Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to episode 11 of the Deficient Vegans podcast. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient Vegan. Do you wanna say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:06

Hi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:07

Hi. So, it's been a little while since we had our last episode. We've actually gone through a lot of, uh, changes with the website and kind of the way we're structuring things. So we wanted to reset a little bit before we kept up on this path. Uh, we had the Vegans fitness website for a while. We've actually split it up now into the protein deficient vegan.com website, which is mostly food and recipes focusing on protein, all vegan obviously. And then we have also the muscle deficient vegan.com website, which is more around, uh, fitness and, uh, general health nutrition. Type, uh, information seemed easier to split this up a little bit 'cause some people really only have have an interest on one or the other. If you have an interest in both, we do kind of cross link between the websites and stuff like that. So anyway, uh, with those updates, we'll have those links in the show notes and, uh, we can move forward from here.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:53

Pretend this is season two.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:55

Yeah. So in this episode we're gonna talk about what does it actually mean for a food to be high protein?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02

So, uh, there are a lot of different marketing terms out there for food in general, but protein is one of them. Uh, you'll see foods that say they're high protein. You look on the label. It's not necessarily that high protein. You see foods that say just protein, that, what does that mean? Almost all food has protein. So they're just trying to use that as a marketing term to get people to buy it, even if it's not really a high protein food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23

They're liars

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24

sometimes. Yeah, it does seem that way. They

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26

just want your money,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:27

right? So, uh, high protein food in general. Why do you even want to eat a high protein food? It helps you get closer to your daily protein goal. We've covered protein goals on a couple of the previous episodes and also on the website. And we'll have a link to, uh, a blog article about protein goals in the show notes here. So we're not gonna cover that end of it too much. We're just gonna talk about the food itself and what makes it high protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:47

Basically, if you have a calorie target and a protein target. There's gonna be a certain percentage of your calories that are coming from protein. So the way I like to think about it when I'm eating food is that the food I'm eating. I want it to be a similar percentage of protein to my overall target.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:05

Yeah, that makes sense. And if you look at the, the label on some food and you don't actually do the math yourself, you might uh, not really realize how little protein is actually in it. And you could end up kind of wasting calories that you thought were gonna help with your protein goals, but actually don't end up doing it because you didn't do the math, even though you really shouldn't have to. If a food says high protein, but again, because of some of the marketing issues, uh, you do have to check it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:27

Yeah. I've seen some things that say like. High protein, and then you look at the back and it's like 250 calories and maybe you get seven grams of protein, which is. Pretty bad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:40

Yeah. Not great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:41

I don't, I wouldn't call that high protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:44

Yeah. Yeah. And so that's, that's a big issue with a lot of foods on nutrition labels, but at least on a, on a food like that, you can do the math and look at the nutrition label. Yeah. So we're gonna talk a little bit about recipes you might find on the internet. And if you guys have seen our site, we like listing all the macros out with the recipes. A lot of recipes don't have that information listed and really, uh, almost don't even have it available in a lot of cases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:05

Yeah. One of my biggest annoyances when I would be looking for recipes is like you go to the recipe and. A, maybe it's not even there, but B, maybe it is there, but you have to scroll all the way through. So like I had open your SP that you said was high protein. Scroll all the way through it. Now I finally get to the nutrition information at the bottom and it is definitely not high protein. And now I'm annoyed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:26

Yeah. And then you sometimes won't even have it at the bottom. You have to go and put it all in MyFitnessPal manually, and you're like, oh, I'm putting this high protein thing in MyFitnessPal. And you get all the way to the end of it and it turns out it's like 6% protein. And you're like, great. I'm glad I used all that time on something useful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:40

And if you are a recipe creator that does this to me, I will never. Ever go to your thing again For the rest of my life, you'll be banished in my mind.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:49

Yeah. It's pretty annoying if, and you know, there, there's definitely a place for recipes like that, but if you call it a high protein recipe or a protein recipe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:56

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:56

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:57

I think you have to be pretty careful about what you're calling protein and high protein. Like we intentionally try to make sure we don't list anything as high protein is an at least 25%. Yeah. Based on, because we enter everything in MyFitnessPal. So if it says it's 25% or above in MyFitnessPal, we label it as high protein, right? On our blog.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:15

Yeah. And so there are some ways you can check without having to go through all that trouble to put it into MyFitnessPal or even do like some mental math. There are some things you can just kinda look at in a recipe and have some common sense, like, is this recipe gonna be something that is actually high protein? So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:32

One of the things is look at the volume of the ingredients. Like for instance, I've seen a cake on Instagram once that said it was a high protein cake, and I looked at it and all the ingredients are like normal cake ingredients. And then it was like, oh. Two tablespoons of protein powder and it's like, uh, well there's no way. This is like good macros.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:54

I thought if you added protein powder in any amount, it's automatically a high protein recipe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:59

No.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:01

Does this mean I can't like roll my Oreos and protein powder and call 'em high protein cookies?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:05

It depends on how much protein powder you get on them, I guess.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:09

Well, I don't know. I'm gonna keep doing it my way, I think. Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:11

it's like throwing a. Teaspoon of protein powder into the ocean and being like, this is a high protein ocean. Yeah, it's um, I guess it's maybe the same people that marketed for, what's that shitty drink that tastes like one strawberry Skittle in a bucket of water. Little LaCroix. Oh, LaCroix. It's of high protein recipes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:33

I can't let you sit here. And bad mouth mc. This is one of my favorites.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:37

Sorry. Sorry, not sorry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:40

Have you seen the, the videos on TikTok about LaCroix where it's like somebody across the room sniffs a watermelon while a guy fills the glass up with water and it's like, this is how you make LaCroix. I wish I knew that guy's name to give him credit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:51

High protein recipes. Yeah. That I've seen online.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:56

Oh man. Yeah, so it is a lot like that sometimes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:58

Yeah. This was made near a big thing of protein powder, so it is clearly high protein osmosis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:05

Right. So, yeah, I mean, you could pro protein powder's an obvious one in the recipe, in the, uh, ingredient list, but you can also just kind of look for. You think it's gonna be the source of the protein in the recipe? Yeah. Like, so it's gonna be the protein powder or some sort of tofu or a TVP, Satan, something like that. And you can almost, to a certain extent, kind of ignore the rest of the recipe and just be like, how much protein is in that ingredient and how, how much is that spread throughout the recipe? Yeah. So if it's just, you know, like you said, a couple tablespoons of, of a powder or a couple ounces of TVP or something like that whole, the whole recipe's obviously not gonna end up high protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:38

Yeah. And like the more you do kind of a gut check on this, the better you'll get at it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:42

Yeah. I

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:43

feel like I can, I've gotten a little too good at guessing how much calories and protein are in things just by looking.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:50

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:50

It's a superpower that's not very useful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:53

Yeah. Yeah. And as far as, uh, protein powder goes, you know, you don't actually need to use it in a lot of recipes. Um, most of the time or a lot of the time, maybe you're. Better off doing like a protein shake. Um, but you really only need to do those if you kind of wanna bring up the average protein of your day if you have like a really high protein target.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:11

Yeah. So like for instance, if you're targeting between 25 and 30% of your calories should be protein. If you're eating 25 to 30% protein meals and snacks throughout the day, you don't usually need a protein shake. But if you're averaging more around the 20% protein per calorie on all your meals and snacks, then you probably are going to need like a protein shake or something that's more like 50, 60% protein to bring up the overall average of your day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:39

Protein shakes and protein powder. You don't have to think much about that. For the most part, they're all really high protein. There are variances there. But you do wanna be careful with something like a protein bar, because a lot of protein bars are only like 20 or 30% protein, especially the vegan ones. So you really need to try to look out for like the very high protein protein bars. Yeah. And I like for high protein. I know you don't like the flavor of it is no cow. Mm-hmm. Because they, they have like one of the higher protein percentages.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:02

Yeah, so the way you can tell if a protein bar is high protein is usually how bad it tastes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:07

There's some truth to that for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:09

Like the more it tastes like a candy bar, the more your OL. Yeah. Like you're not getting much protein from that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:14

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:15

You're eating a candy bar,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:17

right? Yeah. And so, you know, ideally because like protein shakes, a lot of people don't like the way that tastes protein bars, a lot of people don't really like those very much. Um, it's better to try to get the protein into your food. Yeah. And so one of the go-to things that people do is to like just mix protein powder into food. Mm-hmm. Uh, but a lot of times that can make it taste worse and doesn't really give you the benefit. Like maybe sometimes you'd be better off just drinking a protein shake and eating the food you like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:43

Yeah. Honestly, like I. Like 10 years ago I bought this book that was around adding protein powder or food cooking with protein powder. And I tried like, I don't know, maybe 10 recipes out of it and they were all not very good. And so I've come up with this thing like if protein powder makes the food taste. Worse significantly. I'm just gonna choose to eat the food by itself and then drink a protein shake. Right? Like I'm not gonna make like protein cookies with protein powder that tastes like trash.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:14

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:14

I'm just going to eat a cookie and then drink some protein powder to offset.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:18

Yeah, and there are some cases where it doesn't even change the taste that much, it just changes the texture so much that you'd rather not eat it that way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:24

Yeah, it can make it really gritty depending on what you're using it in.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:27

Yeah. So some ways, instead of protein powder to get more protein into your food are some of the ingredients that you'll see in a lot of the recipes we use. The first one of those maybe is, uh, TVP.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:39

Yeah, TVP is a great one. It's around, I think, 60% protein for a lot of the typical brands like Bob's Red Mill. But then if you look into say, grace Protein, um, yeah. Which is more niche, but theirs is like 90% protein. It's ridiculous.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:55

Yeah. They use some kind of process that like concentrates the soy and like super dfas it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:00

Yeah. Yeah. And you can use TVP in all kinds of ways. You can bake with it, you can obviously make savory things with it. Um, we use it for literally anything. We make muffins out of it. Cookies. What else do

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:14

we use? You can put TVP into your oatmeal and it's kind of like a lot of people put protein powder in your oatmeal, but that, uh, makes it crazy concrete mix and you know, I like it, but a lot of people really don't like it. I don't like it. So if you put TVP instead into your oatmeal, uh, you really don't even notice much of a difference in taste or texture. It's just kind of like oatmeal, but there's TV in it. Yeah, when I

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:30

eat it like that, I, I can't even tell which parts are TVP and which parts are oatmeal.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:34

Yeah, that's really, really popular.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:35

Uh, you can use it in breadcrumbs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:37

Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:38

high protein breadcrumbs. You can use it as breadcrumbs on top of like a casserole or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:43

Yeah. We kinda use it as like fake bacon bits too, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:45

Oh, yeah, yeah. Works good in like tacos or chilies or anywhere you would use like ground fake meat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:53

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:53

But this isn't super processed because TVP is just D soy flour.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:58

Yeah, and, and we've got recipes on the website to go either in a sweet or savory direction, so you can use it in a lot of different ways.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:04

Oh, I really like using it as like a grain. Substitute like a rice substitute. It's really great to use as like a base for, I don't know, like curries. Oh yeah. If you were gonna use rice, you could use some seasoned TVP, or you could use it as like a rice slash quinoa substitute and like stuffed bell peppers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:24

Yeah, for sure. I really like that the six bell peppers are, they're really good with it. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:28

Yeah. It adds like a ton of protein and keeps it pretty low calorie.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:32

Yeah, for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:33

Super easy to use too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:35

So another option is, uh, edamame Puffs, which we recently had an interesting answer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:39

Okay. So I made high protein Rice Krispies with these, and then I posted it online as you do. And then I think it got pretty popular because the next thing I know in a couple weeks, you can't really buy those on Amazon anymore. They're completely sold out. Yeah. So we've been having to try to find a different supplier. Yeah. Um. So Smart for Life is not available as of this podcast. Uh, I have since found KYSU,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:08

right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:08

Uh, soy Krispies is what they call theirs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:11

Yeah. And, uh, so we, we took that to the next level. And if you happen to read Veg News, we got a little spot in Veg News, uh, for the summer edition. And it features this, um, uh, the recipe that uses these edamame puffs that nobody can buy right now. So, uh. We hope they come back and stocks

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:28

You're welcome. Smart for life. And also, I'm sorry. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:32

but as far as the puffs themselves, the, they have a nice crunchy texture. Yeah. So we use them in the Rice Krispy treats. Uh, you can also use 'em on top of some like brownies or some other kind of mixes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:41

Yeah, you can. Is

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:42

it like a protein bar thing with them? Right,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:44

right. Yeah. You can use 'em in chocolate for like a crunch bar type thing. That's really high protein. Uh, we used them in. Homemade peanut butter cups. Yeah, that's right. To add like a crunchy taste to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They don't really have their own flavor, so you can kind of use them wherever, just for a crunchy bite. Similar to the texture of puffed rice, which is why we liked them for Rice Krispies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:05

Yeah, it's just like the chocolate bars you have that have the. The crispies inside of my, the brand? Yeah. I

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:09

think it's Crunch Bar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:10

Crunch Bar. Yeah. It's just like, it tastes just like Crunch Bar. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:12

And I've heard a lot of people like just throw 'em in cereal with whatever. Yeah. Normal cereal. They're eating 'cause they're, that makes sense. They're like 80% protein or something. They

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:19

throw those in oatmeal too. I haven't done that yet, but I don't see any reason not to really.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:22

They might get soggy. I don't know. They.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:24

Oatmeal's pretty dry.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:26

Yeah. Your oatmeal doesn't look like oatmeal. It, it's gross, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:31

Oh, no, that's not fair. It's

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:33

real nasty. You'll never see it as a recipe on the website.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:39

I put it on, uh, Instagram once and uh, people didn't seem to be super in favor of it, but yeah. You know, very high protein, so, uh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:47

Okay. There are other ways to make high protein oatmeal. Oh, and it's good on smoothie bowls. Because it adds like a nice Oh yeah. Pectoral crunch to a smoothie bowl.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:55

Yeah. Yeah. Those are really good. Uh, and we'll have in the show notes a couple of recipes for each one of these ingredients we're talking about. So you'll be able to kind of try a couple things out. Uh, the next one we use a ton, ton, ton, ton is silk and tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:09

I love silk and tofu. I think that is the coolest kind of tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:15

It is really cool. I, I didn't really, uh, I didn't really know much about tofu in general before I went vegan. I had never even heard of silk and tofu Yeah. Before I went vegan. And it would've been useful in so many different things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:26

Oh, I know. This is like, I feel like one of the best kept secrets in the vegan community because, I mean, just anyone with a protein goal would benefit so much by just using silk and tofu. It's a really great for like, um. Just any kind of creamy food you're making, it's a great substitute for like dairy or something that you would normally use and it gives you way more protein. Like we've been using it a lot as a Mayo substitute. Yeah. You know, mayonnaise is almost a hundred percent fat. Yeah. But if you can make mayonnaise out of silicon and tofu, it's around 60% protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:00

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:00

And then, um, we've been making salad dressings out of it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:04

Yeah, we also had the cole slaw.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:05

Oh yeah, the cole slaw was really good. Yeah. High protein cole slaw.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:08

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:09

Um, what else? Sour cream cheese. Cheese sauce. Oh yeah. You can make a high protein cheese sauce. Yeah, you can make a high protein sour cream. Uh, we use it as a base in protein pasta sauces all the time, like it makes a really good Alfredo sauce.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:23

Yeah, we go through cases of this stuff. So

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:25

yeah, we buy 12 packs on Amazon.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:29

Yeah, it's, it's super good. Also shelf stable, sook and tofu. Yeah. So you can buy it and just kind of keep it around

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:33

for Yeah. You don't have to keep it in your fridge and if you just don't wanna cook anything, you could just. Throw it in your favorite smoothie. Yeah, for extra protein. It makes it really creamy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:41

Yeah, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:42

Oh, and we've been using it for like potato salads, chickpea salads. It's great for any kind of casseroles or like dips. Yeah, basically anything where you would have a creamy texture. Silk and tofu is the go-to to make it high protein. Yeah. I am convinced you could make anything creamy high protein with silicon tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:00

Yeah. It's got a lot of good uses.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:02

Oh yeah, we made brownies out of it recently. Oh,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:04

that's right. I forgot the brownies though. Those were

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:06

really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:06

Those were so good. Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:08

it was kind of like a. An egg and milk substitute. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It worked really well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:13

Yeah. High protein brownies, what do you know?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:14

Yeah. Oh, and we made a high protein pizza crust with it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:17

Yeah, that was super good. I remember that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:19

I can't say enough good things about silicon tofu. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:21

we, we use quite a bit of it. Uh, next we have nutritional yeast, also known as och goes on top of, uh, lots of things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:28

It has a shocking amount of protein as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:31

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:31

And it basically just makes anything cheesy. Yeah. And this is another one of those ingredients where it's like, I don't know why non-vegan aren't using it.'cause you always hear, you know, like people that are washing their calories and like trying to hit protein goals, they're always like, what can I substitute cheese for to get the cheese flavor? And they'll even buy like that fat free cheese that just looks really gross. Like you could just use. Nutritional yeast and it's super high protein and it tastes really good. Yeah, it's not super processed. Like

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:00

you could use it pretty much anywhere. You would use like a normal sprinkle cheese, but you could also use it in a lot of places where you probably wouldn't use it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:06

Yeah, and it's really great for like cheese sauces or like Alfredo, if you're dairy intolerant, like a great way to actually make. An Alfredo sauce. Yep. Or anything cheesy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:17

And then you don't have to use so much of like the oil-based vegan cheeses and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:21

Yeah. Which man trying to cook with those is a pain in the ass because they're pretty much just cooking at oil.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:27

They just melt into oil. You

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:28

just become, uh, flavored oil.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:30

Yeah. The nutritional use is also usually fortified with vitamin B12. Which as vegans, obviously that's the one thing we really have to supplement. But even if you're not vegan, a lot of people have B12 deficiency. That's true. We're trying to keep it up to the levels they should. So, uh, I mean, I think it's a good thing to have in the kitchen, maybe even on the table all the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:46

Yeah. Well we go through it like crazy. Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:50

Next up the, uh, kind of quintessential vegan protein, tofu in general. Just normal tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:55

Yeah, tofu in general is awesome. Uh, you can do so much with it. You could, you can shred it, you can slice it, shave it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:05

Bop it,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:05

bop it, pull it, twist it, bop it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:10

Yeah. I mean, uh, this is kind of like what people think of as a, a fake meat or a meat replacement, but I mean, it's really even got yeah. Uses in that. So. We use it on lots of things. We use. Oh,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:21

you can use it as crumbles in like a chili.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:23

Oh yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:24

Or like taco meat, like, I don't know. I don't really like beyond or impossible meat. Personally. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:30

Weird. A little bit of weird taste.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:31

Yeah. I don't really like most fake meats, to be completely honest. So if I can use tofu in something, I'm just gonna choose that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:37

Yeah. So when do you think you would use the normal tofu versus a silken tofu?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:41

So if I'm gonna blend something, I'm using Silken.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:45

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:45

But if I want something that's like Hardy, or like if I'm gonna do slices of it, if I'm gonna cook it in a pan, right, that's when I'm gonna use like. Firm tofu. Right. But I usually with super firm tofu, it's already pre pressed so you don't have to mess with a tofu press. Right. And the macros are pretty good. Um, it's just a lot easier to handle, in my opinion.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:06

Yeah. And normal tofu you do have to keep in the refrigerator.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:09

Yes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:09

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:10

I've been really liking using a vegetable peeler to get really thin slices on the tofu, and then you can cook those in a pan and make 'em into like. I don't know, like Philly cheese steak. Yeah. Style sandwiches. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:21

we've had a few of those. Those have been really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:23

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:23

Yeah. I'm starting to think you're a pretty good cook.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:26

I don't know. Oh, and you can use it for like cream cheese?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:30

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:30

Oh yeah. The firm Tofu. You can make that into cream cheese. You can use, oh. You can make it into a ricotta. Yeah, like a homemade high protein ricotta for lasagnas and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:39

Yeah. We did that one time. It's almost a lasagna time of year again in the fall.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:43

I know. I'm so excited for fall.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:44

Yeah. Awesome. Uh, next, something that people may not have even uh, heard of or used before. Soy flour.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:51

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:52

I think we're still figuring out exactly the right places to use this, but there's definitely a place for it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:56

Yeah, we've been using it in, I mean, mostly baked things. Yeah, I think you have to cook that. Yeah. So, uh, we used it in protein brownies. Oh yeah. And I actually don't notice much of a textural difference in the brownies'cause they're just so gooey Anyways. Yeah. And then we did, um, a high protein pizza crust where we did half all purpose flour and half soy flour. And I thought it tasted really good. Yeah. It had kind of like a more crispy texture than most like that a little pizza crust do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:28

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:29

But I really liked it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:30

Yeah, definitely no downsides. And it's more protein than normal flour.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:34

It's basically the same protein percentage as like a protein powder.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:39

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:39

But it's not flavored. It doesn't really have a flavor. Right. Most soy products don't really have much of a taste.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:45

So,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:46

awesome. Uh, also, so while we're on soy, soy milk, uh, this is like the highest protein alternative milk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:53

Yeah. The highest of all the non-dairy milks, right? For sure. I think it's about 40% protein per calorie.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:00

Yeah. So if you've got anything you're making and you just need a little extra protein, you could splash in some soy milk maybe. Uh, I use soy milk for my oatmeal in the morning instead of using water to get a little more protein in there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:09

Oh, I also like to use it in sauces. Yeah. Like if you're making an Alfredo sauce or if you're making. Vegan queso. It's really good. Yeah, I think it just, soy milk's also super creamy. Right? So it's not just that it has high protein, but it's like a really creamy, neutral flavor.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:25

Yeah. Soy milk. Um, probably soy milk and maybe oat milk are really the only two. I can actually just like drink if I wanted to. Yeah.'cause the flavors kind of mild. Uh, the other ones are a little, a little weird. So,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:37

yeah, like almond milk. I used to be really into almond milk 'cause it's so low calorie. But to be honest, it's basically like. F water. Yeah. You know what I mean? So soy milk's, pretty much all that's in our fridge anymore.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:47

Yep. Next up. Something we've been doing a lot with recently and we've done a lot with even in the past is vital wheat, gluten.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:52

Damn. That stuff is really cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:55

Yeah. Our first experience with it was making the little, uh, donut hole protein donut hole things that we have on the website. But you've done a lot recently with Satan Variations.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:03

I've been kinda losing my mind with Satan 'cause I had never cooked with it before. So like the last couple of weeks. We have made chocolate Satan. Oh man. That was

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:12

ridiculously good, honestly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:15

It just sounds like really stupid. Yeah, but it's delicious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:18

Yeah. It was one of those like, oh, we'll, we'll just leave this out. It might last a week, and you just found yourself picking pieces of it and it's gone in a day and a half.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:24

It was, yeah. But it was like 40% protein. Yeah. Even with all the sugar and the Cogo powder.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:31

Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:32

man, it looks really gross.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:35

I think that actually looks pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:36

It looks like little shriveled up balls, but

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:40

it's, oh, yes. That, that version, uh, that version did look a little weird. The, uh, the, uh, devil's Testicles or Satan's testicles or whatever we were trying to think of a name for,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:50

we don't have a good name for it yet. And picture wise, I'm not sure how many people we can convince to make it, but it is like. One of the most delicious things I've ever made.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:00

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:00

Like I think they should sell these in stores.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:03

Oh, they're super good. They're

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:04

gonna have to do something with the marketing though.'cause like, they don't look appealing at all. You're just gonna have to take my word for it. And you're gonna have to make it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:11

Yeah, it's, it's definitely not something you would think like Satan and chocolate, like you wouldn't even think it tastes good. Yeah. Even after you see 'em made, they look a little weird, but man, they're delicious.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:19

They're just like chewy little brownies. Yeah. They taste like really, really chewy brownies. Similar to like. The texture of mochi almost.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:27

Yeah. It's like a mochi. And you would think with the, you know, wheat, gluten, maybe it'd be like bread, but it's really not like that all.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:34

Oh, really? Chewy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:34

Yeah. Uh, also the different actual, just Satans we've made. Yeah. So we're looking to do a lot more with Satan kind of going forward and delving into making our own. So we've got some stuff coming up for.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:45

Yeah, there's

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:45

actually a recipe on the site right now for the shredded Satan steak quote unquote. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:50

Yeah. It works really well in like tacos and you know, anything Mexican ish because we use, yeah, have several burritos. Taco seasoning.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:57

Yeah. Yeah, it's really good. Cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:00

More Satan to come. Yeah. Hale Satan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:03

Uh, so also last but not least, we have red lentils. We use this in a lot of our pastas and stuff, but there's some other uses for it as well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:10

Yeah. My main thing is just red lentil pasta. Yeah. I use that. I mean, I just feel like that is the hack to be able to eat pasta, whatever you want.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:18

Yeah. It doesn't taste quite like normal pasta, but it's close enough and it's pretty high protein compared to normal pasta. Oh

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:24

yeah. And like compared to it's uh, you know, cousin, the chickpea pasta, I much prefer red lentil. The chickpea pasta gets like real mushy and tacky. Red lectin pasta. I actually really like it. I think the only thing that's different is it's a little bit chewier maybe than normal pasta.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:42

A little bit. Yeah, a little bit. That doesn't bother me at all. Not nearly as noticeable as the chickpea pasta. Yeah. Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:46

and it comes in all kinds of different shapes. You got like spaghetti and penne, and they even make like a. Outer space shapes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:52

Oh yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:52

Fun for kids of all ages. That's true. Including me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:55

Yeah. And I also have like red lentil waffles. Red lentil wraps. Yeah. Uh, for stuff like that. So there's a lot of good uses for that. Just a little bo boost in the protein over something you've maybe eat just kind of flour or carb based Anyway, so I think those are a lot of the ingredients we're using to kind of get a little more protein into our recipes without having to resort to protein powder. Like I said, we'll link to some recipes for each of these ingredients that we already have.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:17

And this is just something that we kind of like to do. We don't really love protein powder that much, so we just try to eat around our protein target in all of our meals so that we don't have to rely on protein powder.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:28

Yeah, and if you do need some protein powder to hit your protein goal for the day, there's no problem with that. It's just a lot of people don't really like the flavor or the texture. It can't find one they like

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:35

for some reason. I don't know what it is. Protein powders are disgusting to me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:40

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:41

I just really, really,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:42

I've seen a lot of people feel that way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:43

Yeah. It's like I would drink protein shake every day and it would be like the thing I dreaded most. Yeah. Same with eaas. I. I just like, I would dread it. I'd be like, oh no, it's time to drink this. I don't want to do it. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:58

Yeah. I kind of grew up with protein powder, so I'm used to it, but it's always best to have it in food anyway. Like Yeah. Even if, you know, even if you like protein powder, it's better to get it in your food if you

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:07

can. Right. It keeps you fuller for longer too, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:09

Right. Cool. Well, I think that's it for this episode. Uh, we're gonna try to go forward and release these on Monday mornings. Now, we weren't even, we didn't really have a schedule with the, uh, quote unquote first season, right? They're not really seasons, but we didn't really have a schedule before. So we're trying to, uh, structure this a little more going forward. And so we're gonna release this on Monday morning and hopefully every Monday morning from now on.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:30

And if anyone's listening and has ideas. For things they'd like to hear about, or topics or recipe ideas of things you'd like to see on the website. Yeah, shoot us a message.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:38

Yeah, reach out. We're gonna have all the, uh, social media links on how to reach us in the show notes as well. Plus you can always just come to the website, comment on the recipes or the blog articles, or use the co contact forms that we answer all those things. So we've been getting a lot of cool questions lately. I'm looking forward to hearing more. I think that about wraps us up for this week. Uh, you wanna say, bye bye. Bye everybody.