Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to episode 15 of the Deficient Vegans podcast. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient vegan. You wanna say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:06

Hi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:07

Hi everybody. So first things first, let's talk a little bit about what protein does. So protein provides the building blocks for all the cells in our body. It gives you what you need to build bones, muscles, organs, and your hair.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:18

How often are you building organs?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:20

I guess that's a good point.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:24

I mean, you're not a woman, so I guess you would never build organs, huh?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:28

That's true. Yeah. Um, but you know, it helps maintain your organs, I guess. I'm not really sure, but it does play a part in new organ. So also we're just gonna talk through some of the benefits of protein. So the big benefit for us for fitness is that it provides the amino acids you need for muscle growth and muscle recovery, especially when you combine this with strength training or resistance training because you're not really gonna build a lot of muscle if you're not lifting weights or doing some kind of resistance training in the gym. And it doesn't necessarily need to be lifting weights. I mean, any kind of training that is qualified as resistance training, that could be sport training or riding a bike or something like that, you know. Or Pilates. Or Pilates, yeah. Your muscles are gonna adapt to any kind of training like that, and having more protein just helps the muscles grow and recover for those activities. Protein also helps you feel more full for longer out of all the macronutrients. It's the one that is the most satiating. So if you load up on protein in your diet, you won't feel as hungry as often.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20

Yeah. Or if you're like me and you ever drink a protein shake, you'll feel like shit forever because you feel so bloated. Does that only happen? Does that happen to you?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:29

That doesn't really happen to me, especially with the vegan protein shakes. I used to feel a little, I guess gassy, I don't know, bloated on whey protein shakes, some brands. Um, I haven't really found any vegan protein shakes that make me feel that way. Hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:42

Yeah, I dunno what it is. Drinking like two servings of protein powder makes me just. Not want to eat for like, like a day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:50

Yeah. Some people just don't like protein powder. You're one of those people. Yeah. Also, it helps prevent muscle loss while you're losing weight. For some people who have weight to lose, you know when you lose weight, you're going lose some fat and some muscle. If we keep the protein up and we keep doing some kind of resistance training during that weight loss process, we can lose a lot more fat. In comparison to the muscle, we'll lose

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:09

eat protein, lift weights.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:11

Right. Okay. It also helps to maintain your bone mass as you age. It gives you a lower risk over time of osteoporosis and bone fractures, which can be a big issue for people. Uh, they get older depending on their diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:24

Yeah. I think this is especially something that happens with women.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:26

Yeah. Uh, I read about that after menopause. I think it's especially important.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:30

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:30

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:31

Is this okay? So is this protein paired with. Resistance training or does protein alone help with that? Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:37

from what I read, protein alone helps with that. But strength training, resistance training also helps with bone strength. So I think combining them is probably the best course of action. Protein also helps to reduce cravings. I saw an article on Healthline that said one study showed that increasing your protein up to 25% of your total calories reduced cravings by 60%, and the desire to snack at night by half.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:58

Is that just'cause you're not hungry, you think?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:01

Yeah. I don't know if they showed because they, there was something in there about one of the hormones that triggers your brain to say that it's hungry is suppressed. Is that

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:09

the Grem Gremlin? Gremlin Gremlin, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:11

The gremlin, the hunger gremlin is what we call it. Yeah. And uh, they, I actually had a follow-up study, I think with a group of adolescent girls that should pretty much showed the same results. So it seems like it's been confirmed at least once. Protein also has a higher thermic effect of food than carbs or fat. So the calories you burn. Processing the protein will be a little higher than processing carbs or fat. So if you have a little more protein in your diet, you might burn a hundred more calories a day. Just processing that food also helps to maintain muscle as you age. This is kinda like the bone health. This is a big issue for people as they get older. They tend to lose a lot of muscle mass pretty quickly, especially later in old age. So sarcopenia is the common term for that, and that's a really big issue. So the more you, what was that

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:56

again?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:57

Sarcopenia.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:58

Okay. I've never heard of that. Yeah. Yeah. So that probably leads to like falling and a lot of the injuries

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:03

right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:05

Old people end up having.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:07

Yeah, exactly. And that's one of the main way that old people become disabled or even die, is falling, breaking a bone, something like that. So keep your protein up, keep exercising, uh, lifting weights or some kind of resistance training. Keep

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:19

that grip strength.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:20

Yeah, for as long as you can. Uh, yeah. So grip strength was one of the things that is most, uh, closely linked to longevity basically. So, uh, in studies, the stronger your grip is, the longer you live as a correlation. It's not necessarily like get super strength. In your grip and you'll live forever. But it tends to correlate with longevity Also. The last big benefit, there are a lot of little benefits. The last big benefit is it helps with your immune system. Uh, protein is actually used to help create antibodies. So if you have a higher protein diet, your immune system is, uh, a little more resilient.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:51

Oh, it's interesting. So if you're sick, you should eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:54

Yeah. It al it can also help with recovery from injuries. So not only sick but recovering from injuries because again, it's kind of the building block for all the cells. So all the different things that need to be repaired from an injury, protein, uh, intake helps with as well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:07

That's unfortunate.'cause when I'm sick I just wanna eat like toast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:10

Yeah. A lot of people, I think you're,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:12

I want eat better than,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:13

better than not eating. So

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:14

Absolutely. A bland food. Yeah. And not protein. So

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:17

if you can stomach it, protein's better.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:19

Isn't protein also supposed to? Be the macro that leads to the least amount of fat created if you go over on calories. Isn't there something about that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:30

Yeah, it's, I think it's hard, especially compared to carbs or fat. It's harder for protein to find a way to get stored as body fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:40

Yeah. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. But we should probably address this now. There is another camp that says, too much protein is bad and we are unbiased, so we will be talking about this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:50

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:51

Yeah. So I see a lot of this, especially in the vegan community, that's more protein equals more bad. Uh, basically they say that actually has bad longevity things.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:04

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:07

I've seen, that's the technical way to say this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:08

Yeah, I've seen some of that. And so ingesting protein increases some markers, I think like IGF one and some others, that the argument is they can cause growths like cancer to grow faster and things like that. I think one argument, um. We'll assume that's true, right?'cause some really smart people have said that and I think there probably is some correlation there. But even if it does cause some of those diseases and some of those things to go a little faster, I think the trade-off is still that you go into old older age with more muscle mass and more ability to move around. Yeah. So I mean, everything is kind of a trade off. So for me, I'll take a slightly increased risk of some of these diseases over not really having enough muscle mass to take care of myself in old age.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:57

Yeah, that's fair. And I guess it's also like quality of life as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:02

Yeah, for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:03

You know. You could be like Mr. Glass from, uh, what is that movie? Unbreakable? Yeah. Where you're like, your bones break by flicking them. Yeah. You know? But you could live to be really old,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:15

right? Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, if you can get by and there's probably some perfect balance out there if you eat just enough protein to stay just mobile enough. And if you have a perfect plan for that. Have at it, but it's hard to plan for all those eventualities for. So for me, I think just focusing on, you know, quality of life and movement, uh, is what I'm gonna prioritize.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:37

And there is a range for protein. So like if your goals aren't, you know, get really massive in the gym, you don't have to go to the upper edge of that range. You know, you could go more for like the minimum required amount or like slightly above that or something, depending on what your goals are,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:53

right? But

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:54

it is really important that you get enough protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:56

Yeah, definitely. And we'll talk about some numbers here shortly. So as far as vegan protein sources, just in general, we've got soy sources like tofu, TBP, Tempe, soy milk, uh, pretty much anything based on soy. Mm-hmm. It's probably gonna be like the go-to source. Yeah. Unless, unless you have like a soy allergy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:13

Yeah, I, me personally, I don't like Tempe, so do the other ones.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:18

Yeah, Tempe. I mean, there's probably some way out there that I would like it, you know, like everything else. I didn't think I liked it before, but I haven't found a, a, a version of Tempe that I really like that much. Yeah. So it's not really a, in the rotation for me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:30

We need to, uh. Play with it a little bit, but yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:34

Uh, the next one is wheat. Gluten based sources like Satan and even oats are based on wheat. So they have a protein a little bit, but Satan is like a really high protein version of wheat. Gluten. Next you'll see, you know, these are the common ones that you see when you ask about vegan protein. It's like beans, lentils, seeds, and nuts. But they're not really a lean protein source. They're either kind of heavy in carbs or heavy in fat, depending on if we're talking about beans or nuts respectively. So while they do have protein, uh, it's not really. Something you're gonna really focus on your protein goals, especially if you have a higher protein target. And then protein powders an obvious one. If some of this other stuff is hard to hit, you can just use protein powders and those are usually a pretty good source of protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:13

Yeah. Or protein bars. Or protein cookies or like protein wraps you tortillas. Those are pretty nice. Most of those are made with like pea protein, I think. Yeah. Um. Better bagels have a lot of protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:28

So if you wanna know what the best options are as far as protein, we can talk about complete proteins. So you may have heard, and if you've looked at vegan protein at all, or plant-based proteins at all, you've definitely heard, uh, the argument that vegan protein is incomplete or they're not complete proteins. So we can talk a little bit about what that actually means and how true it is, and it is a little true, and how we kind of deal with that as vegans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:53

Yeah. Bottom line is it's not something you have to worry about as much as people say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:58

Right. So if eating

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:59

a balanced diet with different sources of protein, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:02

Yeah, absolutely. But it's good to at least know what they're talking about. Mm-hmm. So you can kind of make those decisions if they need to be made.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:09

So you can tell 'em why they're wrong. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:10

exactly. Yeah. Sometimes you just have to get a little feisty. Do what?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:16

Throw hands.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:18

There are nine essential amino acids and this is what your protein gives you. So it gives you a lot of amino acids. Nine of them are essential, which means we have to get them through food and we can't make 'em on our own in our bodies. So I'm gonna say 'em. There are a bunch of really long, obnoxious chemical names, but it's good to hear 'em 'cause we wanna talk about a couple of examples of where some are missing. Okay, so the nine essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, which is really the important one for muscle building, lysine, methionine, pheno, alanine, thianine, tryptophan, and valine.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:58

And if he pronounced any of those wrong, please let him know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:01

Yeah, absolutely. Although, you know, pronunciation is kind of a personal preference thing in my opinion. Oh yeah. He's from Kentucky, so Especially being from Kentucky. Exactly. Um, surprise. Anybody can understand me at all.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:16

Y'all.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:17

So now that we know our non-essential amino acids, a complete protein is a protein source that has all nine of these in a sufficient amount. You might see some definitions online where a complete protein is just, it has all nine of these. That's not technically true because all protein has some level of all nine of these, and even a little further than that, almost all food. Has some protein. So almost all food has some level of all nine of these amino acids. So technically a complete protein just means that it has all nine of them in a sufficient amount each. And you might be thinking next, obviously, what is. A sufficient amount. So the reference they use for a sufficient amount for a complete protein is basically the same of each of these that is already in human muscle. So the amount that makes up human muscle, again, because human muscle is basically directly made up of proteins, the amount of each of the amino acids in human muscle is what they use for the reference to make a complete protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:11

So the perfect protein source. Is human meat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:16

That may be true. I, I haven't seen anything to that, but you know, logically it makes sense

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:21

and it's probably the cheapest protein source if you think about it.'cause people die every day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:25

Yeah. And if somebody tells you that you can eat their muscle, then it's probably vegan. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:30

I think so. You gotta get consent, but yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:32

Yeah, it's probably, we'll have to check with maybe PETA on that. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, don't eat people

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:39

prob unless they're rude. So the great late Hannibal Lecter, apparently.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:45

Okay. So now that we know what complete protein means, you should know that most plant protein sources are incomplete. Because they have an insufficient amount of one or more of those nine essential amino acids. So let's talk about some examples using some of the common vegan protein sources and what they're lacking in that makes 'em not a complete protein. So wheat based proteins like oats or Satan, like we talked about, have everything they need except. For the lysine, so they're a little short on lysine and that's what makes them not a complete protein source. It's not that they have zero lysine, they're just a couple percentage points short of what would be considered complete.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:21

But if you made your Satan with tofu, yeah. Then it would be complete.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:26

That's true. And that's something called protein combining. Uh, and because of the way that your amino acids kind of pull up in your body, you don't necessarily need to do that in the same meal, but you can. So some other examples that people use are like, rice and beans, make a complete protein if you put 'em together. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches technically a complete protein if you put it together. So some people do that, it's not really necessary. But if you do wanna make sure that you're getting them all in, you're certainly welcome to combine 'em. The other example is beans. They're short and methionine. So this would really only be a problem like for the wheat for example, if your only protein for the whole day was Satan or something like that. Uh, because normally you would eat other sources of protein throughout the day and those would give you the lysine that you need, and then you'd have all the other amino acids from the Satan. So if you eat any like soy throughout the day, which is a complete protein, has all in a sufficient amount, then it's gonna give you the extra lycine that you were missing from the Satan. So it's not really that big of a deal, but it is technically true that most of your plant sources are not complete proteins. So let's talk about the vegan protein sources that are complete proteins, just so you know what those options are. And these are the ones that if you wanted to, you could eat just this for your protein source and you get all the amino acids

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:37

assuming you ate enough of it,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:38

right? Which is what we're gonna talk about when we see these examples.'cause that's really hard.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:42

So soy is easy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:43

Yeah, soy an easy one for sure.'cause you can make it a bunch of different ways. Uh, you can eat it several times a day. You can get it more so importantly in the right volume that you can hit your calorie goal and your protein goal using soy

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:55

easily,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:56

easily. So the other options are quinoa, amarant, buckwheat. Spirulina hemp seeds, chia seeds, and uh, nutritional yeast. So when you hear that list, you might think, wow, those aren't really like things I sit and put as a major portion of my plate. And that would be correct,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:16

except for nutritional yeast. Yeah, we,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:18

we do use nutritional yeast basically as a, a main protein source in some cases. It's

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:23

so good though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:23

Yeah. Yeah. It is really good. Quinoa is probably the closest you'll get, but quinoa is very carb heavy. Uh, yeah, basically kind of like a rice. So you're gonna have a lot of extra calories if you try to get all your protein from quinoa, but you can use quinoa and you know, get a complete protein source.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:39

Yeah, really. Same with most of these is they're not protein first,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:43

right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:44

Like soy is kind of like protein. Is the primary macro that you're getting, but these other ones are like either carb first or maybe even fat first.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:52

Yeah, we, you know, for, uh, various reasons. Basically we tend to lean on soy as our main source of protein. And then probably wheat, like Satan is our secondary what, we always have soy during the day too, to make up for, you know, what we're missing from the, the wheat. Um, so if you don't have a soy allergy and you have an interest in protein goals and you're, you know, into fitness and stuff like that, you're probably gonna wanna lean. Pretty heavily in the soy direction.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:16

Yeah. And nutritional yeast is actually super high in protein as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:20

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:20

But to eat enough for your daily target

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:24

would be

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:24

pretty hard. It'd be

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:25

challenging. You'd have to eat like, uh, I don't know, five bottles of nutritional yeast a day or something. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:30

Yeah. You would, I don't know that it'd be very economical either.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:35

Yeah. So on the note of protein goals, how much protein should you eat in a day? You know, we've kind of talked about this before, we've got some blog posts about it, but just so it's here in the same place with all this protein information, we can talk about it briefly. Uh, and it's important to note that there's a difference between the minimum necessary to not be literally protein deficient. As far as your health and like the optimal protein range that somebody who's doing some kind of resistance training should aim for to maximize their muscle growth and minimize their muscle loss depending on if they're gaining or losing weight. So just for normal human health, the recommended daily amount is either 0.4 grams per pound of body weight or 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, depending on your, you know, measuring system. Hmm. So that's just to not have. Literal protein deficiency and be healthy. So if you're not doing resistance training, you're not lifting weights or anything that you're expecting to grow a lot of muscle from, you can just make sure you get that as a minimum and not really even have to think about it anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:30

Yeah. So let's say you're 150 pounds, that would be 60 grams.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:34

Yeah. Pretty easy to hit even an accident, I think in a lot of cases. Then if you are doing resistance training, trying to build muscle, trying to preserve muscle, you want to try to aim more for 0.8 to 1.2 grams per pound of either your lean body mass, if you know that, or you can just use your target body weight or your goal body weight. And then for kilograms, it is 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:57

So for the same example, if you're 150 pounds, that would be 180 grams on the high end.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:02

Right, and that is the high end, and there's a little bit of benefit going from the low end at like 0.8 to the high end at 1.2. But if you just hit that 0.8, you're probably gonna get 80 to 85% of everything you're gonna get out of the protein. So if you're looking to optimize it a little more and you don't mind getting more protein in your diet, you can push it up to about 1.2. You won't see much benefit at all beyond that, but you're gonna get most of the benefit, anything above 0.8.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:27

Okay. So then how would one find their lean body mass?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:30

Yeah, there's a couple of different ways there. They sell calipers. You can basically use to do a body fat pinch test and you can figure out your body fat percentage. And then from there, uh, anything that's not body fat from your total weight is your lean body mass.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:44

What about those scales?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:46

The scales, they have impedance scales and I think a couple other methods that. Guesstimate your body fat percentage, it's probably okay to get a general idea, but from what I've seen, they're not very accurate. The most accurate method is something like an actual DEXA scan that mm-hmm. Actually uses radiology to scan your body for all the different components.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:06

But like those scales are pretty cheap. So you think you get like a, A decent number.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:10

Yeah, I mean it's de definitely a good starting point and you probably won't get too far off, so,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:14

or you could guesstimate because there are like. You could find pictures of people Yeah. Around your weight. And then they'll tell you like, this is 20% body fat, this is 30% body fat. You can get estimations that way as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:27

Yeah. And I think that's a pretty good way to do it because you're gonna get it within probably 10% doing it that way just because everybody is different. But uh, from each 10% bracket of body weight, you can tend to pretty much know where you're at in that range, and that's gonna be close enough to probably get your lean body mass approximate for something like a protein target. So we talked a lot about the foods. We briefly mentioned protein powder. So you might be thinking, okay, do I even need protein powder? When should I use a protein powder? And I think it's easiest just to think of protein powder, like a really lean or really low calorie source of a complete protein, right? So it's basically like the best possible source of protein as far as calories to the protein ratio goes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:06

Are all protein powders complete sources?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:08

No, they're not. So you wanna make sure the one you buy is a complete protein. They normally achieve that through some kind of blending, like you'll see 'em blended with like watermelon seed and pea protein. Yeah, a couple different protein sources. So they'll make themselves complete, but they're not

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:20

automatically, no. So you should check not

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:22

automatically. And if you get a soy protein powder, those are complete.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:25

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:25

But I think most of the brands these days do make it a complete protein by default. But there are a couple that aren't. So you wanna try to avoid those? Only because if you're using protein powder, it's probably a pretty big part of your protein allotment for the day, and you really don't want a big chunk of it to be incomplete protein if you can help it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:44

If you're using protein powder as someone who does not like protein powder, I'm going to offer you this. TVP is way cheaper than protein powder, and it's a very similar percentage on a calorie basis, protein wise. So you should just use TVP.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:00

Yeah, and it's soy, so a complete protein

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:02

source, it's soy much better than protein powder, in my opinion.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:05

That's a good one. I like that. Um. So, yeah, you might want to use something like that when you're having a little trouble hitting your protein target. So if your protein target is like 180 grams of protein a day and you're eating all the food you can and you're only getting to like 1 30, 1 40, then you know, just throw in a protein shake once a day and just get an easy 40 grams of protein. Mm-hmm. No big deal.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:26

Oh, also you, if you are unsure, if you have complete protein, you can always do an e, a, a, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:32

Yeah. You can do an EAA supplement, which is basically a concentrated dose of complete proteins with very low calories. And also if you have one of those days they talked about where you only eat Satan or some kind of wheat for the whole day, and you just wanna fill up the missing amino acids, for lack of a better term, you can just use a complete protein shake. Or again, those EAA. Supplements to make sure that you have all the appropriate amino acids available for your muscles to use to grow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:59

Yeah. And finding vegan ones are pretty easy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:01

Yeah. Especially these days. That's one of the things that we do have a lot of good vegan options on. I really like Ghost for their vegan protein powders. Mm-hmm. I think they may have stopped selling their amino acids entirely. I haven't been able to find Ghost aminos. Hmm. For the last couple weeks, but I have been using J Cutler's brand. He has a product called Generate that is a vegan essential amino acid supplement. It has a lot of really good flavors. A couple like Sour watermelons. Sour lemonade, stuff like that. So I've been using that. Now that I can't find ghost anymore, I don't know if it's temporary or what, but I. Okay, so also we talked a little bit about the normal foods and some of the supplement options. Now we got just a couple of vegan protein food tips. So some of the things we replace in our recipes to sneak in some extra protein. A big one we like to use is red lentil pasta.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:48

Yeah. So anytime we make pasta, we just swap in red. Lentil pasta and protein on that is pretty good 'cause they just use like red lentil flour. One ingredient. It's actually a whole food too, I think.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:59

Yeah. And it's got a little different bite than normal pasta, but not really that different. And it's way better for your overall health goals.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:07

And they make it in all kinds of different shapes. Like they make, uh, spaghetti penne, they make galaxy shaped ones.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:14

Oh yeah. Those are pretty good. Next we use soak and tofu and I don't know everything to try to throw a little extra protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:20

My favorite way is just. Silk and tofu in pasta sauces. That's one of our main meals that we make is we'll just make a silk and tofu alfredo sauce with nutritional yeast. Yeah, with red lentil pasta, and it's a really high protein dish.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:34

Yeah. And really delicious.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:35

You can also use silk and tofu to make salad dressings. Cheese sauces, any kind of sauces as a mayonnaise replacement, as a sour cream replacement. You can pretty much use it for anything that would be creamy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:47

These are

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:48

the Smoothies. Smoothies, yeah. We throw it in for smoothies and that adds some extra protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:51

It really can be used in a whole lot of different ways. And check out the Protein Deficient Vegan website. You can just search for soak and tofu and you'll come across, I don't know. Uh,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:01

it's a hyper fixation of mine. Yeah. Lots of recipes. What can I put it in? Yeah. I put it in cupcakes this weekend.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:06

I, I feel like it's in almost every recipe in some way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:10

Yeah. If you have a soy allergy, you probably will hate. Website and I'm sorry. Yeah. But I do have some stuff that doesn't have it. So

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:19

also we use TVP in a lot of different stuff. We use it in a lot of different ways. Baked goods, savory stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:24

It's kind of sky's the limit on that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:26

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:26

Really like TVP muffins. It's like a easy high protein breakfast. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:30

Plus it helps that you can get it in a 25 pound bags. So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:33

Which we have. Some other things we really like are mission tortillas, butter bagels. There's this endurance, uh, like tortilla chips. Oh, yeah. They have a nacho flavor that I really like. Those are, I think, 14 grams for 150 calories. So pretty solid macros.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:51

Yeah. Kinda like a plant protein Doritos knockoff, but mm-hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:55

Yeah. If you've ever had Quest chips before you went vegan, the, kinda like the equivalent of that, but I actually like them better than Quest chips we've been using. Vital wheat, gluten is a lot. That's like 70 to 80% protein on a calorie basis, and you can sneak it into all kinds of stuff. We've actually been making a bunch of different kind of Satan. Satan is shockingly easy to make at home if you haven't messed with that. It literally takes like maybe 10 minutes of actual effort and then you just cook it and vital weed gluten is pretty cheap on a gram of protein basis, so. Definitely use that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:27

Yeah. And you, you made a lot of cool stuff with it recently that I didn't even know existed, and I'm not sure it did exist before you made it. So you usually think of Satan as like a meat replacement or something, but you've been using it for all kinds of crazy things, so it's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:41

Yeah, I just have, I wake up with these weird things in my brain and then I can't think about anything else until I try to make them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:47

Yeah, so that pretty much covers all the information about protein. If you want to see some examples or maybe get a little bit of a guide for how to get. The amount of protein that you need in your diet on so many calories and see some meal plans or ideas of how you might put something like that together. Protein Deficient Vegan has an ebook on her site, and we'll link that here in the show notes. And then also on Instagram, you can see examples of the recipes on protein deficient vegans Instagram. On my Instagram, I've got a couple reels pinned that are like what I eat in a day. That shows an example day. I think those were at 2100 calories with 180 grams of protein. So if you wanna just see a couple of example days of what that looks like for that specific bracket, you can check that out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:31

Yeah, my free ebook, the weekly meal plan that I have in there, it's like 120 grams of protein each day for about 1500 to 1700 calories. So obviously if your calorie goal is higher than that, you can just add in some other stuff or maybe like double a meal here or there. But yeah, we're on Reddit pretty frequently and it's something that gets asked all the time is like, is it possible to hit a hundred grams of protein or can I actually. Eat 180 grams of protein on, I don't know, 2 20, 200 calories. And the answer is yes, but it does take some finagling. Is that the right, is that a word?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:07

F finagling,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:08

finagling.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:08

Cool. So check those out. We'll put links to all that stuff in the show notes. And then also in current events, only one thing, I think for this week, badge news posted that one of the gold medalist winners in the Olympics was a fencer from Hong Kong. So they do the sword fighting, you know. Yeah. I assume that's not offensive to any fencers, but maybe you don't know what fencing is. I'm just gonna call it sword fighting for the moment.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:29

Yeah, but like it like really cool though, right? And they have the metal face mask things. Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:33

it definitely looks cool. I always wish it looks fun. I would've had a chance to try that in some way, but I don't know where you do it. Uh, but anyway, she's vegan. They do it

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:40

on Gilmore Girls, they fence on Gilmore Girls remember?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:43

Oh, uh, yeah, that's true. Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:45

that's my only knowledge of fencing. Sorry, continue.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:47

No, I was just gonna say, uh, they said, you know, she is plant-based and she won a gold medal in the Olympics this year from Hong Kong. Hell yeah. So that was pretty cool. Also, a couple recipes we have coming up on the website, a couple forms of Satan. You made an apple cinnamon Satan, that was super awesome. It was really good. Yeah. So it was basically just like chunks of apple and then cinnamon, and then you cook it like a normal Satan and make it into the little, uh, yeah. Shrivel balls. Shrivel balls that we made the chocolate version from.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:12

For some reason they get real shriveled, like they puff up crazy big while they're cooking. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:17

And

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:17

then within 60 seconds of them out of the oven, they're like these little shriveled sack. I don't know, it

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:22

goes from like, uh, probably baseball size to probably a little smaller than a golf ball, but that's, it's over. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:27

And super shrive.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:28

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:29

I don't mind it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:30

Yeah. And they tear really nicely. It's, it's really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:32

Yeah. The textures look crazy. They're so chewy and I really like 'em.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:37

Yeah, me too. You also made one that had, uh, coconut flakes instead of apple cinnamon. It was like a coconut version.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:43

Yeah. That one was good too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:44

Yeah. And I wouldn't have thought Coconut and Satan that really go together, but, uh,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:49

but they do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:50

Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:50

it works good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:51

Really nice little snack. High protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:53

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:53

Good to go.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:54

Easy to make too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:55

Also, you made some really good coconut cupcakes, you know, tell us how you did that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:59

Yeah, so for the, the first time making, uh, cupcakes anyways, I used silk and tofu instead of eggs, and I actually really liked the texture he gave it. Did you like it? Yeah,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:09

I liked it a lot. It

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:11

kept it like really moist, but it also didn't get crumbly. Like I feel like stuff always gets crumbly when I'm baking. Even non-vegan baking, when I used to bake. And I don't like crumb. I'm weird about cakes. I don't like crumbly cakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:25

Yeah. And one thing I noticed a lot of vegan baking can get pretty dry, it seems like. And especially when you see ones that are really thick on the inside. Yeah. You just know they're gonna be dry. But it seems like the silk and tofu to me, helps keep it moist even when there's like a lot of, you know, substance on the inside. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:42

I don't know why that is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:43

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:44

But it turned out really well and it was kind of like springy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:46

Yeah. I

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:47

don't know. I really liked the texture of it a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:49

Yeah, they're really good. Cool. So I think that's all we got for this week. Make sure if you have any questions about any of these recipes or you have any questions about protein. Or maybe even specifically vegan protein, anything like that, feel free to reach out to us. You can find us on our social medias linked in the show notes or on the website. You can comment on the articles, leave something in the contact forms or even you can leave a comment now, I think on Spotify, on the podcast. So any of these ways, we see all that stuff and feel free to reach out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:18

Or if you just have ideas or like have ideas of recipes you wanna see or things you would want us to talk about.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:23

Yeah. All right. Well, I hope everybody has a good week and you can put some of this information to use and we'll see you next week. You wanna say bye

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:30

Bye.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:30

Bye everybody.