams of fat, because they. They can claim that on the label. But in reality it probably has like 2, 3, 4 grams of carbs and like 2 grams of fat. You know what I mean?
Dani:
I think it’s about as close to zero, zero as you can get. The serving size is normal. It’s not like they did what spray cans of oil do where they say it’s zero calories in the can of oil because they’re like a serving size is a quarter of a second spray. So it has a half, like a half a gram of fat. So they can call it zero.
Giacomo:
That’s hysterical. That kind of logic just kills me. But you should feel better for a minute though.
Dani:
But I get it. But I do think the fava bean tofu is legit anyway. And it’s not protein powder because you don’t need to, you don’t need to eat protein powders as a vegan.
Giacomo:
Right. We’re getting off topic, but we’re just so excited we came back to the topic.
Dani:
This is not to say that there’s anything wrong with using protein powder as a vegan. Giacomo uses it every day, multiple times a day, consistently. And I hate the smell of it, like I just said. But you know, it works for him. It’s convenient. He likes the taste of it. Most of my clients use a protein powder once a day because they like the taste of it. It’s convenient. It’s actually pretty affordable. It’s a pretty affordable way to get protein.
Giacomo:
Big thing for me. I absolutely love the fact that it’s one of, if not the most affordable sources of protein. I enjoy it for that reason alone. But also I think it’s super convenient.
Dani:
I’d pay like five times the price to not have it.
Giacomo:
And I do like the fact that protein powders tend to have not tend to. They have a pretty good amino acid profile.
Dani:
Let’s see. Moving on to our next myth. Vegan proteins are harder to digest.
Giacomo:
Vegan proteins are hard. Vegan proteins are easier to digest.
Dani:
I think that you are correct on the whole. I think that if you were to take a whole bunch of blank slate people and feed them a bunch of meat or, or feed them a bunch of plants, I think that the plant people would probably have an easier time digesting. But we are not blank slates. We are cumulative people of our entire lives.
So if somebody has not eaten a very plant forward diet for a long time or maybe ever, when they start eating plant based proteins like legumes, they’re probably going to be pretty gassy and bloated for a while. Because they’re not used to it yet. So there’s that. But I would argue that all protein is hard to digest.
Giacomo:
Oh, sure. It literally your body has to burn calories to metabolize protein. And it takes longer to metabolize protein. Yes, protein in general is. And then also if you’re looking to up your protein, it doesn’t matter if you’re vegan or not. That in of itself is going to. Cause there’s going to be a period of time.
Dani:
That’s what I was going to say. This is true across the board. So what you just mentioned about it’s hard for our body to digest and that it uses a lot of energy, calories for our body to digest it and it digests slowly, which are actually two of the main selling points of protein in the first place, is that it’s filling, it’s satiating, and you burn more calories digesting it than you would carbohydrates or fat. So the downsides are also the upsides, I guess.
But anybody, vegan or otherwise, that’s looking to increase their protein, let’s say they’re just getting into fitness and they did a calculator online that says they need to get 130 grams of protein a day, but they’re currently only getting 50 grams of protein a day and they decide they’re gonna bump it up to 130 overnight. I don’t care if you’re vegan or not vegan, you’re gonna be uncomfortable.
Giacomo:
Oh yeah, totally, totally.
Dani:
Yep. And I don’t think you’re gonna be more uncomfortable as a vegan. If anything, I think you’ll probably be less uncomfortable because you will also be eating fiber and hopefully that will help things move along a little quicker rather than having a big constipated bloated meat belly.
Giacomo:
Yeah, that’s the other thing. It’s the illusion that you’re digesting meat better or whatever, but in reality you’re just not getting in enough fiber and your food is not digesting well. And you just associate that for some reason with you not having digestive discomfort. And then when you go ahead and you adopt plant based proteins into your meals and perhaps even go on a plant based diet, and especially if you’re looking at your protein, all of a sudden you’re like, oh, okay,
well, it takes one a minute for your gut biome and your digestive system to catch up to speed with how you’re eating and what you’re eating. However, also your food is actually digesting and breaking Down. And that’s a different kind of sensation for someone who’s not used to digesting food well. And they’re like, oh well, this is harder to digest and bad. No, this is what it should be like.
Dani:
Let’S see. One I wrote down. But I don’t really want to get into it because I feel like it’s so, duh, it’s not even funny. But it’s just that you can’t build muscle using vegan protein. I mean, you see it in comment sections all over the place. I see it. No one says this one to me, but I see it daily online. And I, I can’t even, I mean, I could point out a hundred examples right now, this second of how that is clearly not true.
Giacomo:
Right.
Dani:
So I don’t really want to dive into that one a whole lot even worth it. This is a topic we’ve never talked about and it’s that kids cannot live on plant based proteins alone, meaning kids have to have animal based proteins as well that they won’t grow as well.
Giacomo:
And what’s the basis for that?
Dani:
I think just what people think like their own, their own thoughts about protein and animal based proteins and what we’ve been taught about, you know, a food pyramid and what it means to have a healthy balanced diet since we were kids. Like, I think that’s where it comes from. And I also think that up until fairly recently there hasn’t been much research on this topic.
So I think people were scared and I get that nobody wants to, nobody wants their kid to be the guinea pig for something, you know, so I understand why people were nervous about it. But I think for me it stands to reason that if a well planned vegan diet can support full grown male athletes through some of the biggest things in their life, it can absolutely grow a kid.
Now kids have different nutritional needs for sure, but you know, it’s, it’s heartening I think, to see the research that is coming out on this now because I think we are finally starting to see like the first generation of kids that have been vegan since they were like in utero. And what, what happens to those kids.
Giacomo:
You know, they walk around with twice as much energy as others. Stereo like, I mean it seems like vegan kids, I, maybe that’s our bias.
Dani:
Well, what he means is Daisy and Desmond have more energy than any kids.
Giacomo:
Derek and Marcel is saying the same thing about their children, how they seem to be so much more zippy than other children.
Dani:
I do, Yeah, n equals 2, I guess in this case. But who’s to say if that’s totally true or not? But you know, have you ever dealt with kids, like, has anybody who said this crap ever dealt with a kid? What is a kid eating when they’re three years old?
Giacomo:
French fries and peanut butter and just.
Dani:
It doesn’t even. It’s three things.
Giacomo:
Chicken strip.
Dani:
Yeah, it’s probably three things. They’re probably eating almost nothing. Yeah, you put food in front of them, they slap it away. You know, that’s every. I feel like that’s almost every kid is gonna go through that phase that sometimes lasts for years. So I know that’s very frustrating to every parent. Cause that certainly was frustrating to us.
And it’s still quite frustrating, I would say. But every parent is going through that. Like, there’s a lot of kids that are not eating a very well balanced diet sometimes for a couple years in there. You’re just getting like whatever food they will eat in them and they’re growing up just fine, you know. So if you actually take a kid who is eating a well balanced, well planned, plant based diet, you know, with appropriate supplementation like vitamin B12, which I think everybody
should be taking, making sure they’re getting their omegas, which again, everybody should be making sure they’re getting their omegas, like they’re going to be good, you’re going to be good. But you know, kids in general are not the epitome of health.
Giacomo:
Right. So while you’re trying to like get whatever you can into their stomach and you’re trying to appeal to their very limited palate and weird reasons for not wanting to eat things, when the kinds of foods that you’re getting into them are plant based, you’re more likely to get more nutrient dense stuff into their belly, which would stand to reason that would be better for them.
Dani:
Just saying. Okay, moving on. Next myth that soy protein is harmful.
Giacomo:
Specifically, is this the whole phytoestrogen thing? Have we not beaten this thing to death?
Dani:
We have beaten it to death, but we haven’t beaten it to death on this particular podcast.
Giacomo:
Let’s do it. Just one more.
Dani:
So we’ll, we’ll do it briefly. Soy contains something called phytoestrogens, plant estrogens, which are exactly that. They are plant estrogens. And not only do they not react in a human body the way that estrogen does, but they actually bind to estrogen receptors, thus sometimes blocking other estrogen and being helpful in the treatment of certain cancers. And like it’s preventative for certain cancers and heart disease.
Giacomo:
Right. But it’s not going to affect your estrogen levels negatively either at all.
Dani:
And this whole thing came from one study of one dude who drank a gallon of soy milk a day and developed gyno, which is like man boobs, basically. That is first of all a weird thing for somebody to do. Why? I mean, I could definitely drink a gallon of soy milk a day and I probably eat a gallon’s worth of soy milk in tofu pretty, pretty regularly. But in general, kind of a strange thing, right? And it was one guy, and since then it’s been studied over and over and over again.
And if, if eating soy actually increased people’s estrogen, we would know about it. If it increased people’s estrogen, they would be growing in their breasts, men and women. And if that was true, it would be a number one selling supplement in the world to women. And it is not. And the number of men who eat soy every single day with perfectly normal estrogen and testosterone levels is abundant. And I can’t help but point out. Sorry.
Giacomo:
No, no, go ahead.
Dani:
I can’t help but point out most of the people who say this are people who are not vegan and not plant based. And those folks are eating literal estrogenic secretions from pregnant and lactating mammals.
Giacomo:
What is that doing to their bodies? Is that affecting their estrogen levels?
Dani:
I mean, I don’t think that in general it is.
Giacomo:
Right, so here’s what we’re saying. You could literally consume estrogenic secretions from a cow’s uterus and still not affect your estrogen levels from a cow’s uterus. Well, I mean, someone had to get it out of there somehow for you.
Dani:
It’s not the uterus, babe.
Giacomo:
But whatever it is.
Dani:
Good anatomy, excellent anatomy, perfect there.
Giacomo:
Spot on as usual. My point is that you can get estrogenic secretions that are coming from a cow in cow’s milk and it’s still not going to affect your estrogen levels yet. Something that has the word estrogens in it, but it’s plant based. You’re going to try to argue that that’s going to affect your estrogen levels. Like, come on.
Dani:
Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, I would argue there’s lots of reasons you shouldn’t be consuming dairy milk, but that actually isn’t one of them. So why on earth would soy be just silly, silly, silly, silly.
Giacomo:
Seriously. And it has anti carcinogenic properties to it. The isoflavones that people are like beating to death with the science hammer, trying to like find something wrong with Them and there’s nothing wrong with them. They’re good for you.
Dani:
So we recorded a whole podcast on this, maybe even more than one. If you scroll back, you can find it, I’m sure. Very last one, because I know you have to go. Yeah, you have to go in a few minutes. So the very last one that I have here is that if all you consume for protein or vegan proteins, you’re going to be weak and tired all the time.
Giacomo:
Why? I’m still failing to understand where these myths are coming from. Usually when it comes to myths, don’t you have to bust them? This is kind of a duh. Some of these are so asinine that I want to hear the other side.
Dani:
Oh, I hear this. I mean, I am telling you that this comes up, people will message me and be like, I tried to be vegan, but I wasn’t getting enough protein, so I was tired eating enough and I had to stop. Protein does not give you energy of of the three macronutrients, proteins, carbohydrates and fats your body prefers go carbohydrates and fats for energy. It will only use protein for energy if it has to because you’re not giving it enough of the other two.
So if you’re feeling tired, asking, yeah, were you eating enough calories? Total is a great first question. And then, are you eating enough carbohydrates? Are you eating enough fat? Like, not, oh, I’m tired, so I must be eating, must not be eating enough protein.
Giacomo:
I’m eating more. Yeah, there’s more on your plate, but calorie wise, how much you eating? When you change to a plant based diet, you tend to eat less but have more on your plate, which is kind of a brag. Honestly. I kind of like that fact. Yeah, right.
Dani:
But it would mean it would be like your car running out of gas and you frantically trying to put more oil in the tank. Like, yes, oil helps a car run, but that is not the problem here. So when people are like, oh, I was tired so I couldn’t stay vegan anymore, it’s like nine times out of ten they weren’t eating enough. That was actually the problem having nothing to do with the plant based protein or not. It’s just sheer calories.
Giacomo:
Calories are energy that they’re devoid of nutrients. Which is ridiculous because a plant based diet has even more nutrients than a typical diet.
Dani:
Yes. I mean, I do think everybody should be supplementing with vitamin B12. Lack of vitamin B12 will absolutely make you feel, feel a lack of energy.
Giacomo:
Across the board though.
Dani:
But that won’t. It takes you about seven years to deplete your vitamin B12 stores to the point that you’re going to feel it. Which is why so many people go vegan, don’t take any supplements, and they’re like, I don’t even need to take supplements. I feel fine because it hasn’t hit them yet and I hope it never does. But you know, somebody that went vegan for three months and then was tired, that’s not vitamin B12. That’s probably just a lack of energy. So yeah.
Giacomo:
Anyway, anything else that you want?
Dani:
Oh, I could keep going.
Giacomo:
Same. I have so many thoughts.
Dani:
I could definitely keep going to myself.
Giacomo:
Because there’s only so much we can get out in conversation here.
Dani:
But what myths have you heard about vegan protein specifically? Let us know down in the comments because I have a whole bunch more of these and if you guys give us some more, maybe we can make a whole other podcast out of it too. Yeah. So thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. If you are interested in any kind of one on one coaching, that is what we are best known for here at Vegan Proteins and we have been doing it since 2008.
You can go ahead and fill out a coaching application in the description down below and you will probably hear back from Giacomo. If you have any questions, feel free to email them to coachveganproteins.com and feel free to follow us on YouTube, Instagram, all the places. Once again, my name is Dani and I’m Giacomo and we will talk to you soon.
Giacomo:
Bye.
