Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to episode eight of the Deficient Vegans podcast. I'm the muscle deficient vegan and here with the protein deficient vegan. You wanna say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:06

Hi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:07

Hi. So happy New Year, everybody. Today is January 1st, 2024. January, if you don't know, also starts vegan, which, uh, is in the month of January. People will try a plant-based diet or try out the vegan lifestyle if they're maybe thinking about, uh, transitioning to something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:26

And did you know a lot of people that try out vegan actually stay vegan?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:29

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's pretty. It's a

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:31

pretty good ratio.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:33

Yeah. So in the spirit of the January, we're gonna go over some kind of tips and tricks for going plant-based.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:40

Over the years, I've gotten a lot of questions about like, don't you have cravings for meat and dairy products? Which I think is a pretty normal question because a lot of people are omnivorous before they decide to go plant-based. So we've put together like. A list of our favorite swaps for like condiments, meat cheeses.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:59

So for condiments, we've got Follow Your Heart Mayonnaise and Follow Your Heart Ranch dressing. You can find both of those at the grocery store. They're both, uh, really good substitutions.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07

Yeah, I think I like the ranch dressing even better than like Hidden Valley, honestly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11

Yeah, the ranch dressing is actually really good. Then for some meat alternatives, there's a brand called Garine, G-A-R-D-E-I-N. That makes a whole lot of stuff like uh,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21

fish filets,

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fish filets, chicken tenders, obviously not real fish or chicken. Yeah, just vegan substitutions,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26

crab cakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:27

Oh, they're crab cakes are really good. I think

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:29

like they're seafood. Alternatives are probably the best we've found.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:33

And they also have a lot of good like fake chicken stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:35

Yeah. There's also a cool brand called Meaty that's kind of new, but they use mushroom root and make it kind of like a fake pulled meat type situation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:44

Yeah. Honestly, the texture is so close for what I can remember that it's, I don't like it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:50

I like it. It's really good in tacos.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:53

The next one is Morningstar, which has been around forever. And when I was a vegetarian and a little kid, I had Morningstar all the time. They still have a lot of really good vegan meat alternatives, like their veggie corn. Dogs are fire.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:07

Yeah. Also you've probably heard of Beyond and Impossible for Burger patties. I think they're pretty interchangeable. They both are patties of fake meat, so you can use them the same way you would use any other patty of meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:21

I think they also have like sausages and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:23

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:23

Not really my cup of tea. Yeah. I don't, I just don't really like that stuff. They're,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:27

they're not outstanding, but they fit the bill if you really need to substitute in hamburgers or something. Yeah. If

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:31

you're really missing it, I think it, it'll do,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:34

yeah. Also for something like sandwiches, uh, to Turkey deli slices are pretty good. It's basically tofu shaped like deli Turkey slices. Yeah, so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:43

the macros are good too, I think. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:44

they have a pretty high protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:46

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:46

So also, uh, plant-based jerkies, there's the Louisville Vegan Jerky Company. They make a lot of good vegan jerky. One of my favorite flavors is the Smoky Carolina Barbecue. And for another primary protein source, Satan is a great option. We really like the Blackbird brand of Satan. Now you can get it in some stores, but we just order it from their website. They do mail order. They have a really good barbecue flavor.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:08

Ooh, yeah. That one's my favorite.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:10

Yeah. And the original flavor is good. We using like stir fries and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:14

Yeah. The barbecue one, we just straight up eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:16

Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:17

Like little cave people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:18

Yeah, it's really easy to cook. It's probably, I mean, if you're looking for a meat substitute that's really easy to cook, you basically, they're actually pre-cooked, so you just kind of heat 'em back up in a pan or something and you can just eat it like a big pile of pulled meat. Next we have some cheese substitutions, so Follow Your Heart has a bunch of good cheeses. One of the ones we really like is they Parmesan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:35

Yeah, it browns really good in the oven, so we like to use it on like casseroles. It's good on pizzas too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:40

Yeah. And that's like a graded Parmesan, so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:42

I wouldn't use it in anything cold. Like you definitely wanna heat this one up 'cause it like the texture is like so on point when it's baked.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:49

Also, if you're looking for a block of Parmesan, we like veal life for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:53

Yes. And we also like peaceful rebel.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:57

Oh yeah, they

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:57

have a pretty good Parmesan block and it's made out of tofu, so

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:00

yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:00

it doesn't have like crazy amounts of protein, but it definitely has more than any of the other ones. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:04

that's a new one. We've, we've just recently tried, but I really like it also for shredded cheeses, like your, like Mexican cheese or shredded cheddars. We typically use veal life for those. They've actually got a Mexican flavor and a cheddar, you know, flavor and a couple other ones as well. Mozzarella, I think they even have a mozzarella. Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:21

We really like it on like nachos. Quesadilla is. I also like adding it to tofu scramble. It gives it like a little bit extra texture.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:28

Yeah. It kinda holds it together really well. Yeah. Yeah. DIA also has decent shredded cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:34

It used to suck, but it's gotten a lot better.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:36

Yeah, I agree with that. And then for making pizzas and casserole, the KO's liquid mozzarella,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:43

it is so good. It browns, but it's also like nice and creamy, and you don't normally get that with mozzarella normally. It's like. Oily. Yeah. And gets kind of like liquidy and disgusting, but like this one bakes really nice and it tastes great on pizza or casseroles. They didn't really have 'em in stores, but I've seen 'em in a lot more stores now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:05

Yeah, it was really hard to find other than just ordering online for a while, but we've seen it a couple places now. Also, KO's has some artisan cheeses, so there's a couple special ones we use for different sauces and things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:16

The sun dried tomato one is super awesome because you can just literally heat it up with your favorite plant-based milk and you have an instant like pasta sauce.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:25

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:26

One of our favorites is Nuts for Cheese. They have some really good artisan cheese wedges and they all taste really good on like crackers. They just spread really nice.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:34

Yeah. And there, there's a company here local to Chicago called Cheese and Thank you. That has a a bunch of really good options. They can also be found in Whole Foods, I think, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:43

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're lucky enough to live close to Chicago, they have popups and you can try out other random crap. They don't sell at the store.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:50

Yeah. Also if you like feta cheese, follow your heart has some feta crumbles that you can put on pretty much all the same things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:57

Yeah, I really like it on salads or like even heated up. It's really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:00

Yeah. And then, uh, cream cheese via life has, uh, cream cheese, but also Philadelphia has some cream cheeses coming out now that are vegan and those are pretty good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:10

Yeah. I feel like VO life in Philadelphia are really similar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:13

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:14

Really good for bagels. Probably don't cook with these because they're coconut oil based. Yeah, and they will turn into actual liquid. So if you're gonna cook, probably use them. Yo Yoko's cream cheese and the texture's like a little more grainy than the other ones. It's not as smooth, but it tastes good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:31

Yeah. Oh, and then if you're looking for sliced cheese, we don't use this very often, but follow your heart does have some sliced cheese, and actually Kraft just recently came out with sliced vegan cheeses, so they're actually pretty good. I think that's probably the go-to from now on. Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:45

they don't melt exactly the same as real cheese, unless if you add water to your pan after you put it on like a burger or something, and then put the cheese on top and then you add like a spritz of water and cover the pan. It has enough humidity to actually get the cheese to melt, and then it's fucking awesome.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:04

Yeah. All right. So that's all the, the cheese options we have, there's a lot of other ones out there. Those are just the ones that we, we've tried, uh, a lot of them. So those are just the ones we kind of keep coming back to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:14

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:15

Next we have a bunch of snack options. So one of the weird things when you kind of switch to. Going vegan or plant-based is, you know, the, the big substitutions, like the ones we just talked about are a problem. But really day to day, one of the trickier things is trying to figure out what snacks you like now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:30

Just like most of the bigger snack brands are not vegan, and sometimes they'll just have like tiny amounts of milk powder or something that's in them, and that makes them not vegan, even though everything else is vegan. So that's annoying.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:42

Yeah, we do have a couple we found that are good and more are coming out every day. Right. But there's a brand called Lesser Evil that actually has really good snacks. I think You like the white cheddar popcorn a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:52

Yeah. Not all of their snacks are vegan, but they do have a couple really good vegan ones.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:56

Yeah. Okay. Also, if you like chocolate, there's a lot of really good vegan chocolate now. Plant-based Reese cups. Plant-based Hershey bars. Lint chocolate. Yep. Has a couple of oat based chocolates. Uh, they actually have some new oat truffles that are really good. And then there's another brand called Unreal that does some chocolates. They have some peanut butter cups and some chocolate, uh, bars also.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:17

Yep. Yeah. And then for ice cream. We have a lot of ice cream choices nowadays, and I really like the Ben and Jerry's non-dairy ones. Yeah, I feel like they're just as good as the original dairy ones.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:28

Uh, those are my favorite and I can't tell a difference between those and the dairy ones. Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:31

I can't either. No. And then Fry's has a really good non-dairy vanilla that's made with oat milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:38

Oh yeah, that vanilla is super good. That's, I think

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:40

it's better than any vanilla I've ever had. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:41

I think the briar's oat milk vanilla is like the ice cream you should put on top of a pie or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:46

Yeah, it's super, super good

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:47

for, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:49

And then Notam Mo has pines that are really good. Lots of different flavors. So Delicious has good ice cream bars. And then we actually just tried a brand that's pretty new called Wicked, and their ice cream bars are pretty good too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:00

Yeah. Oh yeah, the wicked ones were really good. They had a strawberry one that was super cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:05

Berry. Oh, Berry White.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:06

Yeah, Berry White was the flavor name. It was awesome. It was really good. And then for cookies, Oreo has some vegan flavors and nut butters are vegan. And then there's a brand called Sweet Lorenz. They're uh, it's just like cookie dough. You need to bake, but they're vegan. And then there's a cool snack called drizzle. We get off Amazon, but it's basically just like a tiny rice cake drizzled in vegan chocolate.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:26

Yeah. And they come in like a hundred calorie snack packs. So they're really good if you're like, you know, trying to manage your calories too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:33

But still want something sweet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:34

Right. So now that we got all the very unhealthy snacks out of the way, I mean, obviously we don't eat a lot of this stuff, but you know, everybody's gotta have something around you. You're gonna go crazy. So anyway, we also have protein bars. So vegan protein bars are uh, varied.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:50

Yes. And we. Very much disagree with each other on protein bars.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:54

Yeah, so I actually like the no cow protein bars

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:59

because he has horrible taste,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:02

but they're, they're very, they're like a soft chew protein bar instead of like a hard dry protein. They're so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:08

disgusting actually.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:10

Well, they have a lot of flavors and I really like them. So

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:13

anyways, it's okay to be wrong sometimes, but if you want something that tastes good, I would go with misfits or the bare be plant-based bars.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:21

Yeah, bare be are actually really good. Not as good as NoCal, but bare be are good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:24

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:27

Okay. Also, you're probably eventually gonna want to go eat at a restaurant and not make food or eat food at your house at least once or twice a year. Right. So, so it's kind of tricky to find vegan options at some restaurants. Yeah. There are a couple of those that are pretty reliable for being able to go and pick up some, you know, food relatively quickly and, and be consistent.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:44

Yeah. Like if you're traveling or like you're desperate.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:47

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:47

Taco Bell or Chipotle have pretty decent options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:50

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:51

Um, and then if you don't already have this app. You should get it. It's called Happy Cow and it's kind of like Google Reviews, but it's just for vegans and vegetarians and it has saved us many times.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:02

Yeah. Happy Cow. Ever since we found it has really changed the game on how we can eat while we travel. I mean, it's still not amazing, right? It's still hard to find places. Yes. But Happy Cow will at least show you all the options.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:12

Right. It doesn't create options, but it shows you what's there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:15

Yeah. And there's actually in a lot of places, there's a lot more there than you would think. So it's been super helpful and highly recommend.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:22

The next thing you might run into is just social settings, like whether it's family gatherings, social outings, work functions and stuff where there just aren't going to be plant-based options. So it's important to have conversations upfront, like letting people know your dietary restrictions or bringing your own food, but especially if you're gonna do it long term, you definitely wanna have a plan for those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:43

Yeah, I agree. And also the bulk of what you're probably gonna be eating as a vegan is gonna be stuff that you cook yourself there. There's not enough, you know, packaged prepared, especially healthy food out there to really sustain you a lot. Especially, I mean, it's gonna be expensive if you try to do it that way. Oh

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:57

yeah. Especially the meat and dairy substitutions can get really pricey.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:00

Yeah. So I mean, you, you really want to probably get pretty comfortable with cooking your own food. Yeah. And how to use spices and I mean, you definitely go out there and experiment, try some things, you know, some, we've tried some of that and it's worked out pretty well. Yep. So, but you know, just get a little comfortable. You can make some easy things at first, you know, obviously we have a lot of recipes on the website. You can go through and try, but you, you should really get adventurous with cooking your own food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:22

Yeah, for sure. Especially since a lot of restaurants, the vegan options are trash.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:28

Yes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:28

And you can almost always make something better at home than you can. At a restaurant, unless you're going to like a vegan specific restaurant. Yeah. Where they actually have vegan chefs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:36

Yeah. Most standard restaurants. The vegan option is just to take all the protein and calories off of the dish and give you the lettuce that's leftover. Right. So that's not very, it's a very sad way to live. Speaking of protein, so protein is one thing that you obviously wanna focus on, especially if you have fitness goals. And on a vegan diet, your protein sources are gonna be a lot different than they are basically. None of the stuff you used for protein probably as an omnivore, is gonna be stuff you can use for protein on a vegan diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:02

Yeah. So if you are switching from omnivore to plant-based and you're just taking out all of your animal proteins and all of your animal derived products and you're not adding in anything new like plant-based. Proteins, you are probably gonna be deficient.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:17

Yeah. I mean, swap into like beans and lentils will only get you so far and it's probably sufficient protein to be healthy, but it, it's gonna be a pretty low protein diet unless you intentionally seek out the primary protein sources that vegans use. Yeah. Which are like. TBP Tofu, Satan, Tempe. Yep. And, uh, wheat gluten are the, really, the primary, like very high protein percentage sources. And if you, uh, are unclear with how to use TBP or tofu, which are two of our favorites, we've actually got, uh, dedicated articles on the website about each of those now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:49

Yep. And creative ways to use them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:51

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:52

Now onto plant-based versus vegan. They're used pretty interchangeably, but. And dietary wise, they're almost the same, but, um. Other intents and purposes, they are not the same.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:04

So, uh, plant-based usually does mean in terms of food. It does mean vegan, but some things that are marked plant-based or even some people who say I'm following a plant-based diet, that can mean predominantly plant-based, but they still include some animal products. So you do wanna be careful, not everything that says plant-based is a hundred percent vegan. And, you know, plant-based really just focuses on the food. So if somebody says they're plant-based, they're probably not following a vegan lifestyle and things outside of food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:29

Yeah, it's usually for like health purposes. Yeah. You might go plant-based or maybe like environmental impact.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:34

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:34

Um, now veganism, that's a lifestyle and people are vegans for ethical reasons around, you know, animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:41

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:42

Which we won't go into all that here. Lots of good articles you could read.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:45

But we will talk about some of the things you might wanna look out for if you are trying out veganism.'cause there's a lot of hidden. Animal derived stuff in a lot of different things. Like things that

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:56

really blow your mind sometimes. Like why did they use this and this thing? It doesn't matter.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:01

It makes no sense. Like clothing, accessory, shoes, you really gotta be careful what you buy specifically around like shoes and purses.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:09

Yeah, because they put all, I mean, the obvious thing is leather, right? But there's way more than that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:12

Oh yeah. There's like silk and down or feathers, suede, animal derived glues. Yeah, the

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:17

glues are And dyes crazy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:19

Yeah, so like shoes, you wanna make sure you're getting vegan shoes. Even if they don't use leather, they might still not be vegan. So there are lots of good comprehensive lists out there that talk about like which shoes, which purses or leather. I don't know a lot about shoes and purses, so you are gonna have to Google that. Some of the

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:35

brands are coming around. Some of the bigger brands like Nike do have a couple of vegan simulations. Yeah, so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:39

Hoka has some really good, you know, athletic shoes. Yeah. The next one is like beauty products and cosmetics. Those can be kind of hard to figure out because you might see like a cruelty free label, which actually doesn't necessarily mean it's vegan. It could just mean they don't test on animals, but they still use animal products, which is bizarre.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:58

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:59

But that's just something, they're also like good lists for what is and isn't vegan. And a lot of stores have like a filter. You can filter products by what's vegan now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:08

Oh, that's pretty cool. I know that's historically been kind of one of the harder things to track down the source of and what was really done through production and things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:15

Yeah. On food, there's some like hidden non-vegan ingredients like honey gelatin, anything fortified with lanolin, you'd find that in like cereals. Yeah, so basically those aren't vegan, you know, watch out for those. Pretty much includes any. Gummy bears. Yeah, gummy worms. They do make vegan ones. But yeah, just stuff to keep an eye out for.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:36

So a lot of alcohol is also not vegan. Beers and wines and, you know, uh, liquors, some of those can be vegan, some of them can't. I think your best bet is probably just to Google the ones you like and see whether they're vegan or not. Yeah. There's a lot of, uh. Nuance in there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:50

We don't drink enough to give you advice on that. Another weird one is toilet paper. That just blows my mind, but most toilet papers are not vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:59

Yeah, that was really surprising actually.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:02

Yeah, so I mean, you still have to wipe in public, but like at home, maybe try a vegan toilet paper brand.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:08

Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:08

we really like who gives a crap.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:10

So yeah. If this sounds interesting to you and you're curious about some of these swaps and different types of substitutions and just generally about plant-based, we actually put together a free ebook on the website. I'll put the link to it in the show notes, or you can just go to the website and you'll see a popup and you can get it that way. It also includes a macro cheat sheet for your macronutrients, like we talked about last week. It's got a weekly meal plan inspiration, which is basically like a base weekly meal plan, but you can add some stuff to it to get a little more calories out of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:38

Yeah, it's like each day is around 1500 to 1750 calories with about 120 grams of protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:44

That's obviously not gonna work for everyone. Most people are gonna eat more than that. So it's just to

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:48

show you how to get your protein at least guaranteed using, you know, some of our recipes admittedly, but you know, you do get pie almost every day with this meal plan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:57

No, you get it every day. Well, pie or, or cheesecake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:00

Yeah. You get pie or cheesecake every day with this meal plan. Still hit your protein goals and your calories goals and have room to spare on your calories. So beat that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:07

What more could you want?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:08

Right? So we also have 12 recipes in the book. You might have already heard of some of'em 'cause we talk about 'em here also. But if you're new to the podcast, we'll talk about, you know, kind of which ones we've included in the book here for the meal plan. So we've got first the blueberry, high protein blueberry smoothie bowl.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:23

Yep. And that's just normal smoothie bowl except we used extra firm silk and tofu. And you could of course use this recipe as like a base and switch out. You know, whatever fruit you wanna use.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:34

Next up we've got a tofu scramble. So if you're used to scramble and eggs in the morning as an omnivore, tofu scramble is a really great substitution, just as easy to make and super delicious. Yeah. You can even make it look like eggs by putting some turmeric on it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:46

Yeah. And you could. Make a pretty big batch of it and just kind of eat it throughout the week.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:50

We also have TVP protein, pumpkin craisin muffins.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:54

These are super good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:55

They are super good. We were a little surprised the first time we tried TVP for muffins at how well they turned out. But I mean, they're just as good as any other breakfast muffin and, and they're healthy, so yeah. Yeah. Uh, for some

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:07

lunch options, we have a high protein Creb Rangoon dip. You could put this in a tortilla or eat it with tortilla chips, but it's a really good, easy lunch option and you can pack it and you don't need to heat it up 'cause you eat it cold. Yeah. So

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:21

this is also a good one for maybe a snack. We've also got a high protein black bean pumpkin quesadilla. So if you like quesadillas, we've got you covered here. Black bean and pumpkin. You, if you haven't tried a lot of pumpkin flavored things, you might be like, uh, what the hell is that gonna taste like? It's good though, I can tell you it tastes really great. Pumpkin. You can't really taste the pumpkin when you cook it like this. It just kind of makes it a little sweeter and more moist.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:41

So yeah, and adds it some veggies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:42

Yeah, it's really delicious though.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:45

It's super quick to make too. Next up is a high protein tofu salad. This has a ranch dressing that we actually made out of tofu. And then it also has tofu crumbles, so. I really like it. I think the ranch tastes pretty similar to normal ranch dressing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:59

Yeah, it's really good. It, it tastes, I think I like it better than the follow your heart ranch we talked about earlier, honestly. But you know, you had to make it every time, so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:07

Yeah. And it doesn't keep for like, you know, two months or anything.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:10

Yeah. Because of the tofu. It doesn't stay as long as the normal ranch does. Next we have a high protein garlicy mushroom Alfredo. So if you like pasta, this is like a nice. Heavy pasta that's gonna keep you full, but it's high protein. You got a lot of garlic in it, and if you like mushrooms, this is loaded with them. So

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:25

yes. And mushrooms are pretty good in protein, so That's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:28

Yeah. And delicious.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:30

And delicious. So good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:31

Also, got a high protein pasta primavera, so this has a a ton of veggies into it. And what's the sauce?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:38

The sauce is made out of extra firm silk and tofu too. It's kind of like a cheesy Alfredo sauce.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:42

Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:43

but this one's fun because you can basically customize it any way you want. Like if you have. If there are veggies on this that you don't like, you can swap 'em out with something else. Yeah. Make different kind every week.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:54

Yeah. Mix and match. Yep. Oh, we also have a high protein stuffed portobello mushroom. So this is basically a huge portobella mushroom cap stuffed with a bunch of TVP

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:03

Yeah. And Parmesan and like, uh, spinach.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:05

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:06

It's freaking delicious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:07

Yeah. These mushrooms when they cook this way are just like so moist.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:10

Yeah. And you don't have to rehydrate the TVP first. You just like mix it in and I don't know, it cooks really well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:17

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:18

It takes like five minutes of actual work.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:20

Yeah, pretty fast.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:21

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:21

And then into the, uh, dessert slash snack section, if you want to call it that. I mean, they're high protein, but high protein dessert is a thing. No. So we got a high protein triple chocolate cheesecake.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:31

I love this thing more than anything.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:35

Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, I think I could sit down and eat this whole thing at once if I really needed to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:41

Oh yeah, me too. Yeah, easily. I could also eat the next one, which is the peanut butter chocolate protein cheesecake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:46

Mm, yeah. Peanut butter chocolate. Basically a big high protein Reese's pie. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:50

It's ridiculous. I can't even believe it has like tofu in it. It's,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:55

yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:55

Stupid good. Actually, we got our family to try the chocolate cheesecake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:59

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:00

And they liked it. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:01

And again, no protein powder in these, it's all tofu, TVP and the peanut butter one actually uses the PB fit peanut butter powder. Mm-hmm. Which is still natural. It's just, you know, kind of crushed up peanuts and

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:14

Yeah. I don't know if they take some of the fat out, I think. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's really good though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:17

Next up, we have a chocolate and vanilla pudding pie. Basically we've got, uh, separate recipes for chocolate pudding and vanilla pudding using soak and tofu. So we just kind of combine those together into a pudding pie. And then we've got this like peanut butter, powdered sugar crumble, and we just sprinkle it on top and it goes on, uh, like a normal cookie crust. So it's really good if you like pudding pies. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:37

It's only 20% protein, but you know, you pair it with some of the higher protein dishes throughout the day and you can get away with it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:43

Yeah. Well, where are you gonna find another pudding pilot that's anywhere near a 20% profile?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:46

I, I don't think they make those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:47

So if you were gonna try out the meal plan that we put in the ebook, it's also got a shopping list included so that you can just get everything at once in one trip. All right, so that's it for this week. Next week we are gonna talk about micronutrients. Hopefully. I know if you were have been following along, maybe you were expecting that this week, but there's a lot going on in micronutrients, so I make sure we have time to kind of get that information into a form that makes sense and just get the relevant things out of it for you. So we will try to tackle that between now and then. So check out our website and if you have any questions, as always, feel free to reach out. You can reach out through the contact form on the website through the social medias. Uh, we have in the show notes or um, at podcast@deficientvegans.com. Well do you wanna say bye

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:28

Bye.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:29

Bye everybody.