Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

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

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:05

Hi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:05

Hi everybody. This is episode 25. We're gonna talk about hitting your protein goals on a budget. Money is tight this time of year with the holidays coming up.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:13

And the US is still a dumpster fire.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:15

Yep. And that's where we are. So we thought it might be a really good topic to cover. Also, it's just nice to save money. So we're gonna discuss also a very exciting, a new interactive protein database that you created.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:25

We created it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:26

Yeah. Well, you made.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:27

I did all of the manual data entry and then you birthed it into the world.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:30

Yeah. I made it to where people can get to the data and use it. So, uh, that's on the website. We'll have a link in the show notes. It's actually in one of the older blog posts where it had a table already with some protein sources. Yep. But it's like supercharged now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:41

So, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:42

So we're gonna look at some protein sources that are a little more expensive than you would've thought. In some cases, a lot more expensive than you would've thought, and some that are actually really cheap and maybe even cheaper than you would've realized before.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:52

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:52

Also, we're gonna talk about some ideas for how you can use some of those cheaper protein sources so you can really get a good bang for your buck. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:59

New news. We did steal that from the New Heights podcast, but we're so small they'll never know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04

That's right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05

Plus we just think you guys are really cool. So.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08

Yeah. So the first thing that is happening right now is Miyoko's Creamery who has like butter and cheeses and stuff. It's been around for a long time. If you didn't know, there was a lady Miyoko who used to own it and then, you know, she kind of got screwed by our business partners it sounded like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23

And she kind of got pushed outta the business, but now this week it sounds like the business is back up for sale and she's trying to buy it back.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:31

Which is very cool, 'cause I know some people, uh, have been boycotting the products 'cause they don't like the way she was treated, so. And I'm hoping some of the products come back 'cause there were a few that like, don't exist anymore and maybe she'll bring 'em back.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:41

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:42

Because I had favorites.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:43

Right. So cool. So yeah. Good luck, Miyoko. Next up, so some researchers in Brazil have made a new sustainable kind of meat substitute made outta sunflowers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:55

That's pretty cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:56

Yeah, they made a couple different kinds. They did a flour derived from sunflower grains and then did like a textured sunflower protein. Oh yeah. It sounds like they said the, the textured protein version made like much better patties and stuff. Hmm. They were able to do some processes to get the sunflower flour to say that three times fast.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:14

Uh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:14

To have a really.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:15

Sunflower flour, sunflower flour, sunflower flour.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:17

Wow. Challenge accepted. Mm-hmm. Good job. Uh, they said it has a really neutral flavor. They said it's actually a lot more neutral flavor than some of the other protein powder options out there. So something to look forward to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:27

That's really interesting. I'll be interested to see what the macros are. Yeah, and the price point.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:31

I couldn't find that in the, uh, it was just like a little article in a, a science journal. But, um, I'll link that in the show notes and I'm sure we'll get more information at some point.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:38

I'm always down to use more protein sources.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:40

Next up, if you happen to get groceries at Walmart, they're gonna be expanding some of their plant-based options. They're adding brands like, eat just like people who made just egg. Mm-hmm. And daring and Impossible Foods. I actually really like the daring, I think it's like a Cajun, uh, type, you know, fake chicken wing type thing. Yeah. It's really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:57

Yeah. And I think Eat just came out with I think some, uh, chicken and some, some other products that are more meat alternative related, but we haven't been able to find them. Yeah. So.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:08

Yeah, it's good to see stores, especially at something as big as Walmart, adding options when we're seeing so many options kind of get taken away in a lot of products, like going outta business or being discontinued entirely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:17

Yeah, keep it up, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:20

All right. So now let's get into the main topic of the podcast. So we both like spreadsheets and data we do, and numbers. We really nerd out over that kind of thing. So you spent quite a lot of time building out this big spreadsheet of over 200 protein sources.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:34

Boy, I'm a lady in the streets, but I'm a freak in the spreadsheet and I, and I really do love me some data entry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:43

Yeah. So you basically went out like a scavenger hunt through Reddit comments and hundreds of pages on Amazon search results to get just the vegan protein sources. So this is like raw sources, single source ingredients in addition to packaged products, all kinds of things that you might associate with vegan protein and what can I eat? So you ended up, like I said, with a little over 200, the prices on the table are not based on sale prices, so we can try to kind of equalize where the starting point is for everything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:07

It felt more fair. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:08

You also got nutritional information and number of servings all kind of rolled together into that table.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:13

All right. So then we used that raw data and we did some calculations to make new data that is now sortable. Yeah. So you can sort by ascending or descending order to get information that you want.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:25

Yeah. And you can also like filter out the columns you're interested in and things like that. So a lot of options.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:30

If you happen to be listening and you have access to a phone or computer and you would like to follow along, we're gonna be talking about how this database works. Um, so you can just pull it up and kind of listen to what we're talking about.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:40

Yeah. And the link to actually go right to the blog post that has the table will be in the show notes wherever you're listening to the podcast here.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:47

Yeah. So these are the things you can sort by.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:49

The percentage of protein on a calorie basis.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:53

This is the number of calories that come from protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:55

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:56

Percentage wise, this is the number I usually look at when I'm planning out our meals for the week, or honestly, this is kind of how I do recipes too. I'll look at what different ingredients like the percentage they have, and figure out what I need to add to my recipes to get 'em to the total percentage I want.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:10

Yeah. And typically when you're using something like MyFitnessPal, you'll have a percentage of protein you need to hit for your daily calories. So that might be like 30% of your calories for the day have to come from protein. So you can kinda look at your foods and say, okay, well if I eat bunch of stuff that's like 10% protein, I'm gonna need more things that are like 60, 70% protein to kind of make up for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:28

Right. I think specifically having this data to sort by is really helpful, especially if you're trying to hit a protein goal, like you said. Um, 'cause yeah, sometimes you don't know what the percentage actually is and you end up with like 400 calories left because you ate peanut butter all day and you have to hit a hundred grams of protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:43

Yeah, that'd make it pretty hard. The next thing that you can sort by is the grams of protein per US dollar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:50

Yeah. This is one I thought was super helpful as far as being able to find cheap protein sources and it kind of normalizes the data. So instead of comparing like the cost dollar per serving, or how much does the container of whatever cost, this kind of like equalizes it. So we're comparing apples with apples. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:10

And as much as we'd like to put in all the different currencies around the world, uh, that's really hard to fit into the webpage format that we have. So it is all gonna be anchored in US dollars. So hopefully that's not too terribly inconvenient.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:21

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:21

Next up is grams of protein per 100 grams of mass or weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:28

Yeah. Uh, I only included that 'cause I see a lot of people talking about that. I personally don't really use that number, but if you do, you can sort by it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:36

Yeah. People ask for it all the time. I also don't really even see the value in it, but it is popular and some people, that's how they do their mental frame of reference. Yeah. So we put it in there. The next one up is US dollar per 100 calories of the product. So this one isn't necessarily protein related, but if you're trying to get in your calories on a budget, you can sort by this column, you can kind of compare, like if you sort by this one, you'll also see in the other columns, which one maybe has higher protein at the same price point and things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:03

Yeah. And I felt like this one was interesting because there are some products that are like 90% protein, so the numbers might look better. Yeah. On the protein grams per dollar. But then when you look at the per hundred calories, it's like you're gonna be spending a lot of money to eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:18

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:18

Um, so like say your budget is $10 a day and you're sitting at like 2000 calories that you have to get, I think you would look for anything under 50 cents per a hundred calories.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:30

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:30

Is how you would look at the table.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:33

Yeah. And then the last one that's kinda like a measurement is calories per 100 grams of weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:38

Yeah. And this is another one that I don't really use too much, but I think it would be good if you're like, uh, let's say you're trying to eat high volume foods. Like you don't have many calories, but you wanna feel full. Um, this is a good metric to look at, to figure out which foods like contain the most water. So like they'll keep you fuller.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:59

Yeah. Maybe just sort this one, most to least. And then see something in the top 10 that maybe you want to keep around for something that's like a little more filling throughout the day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:07

And then all of those are the sortable fields.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:09

Right. Also, the other column you can see right there on the front of the database is a link. So you have a link to all of these products so people can get to 'em really easy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:17

Yeah. And so that you can see what sources I'm referencing for how I came up with the dollar amount and also the nutritional facts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:24

Yeah. Also all of the food items in there are categorized as well, so that's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:29

Yep. And you can filter by the category.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:32

Yeah. So you, if you just wanna see your refrigerator staples or your grains or something like that, you can filter and you can add multiple filters. So you can see like a list of different things. It's pretty customizable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:41

Yeah, I like it 'cause you can compare things that are in a similar vein. So like I'm gonna compare all the meat alternatives and see which are the cheapest or which are the highest percentage of protein, or I'm gonna compare all the protein powders, or I'm gonna compare all the snacks. Yeah. Um. Yeah, but I did come up with all the categories and I put everything in the category, so if you disagree with me, let me know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:01

Yeah, and the categories, I'll read through 'em. There's not very many. The categories we have right now are beans and lentils, dairy alternatives, egg alternatives, fridge staples, grains, meat alternatives, miscellaneous, nuts and seeds, pantry staples, pasta and bread, prepared meals, protein bars, protein shakes, snacks and vegetables. So there might be more added over time, or maybe some will be consolidated, who knows? But that's where it is right now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:28

Yeah. If you think of anything we should add, let us know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:31

We also have a field in there for storage. So basically how you have to store the food in your house.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:36

Yeah. And since I am constantly on Reddit, I've seen a lot of posts about people saying like, Hey, I don't have a fridge, or, Hey, I don't have a freezer. What can I buy for a protein source?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:46

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:46

So this kind of tells you if it needs to be stored in the fridge freezer. If it's short term shelf stable, meaning like bread. Mm-hmm. Or if it's long term shelf stable, something like TVP or vital wheat gluten.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:57

Yeah. And that's really useful information because if you wanna save some stuff for the zombie apocalypse, you might wanna go for long-term shelf stable, which you can filter by.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:05

Exactly. And it's coming.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:08

Uh, next up you have effort required. There are a lot of places where you can see like, okay, the best thing to buy is like beans and rice and that's great, but you kind of have to do a lot to get that to where it's edible in a lot of cases. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:18

Exactly, especially since there's gonna be, you know, dried beans and canned beans and the difference there is the effort level, right? Yeah. Like with dried beans, you have to actually prepare them, whereas like canned beans, you can either eat 'em straight outta the can or you can warm'em up, but like very minimal effort. Um, so that could factor into things you choose to spend a little bit more money on for convenience.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:39

So the options here are either ready to go or you have to warm it up, or you actually have to like prep it and cook it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:45

Yeah. And that would be more of like single source ingredients, like tofu, vital wheat gluten, like you have to do something with those to make them into a meal. Yeah. Or something you can consume.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:54

Right. Yeah. So if you're looking for easy mode, ready to go, right? Yep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:58

There's a lot of stuff under ready to go.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:00

Yeah. Another thing that's in there that's actually really useful is an allergies filter. So we have filters for soy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free. So if you have one of those allergies or if it's just even a preference, you can filter by that and basically just eliminate all the stuff in the table that you don't want to eat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:14

Yeah, and I had to pull that data out manually by going through all the ingredient labels. So if you see a mistake, I'm sorry, let me know, 'cause I am not a robot and I'm prone to mistakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:25

Yeah. A lot of manual entry went into this.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:27

Yeah. But I think well worth it is like a very useful table.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:31

For sure. Also when you go to look at the table, you're gonna see like the main columns that we've been talking about here, but there's also a plus button on each food item that's in there that expands out into some additional information. Some of the things in there are, like some comments you wrote about how to use the product. Not everything has this, just kind of the ones that require a lot of prep. Um, there's also info about where you got the price from and the date that that entry was updated.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:55

Yep. And I do plan on updating this table probably at minimum once a year, just to make sure the prices are still mostly accurate and that products haven't been discontinued.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:04

Right. Oh, we also have some future features in mind. Actually already got some feedback from the community on some things they'd like to see. You actually got quite a bit of excitement. It just got released a couple of days ago and you've already got like people how you should do this and do this and how can I contribute and things like that. Yes. So it's really cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:18

It's awesome. I'm very excited. I need more people to see it though. Yeah, so share it wide.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:23

Yeah. So some of the things to support that, that we're gonna be doing, we're gonna have a form so you can submit foods you wanna see in there or if you happen to see any mistakes, you can send that in and say, Hey, I think maybe this needs to be changed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:33

Yeah. And I think where this could be really useful is right now all the products are US based, or at least like they're things you can buy in the US 'cause that's where I'm based. And that's really honestly like the only thing I can see is like products that I can purchase. I don't really know even where to look for, like stuff in Germany or stuff in Spain. We got some feedback on Reddit that it could be useful if we added some other country's data. So I think like a form where they could enter that data for me, like so we can crowdsource the data. Would be really helpful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:04

Yeah. And once we get some of the other kind of international stuff in there, we'll add a filter for the country. So if there's stuff that's only available in certain countries, you can just see that information.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:13

Yeah. And I think if we get enough eyes on this, it could be like a big group project, which would be really fun.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:17

Yeah. We might also add fiber per 100 calories. I know that's something you were kind of thinking through.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:22

Yeah, I've been thinking about it. It is gonna take a lot of work, so I'd be interested if anyone on this podcast thinks that would be useful. I mean, I kind of feel like it's useful. It tells a little bit more of the story around different protein sources. Which is really what the table is supposed to tell you is like the whole story of why it's priced this way or like is it a good price for what you're getting?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:42

Yeah. Um, and when you go to use the table on the webpage, there is a little like a foldout section for how to use it to kind of talk about some of the stuff we've talked about here, but also in general, just like how to physically use the table on the website. Now that we've talked the table to death, let's move on to some of the cheapest and most expensive protein sources that we have in there so we can just kind of talk through some of them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:01

Yep. So these are sorted by protein grams on a US dollar basis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:07

Okay. So these are, uh, high protein per dollar, good bang for your buck.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:11

Yeah, you get a lot of protein per dollar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:13

Number one on the list. Dry lentils?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:17

Yeah. Who would've thought? Probably everyone, but we're gonna let you know that that's number one on our list right now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:22

Yeah. And again, this doesn't necessarily mean they're like the highest protein density, but this is the highest protein per dollar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:29

Yep. So this one's coming in at around 83 grams of protein per dollar, and that's based on where I found it. You could probably get it even cheaper, like at your local grocery store or if there's a sale.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:40

Yeah. Which is insane by the way. It's like it's pretty far above some of the other stuff on the table, so, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:45

So if you're on a budget, you should definitely be using lentils. Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:49

Uh, and they are 32% protein by calorie too. So that's like, you know, slightly less than most protein bars. Pretty good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:56

It's all things considered great, honestly. And they're shelf stable.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:00

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:00

These are dried. So they're shelf stable. They're a little bit more work than like a canned lentil. But for the price difference, like I think you're gonna wanna choose dried lentil. So these are good for soups, chilis, shepherd's pie. You can even make your own lentil tofu or lentil wraps.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:15

I don't think I've heard of lentil tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:16

Yeah, you can tofu anything pretty much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:19

That makes sense. All right. Number two on the list is dry beans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:24

I know. Big shocker. No one could have guessed this. We're bringing you hot information.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:30

Beans are cheap. You heard it here first. Dry chickpeas and pinto beans were technically the cheapest at like 60 to 80 grams of protein per dollar. Um, a lot of the other beans are cheap too. Those are just kind of the cheapest ones you found in your search.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:45

Yeah. Which, like I said, you know, you might find cheaper deals at your local grocery store or when there are sales happening, but even if I saw a sale, I took whatever the price is normally listed at, so it would be like a fair comparison.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:59

Yeah. Beans, not quite as high protein per calorie as lentils. Still respectable, like 25 to 28% protein, but you know, you're not gonna be able to eat beans all day and hit your protein goal for most people. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:10

The other good thing though is that lentils and beans also offer a lot of fiber.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:15

That's true. Yeah. Fiber's awesome.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:16

So it's like you're getting it cheap, you're getting high protein, and you're getting fiber.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:20

Plus, they're delicious.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:21

They're delicious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:23

Alright. Number three is vital wheat gluten.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:26

My favorite.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:27

Yeah. So we've left the bean arena.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:30

Yes. For now, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And maybe forever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:34

So vital wheat gluten, 50 to 60 grams of protein per dollar. Still very good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:38

Very good. And vital Wheat gluten is super protein dense. I'm thinking it's like 80 to 90% protein on a calorie basis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:48

Yeah. Also shelf stable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:49

Yep. So the price does vary a bit on this. Um. When I was looking, I found the Anthony's four pound bag is very well priced and you only have to buy four pounds at a time. Um, there is a 25 pound bag option from Bob's Red Mill, which is a little bit cheaper. Um, but you of course would need to figure out what to do with 25 pound bag of, uh,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:10

a vital weak, a vital, weak

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:11

glue, which is, you know, a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:13

Yeah. I mean, if you like, are really really into seitan, I think it'd be

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:17

fine. Yeah. Or if you're feeding a large family, it probably makes sense, but it also is a large dollar commitment up front to get a 25 pound bag versus like a four pound bag.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:26

Yeah. So some of the things you can make with that, seitan obviously is the big one with vital wheat gluten. You have a lot of recipes for high protein baked goods.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:32

Yes. I really like bread, pretzels, bagels, pizza dough.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:36

.And some high protein desserts.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:37

Yes. Like our chocolate seitan you should check it out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:40

And we also have the, uh, cinnamon donut hole things that are really awesome.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:43

Yeah, those are really good. And we got a couple other Desserty seitan recipes. We do a lot with seitan. We do a lot with vital wheat gluten.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:52

Yeah. For good reason. Number four on the list to probably nobody's surprise, peanuts and peanut butter.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:59

Yes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:00

You knew it was gonna show up here somewhere.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:01

It's very cheap. We don't really recommend this as like a primary protein source, but it is a very cheap food option if you're trying to save money. And you do get a lot of calories for your dollar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:10

Peanuts specifically are about 19% protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:13

Yes. And they come in around 54 grams of protein per dollar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:17

So that's pretty good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:18

Yeah, it's not bad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:19

And then peanut butter, a little lower, uh, 48 grams of protein per dollar and uh, maybe cheaper if you get like a store brand. Yeah. I think we use Skippy and the, the comparison here. And then, uh, that's only 15% protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:31

So. Right. So, and they're also high in fat, but they're super cheap.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:36

Yeah. And they're healthy fats. They're good fats. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:38

And I mean, if you're on a budget and you're looking for a way to get high calories for cheap, this is a really good option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:45

Yeah, for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:46

And then you can put it on some bread made out of vital wheat gluten.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:49

Ah, there you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:50

And then there you go.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:50

Now we just gotta find high protein jelly. Alright, uh, number five on the list, one of our favorites, a textured vegetable protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:01

Yes. We do love TVP in this house.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:04

So you could buy it in a bulk bag, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:07

Yeah. So the price does vary a lot on TVP. Um, these were based on Amazon pricing. But you might also be able to find it cheaper in the bulk section of your grocery store or at, um, like an Asian market. Yeah. But, these are the prices currently. Um, the 25 pound bag of Bob's Red Mill, which we do have, is about 51 grams of protein per dollar, which is incredible. Um, the next one that I found that was the cheapest after that was a one and a half pound bag of Anthony's, which is 24 grams per dollar, so almost twice as expensive. So I think this one, unlike the vital wheat gluten where the difference wasn't that much. Yeah. I think if you have the storage and you think you could use 25 pound bags, this is probably a good one to spend money on.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:53

Yeah. I mean it's just such a, a hugely better value to get the biggest bag.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:57

Yeah, and I think it's around $108 currently. Um, some other websites sell 'em, but I haven't bought a 25 pound bag from anywhere other than Amazon. Um, but we've had ours for like a year and it's still going strong.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:11

And TVP in general, 60 to 70% protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:14

Yeah. So very good. And also high in fiber.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:16

Also, it's a complete protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:18

It does it all kids.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:19

So some of the things you can use TVP for. It's great as a ground beef substitute for things like tacos, enchiladas, shepherd's pie, chilis. Uh, you have a good bacon bits recipe with this. Yep. Um, also, again, high protein baked goods. Who would've thought?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:33

I know. Uh, I really like to use it in muffins, cookies, and it makes a hell of a cheesecake and pie crust, which it sounds weird, but trust me, we just ate a pumpkin pie this morning.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:43

All right, so that was our top five of kind of the best bang for your buck in terms of protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:50

Yeah. And just to recap, it was dried lentils, dried beans, vital wheat gluten, peanuts, and peanut butter, and TVP textured vegetable protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:00

Yeah. So definitely recommend keeping basically all of those around in your house.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:04

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:05

So next we're gonna talk about the most expensive products on a grams of protein per dollar basis.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:10

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:11

And again, this is in US dollars.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:12

Yep. This is taking nothing else into account other than grams of protein per dollar basis. And we'll explain a little bit around why these might appear so expensive. So number one, these two were kind of tied, but Green Bites protein cookie, which I know is a big fan favorite, I see it all the time. And also just vegan jerky. We compared two brands of vegan jerky and these were both only one and a half grams of protein per dollar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:39

Yeah. And just, you know, a flashback there. We were talking about dry lentils at 83 grams of protein per dollar. Yeah, so they're like 60 times more expensive for protein per dollar wise than dry lentils.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:52

And we'll get to the percentage of protein of these later, but, um the lentils are actually a higher percentage of protein as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:01

Oh, that's, that's a, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:02

Um, so these are convenience foods and they kind of fill that junk food craving while also having some protein. So that's kind of why the price is so high. They're also kind of smaller companies. Really. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:15

I think that's a lot of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:16

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:17

They do taste good. I'll give them that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:19

Yeah, for sure. Um, and these prices were taken without affiliate discount codes that people are always pushing. Um, so you could get these like a little bit cheaper, but I mean, these are like drastically more expensive than some of the other foods if you're on a budget.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:34

Yeah. And one of the other issues, like especially with some kind of protein cookie like this, is they don't keep very long, like maybe a couple days, even if you put it in the refrigerator. Yeah. So you know, you're getting a really expensive product and then you have to eat it pretty fast.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:46

Yeah. All right, so the protein sandwich cookie, specifically from Green Bites is 22 to 23% protein on a calorie basis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:55

And the two vegan jerky brands we looked at were vegan jerky y'all and Louisville Vegan Jerky.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:00

Um, these brand names were meant for him to say because he is from Kentucky, but these came in around 22 to 24% protein. So if we think back to beans and lentils, the beans and lentils are still higher percentage of protein than either of these.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:17

Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:18

Not to say that's the only reason you would buy things.'cause you also have the convenience factor, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:22

Yeah. Convenience factor, you know? Uh, you wanna take 'em on a road trip. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:26

I think the main takeaway here though is, you know, if you have money to spend on these things and they make you happy, you should go for it. Yeah, you should eat all the protein cookies and all the vegan jerky you want until your heart's content. But if you're trying to reduce your budget and these things are things that you are buying, you might wanna look into better options or make your own, which is a great option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:46

Yeah. You know where we can find any recipes to make our own things?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:49

I have not a clue.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:52

Alright, uh, number two for kind of most expensive on a protein per dollar basis is oat milk. Uh, so a little disappointing, but it's only 1.6 grams of protein per dollar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:05

Which. You know, oat milk is never meant to be a protein source, but I was comparing all of the milk alternatives because I know some people go back and forth on whether they wanna use soy milk. So I thought it might be an interesting comparison. Um, but even if you look at how much does it cost on a calorie basis, you are paying a dollar 50 for a hundred calories of oat milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:26

Uh, that sounds insane.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:28

I also thought it sounded insane. Now, this was the most expensive plant-based milk on the list, but almond milk wasn't far behind.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:35

Yeah, so soy milk is significantly cheaper on a protein basis and a calorie basis, and that's our go-to for that reason. And plus the taste of it, I think is just better.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:43

Yeah. It's also higher protein percentage on a calorie basis. You're talking like 35 to 40% protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:48

Yeah. Plus again, complete protein. Not that the little bit in your soy milk matters too much. Yeah. You could also get one of those machines like the almond Cow. And I think there's some other ones. That's just the one that comes to the top of my head. If you wanna make your own plant-based milk, if you really want an almond milk or an oat milk, but you want it to be cheaper.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:02

Yeah. But you know, you do have to pay for the cost of the machine. So it's like how many things, how many glasses of oat Yeah. And almond milk do you need to make to pay it off?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:11

Yeah. You gotta make your own milk for 10 to 15 years to get your return. So, I dunno, I don't know if that's the real number or not, but. Next up number three is Juicy Marbles.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:21

I'm sure you've seen this like on Instagram, on everywhere. Like it looks really good, but it's like it is pitched as a luxury food item and it is priced accordingly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:30

Yeah. Yeah. Two grams of protein per dollar and then uh, $4 and 69 cents per 100 calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:37

Yeah. So you're paying $4 and 69 cents for a hundred calories of food. Like, that's crazy. I mean. I could see us buying it maybe one time just to try it because it looks great and I hear great things and I think there are sales on it, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:51

Yeah. And it is 40% protein, so that's pretty good, but damn.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:55

Yeah. I guess, you know, maybe it's comparable to expensive meats. I don't really know 'cause I've never bought meat. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:04

So some of the ways, like if you like something like that, but you want to maybe not spend that kind of money on it, uh, you can make your own. Again, seitan is like really cheap, uh, for a meat alternative and you can make it pretty easily at home.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:15

Yeah, with vital wheat gluten, which was one of our top five cheapest.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:18

Yeah. And then some, if you want like a ready to go meat alternative, there are still cheaper ones. Uh, some of those on a grams of protein per dollar basis are like the Gardein ground beef is 14 grams of protein per dollar. Um, light life hot dogs about 13 grams a dollar, uh, Upton Seitan, 11 grams a dollar, and then beyond patties are 10 grams of protein per dollar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:39

Yeah. And a lot of the other meat alternatives come somewhere in the range of like seven to nine grams per dollar. This one's just really high for probably 'cause it's a smaller brand and it's a more luxury item.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:51

Yeah, we've got some other meat alternatives listed on the table as well, and you can filter by that to just see those if you want. Yep. Next up. Protein per dollar is fresh veggies. Not a great value.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:00

Yeah. While these are amazing, and you need to be eating vegetables.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:04

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:05

They shouldn't be your main protein source. If for no other reason, then they're pretty expensive on a protein per dollar basis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:11

Yeah. And you know, to be fair, most people aren't looking for protein out of their vegetables. Sure. But a, a lot of people do bring this up online.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:17

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:18

Yeah. But baby spinach, two and a half grams of protein per dollar. Cauliflower, 2.7 grams, a dollar mushrooms, 3.2 grams of protein per dollar. So a little better. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, in, in general, we're not even in the ballpark of like the actual protein sources.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:33

Yeah. Still cheaper than juicy marbles though. Yeah. And these are, these ones we listed are around like the 30 to 40% protein. Yeah. Um, some solutions you could maybe buy frozen and canned veggies. Sometimes those are cheaper. You're more likely to find deals on those. Once again. These are prices that were not sale prices, so that they were more evenly comparable.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:56

Plus the frozen ones stay good longer. You know? You know how spinach stays in the fridge for like two or three days and it gets real slimy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:02

I know, or broccoli. Even mushrooms. Mushrooms these days tend mushroom tend to go bad a lot faster. They go bad so fast. I know. It's so sad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:09

I don't think you can really get frozen mushrooms, can you? But no, they sell the spinach, they sell canned.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:13

But I don't, I don't really even consider them mushrooms. It's like the ones they put on crappy pizzas, you know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:19

Oh man. But spinach, you, you buy spinach, frozen, and a lot other vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:22

Broccoli. Yeah. Um, the other solution is to eat these as a vegetable serving, not as a main protein source. We mentioned a lot of other really great protein sources. So this shouldn't be your primary protein source.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:33

Yeah. And again, you should be eating a lot of veggies. Yeah. They're just, you're not very good. Uh. Price wise, they're not very good bang for your buck for protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:40

Yeah. Honestly, uh, calorie wise, either dollar per calorie, that's, it's pretty steep, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:45

All right. And then, number five on the list of the more expensive options are the non soy tofus.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:51

Yeah. I've seen a couple options. Mostly chickpea, pumpkin and fava bean tofu. Um, chickpea comes in around two and a half grams per dollar. Pumpkin is like five and a half grams per dollar. And then the fava bean is actually not too bad. It's 9.8 grams per dollar. Um, but these are still like way more expensive than soy tofus. And then if you're looking at other data pieces, the chickpea and pumpkin tofus are only around 22% protein on a calorie basis. So like half as much as soy tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:22

Oh wow. That's actually kind of surprising.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:24

Yeah. So I feel like if you're on a budget, I would not be putting chickpea or pumpkin tofus in my cart. The one made with fava beans is actually kind of interesting because it has crazy macros. We're talking like 91% protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:37

Oh, holy shit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:37

Yeah. So I can maybe understand why you might wanna buy those. I feel like that's like an exception. It is like outstanding in its field, right? Like yeah, maybe you could throw some dollars at it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:48

Yeah. And some of the things you can do if you don't want to buy these 'cause they're a little too expensive, uh, you can make your own tofu with dried beans or lentils or pumpkin seeds.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:56

Yep. And then, you know, seitan might even be a better option for you if you're soy intolerant.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:01

So that's some of the most expensive and the cheapest stuff. Uh, protein per dollar on the table. Again, we have all the other data points. A ton of entries on the table. Really recommend you go on there and check it out. Um, let us know if there's anything that surprised you on there. I know when I was looking through it, after you initially put the data together, I was just sitting there like, wow, that's crazy. Oh my God, I never knew that. Like so many things popped up that I never thought of. And I think it probably will like change some of the buying habits too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:26

Yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:27

So yeah, let us know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:28

The thing that was most shocking to me was actually the price difference between a huge bulk bag of TVP versus like a four pound bag.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:37

Oh yeah. That just.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:37

That was crazy. It's like double the price. I was shocked about that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:40

Yeah. Really surprising. All right, now we're gonna move into our myth of the week for this week. The myth of the week this week is that you need to be eating only complete protein sources. Yeah, so that's not true. Um, the complete protein is important because you do need all the amino acids in the right proportions to build muscle and maintain muscle, so you're not losing muscle. But if you eat one food that's not a complete protein source, you're probably eating it with other food that gives you the amino acids that you're missing from that food. So you don't need to go out necessarily and intentionally like combine things in the same meal. Um, but it does tend to happen naturally. Most people don't just sit down and just eat like seitan off the plate. Yeah, they're gonna have it with some other things. Seitan specifically is a little short in lysine, that amino acid. So if you're eating it with other things on your plate, those things are probably gonna provide the lysine you need. Or even within like a couple of hours of eating the seitan, like it's really more of a cumulative thing than it's, I need every piece of food that I eat to be a complete protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:40

Yeah. So if you think about amino acids, like friends are inviting to a pool party, as long as they all show up to the pool party in your stomach, it doesn't really matter what time they come. Right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:49

That's true. Mm-hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:50

If it is something that you're worried about though, you could probably round it out with like what EAAs?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:56

Yeah. If you like. I do actually tend to do that sometimes I do eat a pretty big serving of seitan, so I'll also do like a scoop of EAAs just to make sure I'm getting the extra lycine for that muscle building session of the day, for lack of a better word. Um, also you can, you know, you can focus on soy, which is a complete protein. Yeah. As like one of your major protein sources or just do like a, uh, protein powder throughout the day that's like a blend or it's a single source, complete protein like soy, something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:23

Yeah. And I think some other complete protein sources are what nutritional yeast. Um, quinoa.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:29

Quinoa. Yeah. Buckwheat, buckwheat, spirulina. A lot of those are like, you can't really get 'em in a high volume.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:33

You can't get 'em in a high volume, but they're complete. Yeah. But you can also make your seitan with tofu, which is what I do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:39

Yeah. So you don't need to worry about it too much, but you do wanna make sure you're not like getting a like 50% of your protein for the day is like from this limited amino acid protein. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:49

From vital wheat gluten or something. Yeah. So eat a varied diet essentially.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:53

Well, it's worth knowing how it works, but probably not something you're gonna have to actively do things about day to day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:57

Yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:58

Next you have a new YouTube video out this week for your long form recipes that you've been putting out. This one is your pumpkin spice donut holes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:06

Yeah. These are one of your favorites.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:08

Yes, those are one of my favorites.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:10

These are made with vital wheat gluten, which we just learned about is super duper cheap and these taste really good, so you should check it out and you should make it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:18

Yeah. Super high protein. This is actually what I was thinking about when I just said sometimes I eat a hundred grams of protein in seitan a day, so I'll sit down with my, um you know, large container of pumpkin spice donut holes and my EAA drink and suddenly it's all complete.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:33

It's called balance.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:37

All right? Yeah. So check that out. That link will be in the show notes as well. So we hope you enjoyed this one. We hope you go out there and look at the table and really poke around and dive in there and give us feedback. We love to hear from everybody.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:46

Please give us feedback. I wanna do more data entry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:50

Also, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you could leave a review, apple Podcast tends to be the one that helps the most. But, uh, we get reviews everywhere. You can also leave a comment if you're listening in Spotify. We've had a couple people do that now. Uh, so that's pretty easy. We've also got a link in the show notes to send us a text message, so you can do that. We can't reply directly to it, but we can address it here on the podcast next time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:10

Also, comments and messages make us really happy because it kind of feels like we're talking into like the abyss.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:16

Yeah, that's true. You particularly like to get yours in haiku form.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:20

I do like haikus when people leave me a recipe comment in haiku, it makes my whole life.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:26

Yeah. So, uh, in the show notes as well, we have links to our websites and social media profiles. So feel free to reach out on any of those again, uh, love to hear from everybody.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:35

Yeah. And again, if you check out the table and you have any feedback, let me know.'cause I want it to be the most useful table of all time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:42

Yeah, sounds good. All right, well I think that's it for this week. Do you wanna say bye?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:46

Bye.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:47

Bye everybody.