Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. I'm the Muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient Vegan. Do you wanna say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:05

Hi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:05

Hi everybody. This is episode 28, protein Versus Fiber. So if you've been on TikTok or Instagram lately, you've probably seen people saying something to the effect of, stop obsessing over protein, because fiber is what really matters.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:18

Yes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:19

So meanwhile, you've also got the carnivore people yelling that you don't need any fiber at all and it's totally bad for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:25

Oh. And get more saturated fats.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:28

Right. So we're gonna talk about a couple of things here, but the highlights are they both matter, protein and fiber. They both do totally different things and you can eat a lot of both and you don't have to choose.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:38

No need to choose one or the other.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:40

Right. So, we'll dive into the reasons behind those things, but first off, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:44

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:46

So there's a new season of Stranger Things Out. At least the first couple of episodes are out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:51

Oh, they are so good too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:52

Yeah. And how that ties into this is that there are a couple people on the cast who are vegan. Can you guess who those are?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:59

Okay. I already knew one of them because I like Sadie Sink and she's vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04

Yeah. Sadie Sink plays Max on Stranger Things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06

Yeah, I heard that when she was like a teenager. She was in a movie with Woody Harrelson and he's vegan and he's been vegan for a very long time. And she went vegan after that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16

Oh, that's pretty cool. Also, Dr. Brenner on the show. His name is Matthew Modine. He's also vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21

You might also know him as Papa.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23

Right. Uh, also not vegan, but Winona Ryder has been vegetarian for a really long time, since she was a kid.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:29

Yeah. I saw this come up on, I don't know if it was VegNews or one of the other vegan news sources, but they were talking about how she picked tofu on, like she was on an episode of Hot Ones, that one where they eat like wings or whatever, and different spice levels, so, very cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:44

Yeah. Next up in South Korea there is an island called, I don't know how to pronounce this, but Jeju Island, something like that, where there's a population of about 120 endangered bottle-nosed dolphins, and they're trying to pass some laws there to give those dolphins what they call eco legal personhood, which basically would mean that if something is threatening the livelihood of the dolphins, then a person or organization can sue on their behalf and kind of intervene to stop that activity from happening.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:13

I find this really interesting, just 'cause I, what I know of bycatch, which if you don't know what bycatch is, it's basically when they go fishing for like shrimp or tuna or like whatever the heck they're fishing for, they do it with these big nets and they end up catching things other than the specific animal that they're fishing for. And so they end up with something called bycatch, which is anything they weren't specifically fishing for. And basically the way the nets work is like once you pull all the animals up that you've caught, like, uh, pretty much everything dies. So like you can get dolphins in your net as bycatch and they don't live because you know, by the time you're done sorting through what you want and what you don't want. A bunch of animals have died.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:54

Yeah. So, and, and also, uh, in this case at least they found a lot of these dolphins have like visible scars and injuries from fishing boats and fishing nets and things that had been thrown in the water and things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:04

And I'm sure that part of the reason they're endangered is because of the bycatch thing, you know? Right. So I don't think a lot of people know about bycatch.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:11

And it was one of the things I learned around the time I went vegan, like I hadn't eaten fish for a really, really long time anyways, but I was reading all these books and they were talking about bycatch and I had never heard of it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:20

Yeah. It's definitely an interesting topic worth reading more about. And the last piece of new news we have here is this post you may have seen making the rounds on social media. It originally started on Reddit where somebody had posted, um, an ask me Anything post that said, basically they were like a paid professional anti vegan troll on part of a team that basically made a bunch of accounts and went and argued with vegans and spoke out against veganism. We don't have a way to verify the claims for something like that, but we just bring it up because that post has gotten pretty popular in the last couple days. I've seen it shared a lot outside of Reddit even.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:54

Yeah. I actually saw the original post before I saw it shared anywhere, and then it was like in every vegan subreddit on Reddit and then I've seen it like shared across Instagram. It's pretty popular. Um, I first saw it and I was like, yeah, I totally believe that because I've argued with some people that don't seem to have any common sense, like, you're really not getting anywhere with 'em, and that would totally track for me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:18

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:18

I mean, there's no way to verify it. Right. But.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:21

Right. I think this also leads into something we might deal with more in the future and is already happening on social media to a certain extent, but it's just kind of AI personas that are set up to push certain viewpoints or propaganda or arguments, things like that. So yeah, something to keep out an eye for as you navigate kind of the internet at large.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:40

Yeah, and I think this is like a good point for like mental health in general, just because I'm on social media a lot 'cause I, I'm managing a bunch of social media channels and I'm on Reddit a lot and it's just like, really pick who you're having arguments with. There'll be some people where it's like, yeah, you might be able to plant a seed or get through to them and they're like open to hearing what you have to say. But there are some people you can immediately tell have their own agenda or maybe, I guess, are a bot or a paid actor, but you're not gonna get anywhere with them and arguing back and forth is just going to like, drain you of all the happiness you have.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:13

Yeah, I typically try to use arguments on the platform to use my comment as maybe education for future people who might come across the thread and I don't even really target it necessarily at the person who I'm having the actual discussion with. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:26

Just so you know, if you're going back and forth with someone for 2020 rounds and you're not getting anywhere, it could be a bot, it could be a paid person.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:34

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:34

No way to tell.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:35

That's true. All right, well that's the news. Let's go ahead and move into the topic here. Again, protein versus fiber. So, first we might talk about, why is there an argument to begin with? Why are we pitting protein against fiber here? So there are a couple of different angles that people are addressing this argument from. The first one is people saying you're eating way too much protein already. Just eat plants and you'll be fine.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:58

Yeah. I've been seeing this one come up a lot. I saw it on a couple of social media posts I've had like had someone say all human people need is 5% protein and they'll be fine.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:10

Yeah, 5% is pretty low and I think that's hard to quantify across different people with different calorie goals. But I think in general, this argument comes from the whole food, plant-based crowd.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:20

Yeah, I think. Uh, I also, I mean, I don't wanna speak for why people are saying this, but like from my perspective as someone who's been constantly asked like, where do you get your protein?'cause I've been vegetarian since I was 12. I kind of feel like this is a way to combat that. Of saying like, you don't, protein's really not that important. Like, you don't really need protein. You know, you need like this really small amount that's like almost impossible for you to not get, like that's a much easier conversation if you just say that instead of saying like, well, here's where I get my protein from.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:50

Yeah. And it's also missing the nuance of what is my goal, right? Because we'll talk about some numbers here in a little bit, but there's like a number basically where you need this much protein to not get sick.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:01

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:01

And then there's a different amount of protein you need if you're trying to build muscle and you want to optimize things. So the people who typically make this argument are just coming at it from the perspective of, well if you, you're getting enough protein already to not be sick, why would you care about this?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:15

Yeah. And they're usually people that are on maintenance calories too. You're not like actively trying to lose weight, which can also make you want to eat more protein dense foods because you have less calories to hit your protein with. Right. So, I don't know, I feel like some of the comments that I'm seeing are like almost a little bit dangerous. Yeah. On like, I agree that protein deficiencies in veganism are pretty rare. They're rare because people are aware that you need protein. So like now saying, Hey, we don't even need protein, basically, I think like maybe you see those go up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:47

Yeah. And it can also potentially lead people to ignore protein more than they would have otherwise. Yeah. Like if they didn't know anything about this, if they come out here and they're reading, oh, protein is irrelevant. You don't have to think about it. And then every time they might have naturally chosen some kind of protein option, they'd be like, oh, well that's useless. I'll just eat, you know, this junk food or this very low protein option instead.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:09

And I'm seeing stuff that's not even just like, oh, protein is useless, but also like it leads to a higher mortality rate, which.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:16

Yeah, there's a lot of discussion around that in the whole food, plant-based circles about the downsides of proteins, specifically animal proteins, because the high leucine content, causing higher mortality because of IGF-1 being elevated and potentially increased cancer risk. And a lot of things like that, don't necessarily pan out in like long-term research, but they have some theoretical basis, so they really anchor onto a lot of those things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:41

Yeah. For me, 'cause I'm seeing a lot of this stuff like on my posts where I'm not like telling people to eat a certain amount of protein. I'm just saying like, if you have a high protein target or you just are like trying to eat more protein, here are some recipes you can make, but like. Uh, for me it's just as annoying seeing someone come in and say, you don't need any protein as it is for like, omnivore to come in and say, look, where are you getting your protein? Yeah. You know, it's, it's like, how about we let everyone individually figure out what they need instead of like, pushing stuff for some reason?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:15

Yeah. I think it makes sense to try to understand what the person is coming in and asking for. Are they asking for how much protein should I eat or are they saying I've decided, you know, maybe that's with their doctor. Maybe that's with like their personal trainer or a nutritionist or something like, this is the amount of protein that for whatever reason I know, or I've decided I need. Mm-hmm. How can I hit that?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:35

Yeah. Which is really all I try to do with my recipes. Like I'm not telling you guys what to eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:39

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:40

That's not my business, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:43

Yeah. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:44

So. Yeah, I think that's kind of the first one we've seen a lot of lately.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:48

Yeah. And then the next one is definitely a lot more of a middle ground. And it's basically just fiber is the most important thing and protein is overhyped.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:55

I've been seeing a lot of this specifically on threads, and it's coming from the perspective of protein was the 2025 trend and fiber's, the 2026 trend. But my question is, why are any of these trends in the first place? And if we're calling them trends, then it's probably coming from corporations, right? Yeah. Like are corporations pushing the fiber thing to sell more products to you? I don't know, but like why is nutrition a trend?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:24

Yeah. And I mean, at least we're pushing something good for once. Like fiber is great and we'll talk about the benefits here shortly, but not really sure why it comes at the expense of protein. They're two different things. Yeah. But again, this, um, this tends to come more from like a health focus, like avoiding being sick type crowd.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:40

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:41

Increasing your protein won't really do much more for you to keep you from being sick after a certain point. Sure. So we're talking about like long-term health, fiber's great. Awesome. But I don't know how protein even got pulled into that conversation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:53

Yeah. It's really weird how it's like a either or.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:56

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:56

Like we're choosing between Stefan or Damon from Vampire Diaries, we can only choose one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:02

And I think it is, I think it is what you said, basically like they're just the, there was a big, for whatever reason, trend in 2025 about protein being in everything. And so I think people were just like, okay, the protein's in everything. Great. What about the fiber? But then it somehow morphed into this conversation about fiber instead of protein. Yeah. Which is definitely not the direction we want to go in.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:21

No, both do both.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:25

Yeah. And then the third point of view, uh, is usually from the carnivore camp, but it's basically like fiber's totally useless. It's even harmful. You don't need carbohydrates at all. You don't need fiber at all. Don't eat them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:35

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:36

This one again, from the carnivores is pretty obvious because they don't really eat much plant stuff at all. Right. They have issues with plant antinutrients and toxins and all kinds of other things. Um.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:47

So yeah. And since fiber comes from plants, like obviously they wouldn't want fiber to be useful, I guess, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:52

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:52

So I, I think what's interesting about all three of these camps is it's all propaganda basically, right? Like from different forms and from different people and from different organizations. But like propaganda's propaganda, the main thing is, are you getting enough protein and are you getting enough fiber for the goals that you have and your age, that kind of thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:14

Yeah. Especially, if you're on a vegan diet, you might even have to pay more attention to some of these things, but we don't really need the propaganda. We've got decades of research on both protein and fiber at this point. These are very well trodden, uh, scientific things. So, we need to figure out how to get both and what that means for your individual diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:31

Seeing through the trends and seeing through the propaganda, basically. Like what's the truth there?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:36

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what each of these do for you. And we've had, uh, a whole episode about actually both of these in the past. So we're just gonna cover it real briefly here to help set the context for the rest of the conversation. But protein, basically builds and repairs muscle, skin, hair, and your connective tissue.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:54

Yeah. One of the things that I've seen on like determining if you have a protein deficiency, one of the signs might be like, are you losing hair? Are your nails brittle?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:02

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:02

That kind of thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:03

But you know, protein is not just important for like building muscle in terms of like going to the gym and being a bodybuilder. It's also important for like repairing muscle if you've been through some kind of injury or if you've been like, especially sedentary lately, like you maybe changed jobs now you work from home a lot. You want to try to maintain your muscle mass while you're sitting around. Yeah. Protein's helpful with that. And then it's especially helpful as you age. There's something called sarcopenia, which is basically as you get older, you start to lose your muscle mass. And so as that happens, more protein can help you offset that. So it's not all about I should only take more protein if I'm a bodybuilder. It does a lot of other important things for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:39

Yeah, and I think this is kind of interesting just because I've seen a lot of stuff around protein reducing your life expectancy, but I've also seen things where it says a large indicator of how long you're gonna live is like your grip strength.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:51

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:52

Which would be directly related to your muscle.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:54

Right? There's a area of conversation that's basically like health span versus lifespan because your muscle mass as you get older can help you avoid other injuries. Yes. So that's why grip strength can be kind of a determining factor of a long, healthy life and, and it'll help you. One of the common ways people get injured as they get older is like a fall or something like that, right? So if you have the muscle mass to keep you from falling or let you fall safer, things like that, you can avoid really devastating injuries as an older person that, you know, even if you live to be 95, maybe the last 15 years of your life are not very good quality of life because of some injury you got when you're older.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:31

Right? Yeah. So I think it's like a balancing act, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:34

Yeah. And then, some vegan specific considerations for protein. Some of the vegan sources that are not like soy are technically an incomplete protein, a little less bioavailable, which basically just means that your body ends up with less of the amino acids to use for those processes that protein helps with. Yeah. This can really come into consideration if you're like flirting with the minimum amount of protein already because those minimums are not made specifically for vegan protein. So you're at the minimum and you're having slightly less quality proteins that's gonna drag you even farther below the minimum. And so you can kind of end up in the danger zone there if you're not careful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:11

Yeah. And I think this piece specifically is why it's interesting around the plant-based folks kind of pushing the, you don't need to worry about protein because you need to look at what kind of protein sources are you eating? And yeah, you could be really close to the minimum. And if you're not like thinking about it at all, if you're never eating tofu or you're never eating like truly protein dense foods, I think it could be easy to flirt with this on a regular basis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:36

Especially if you're in a deficit and losing weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:38

Oh, for sure. If you're in a deficit and losing weight. Yeah. Or like you're kind of short.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:43

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:43

You know, it's like easy to go low on protein if you only have 1500 calories to work with in maintenance or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:48

Right? Yeah, definitely. Definitely things to think about. I don't think it's ever fair to say you don't need to think about it at all as a vegan, because there are definitely situations where you at least need to be aware of your protein intakes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:00

And honestly, probably for non vegans too. Especially if you're eating junk food, that'd be really easy to never hit your protein goal if you're a junk food eater.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:07

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:07

And you don't eat like whole Foods ever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:09

Right. And then now we can talk about what Fiber does a little bit. Basically it helps with your gut health and your bowel regularity, so it makes sure you go to the bathroom, uh, on a regular basis when you should kind of get everything outta there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:21

Dude, this is a crazy one because I've seen like just social media, TikTok, whatever, omnivores, like, don't poop every day. Like, I'm not saying all of 'em, right? Like, I'm just saying like, this is like a pretty regular thing that I see in comment sections and stuff is that they're just like not pooping on a daily basis, which like blew my mind.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:40

Yeah. I think that's not quite to the point where it's like problematic, but it is definitely doesn't seem right to me. You know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:49

If vegans are anything, it's regular. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:52

But yeah, it's definitely something to keep an eye on. You can basically just avoid a whole group of issues by having more regular bowel movements. Yeah. So also fiber feeds your gut bacteria with prebiotics and things like that just helps to keep like a healthy gut biome. And there's a ton of totally nonsense things out there on social media about gut health and microbiomes and blah, blah, blah. But fiber is actually one of the actually useful things that your body can utilize and actually does something in your gut. Also it can help improve your satiety, which is how full you feel after eating. So if you eat a high fiber meal you'll feel more full. You won't get hungry as soon.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:30

That is so true. There's an overnights oats that I make sometimes and I'll eat it for breakfast and I won't wanna eat until dinner. Yeah. Like, I, like have to force myself to eat something for lunch. I'm just not hungry. Yeah. For pretty much the whole day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:42

Yeah. And then, most importantly fiber in many, many studies over many, many years is directly linked to a bunch of positive health outcomes, which are like lower risk of cardiovascular disease, lower risk of type two diabetes, lower risk of some cancers and lower all cause mortality, which means just lower chance of dying in general.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:03

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:04

And that is really closely tied to how much fiber you have specifically. So the more fiber you have over time, the better your long-term health outcomes are. Like very direct relationship.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:16

Which is why it's so important.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:17

So let's talk a little bit about how much of each of these you may want to target. And these are very high level numbers and everybody's gonna be a little different to some extent. But for protein, the RDA for protein, which is for all people, not just for vegans, is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:31

Now what does RDA mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:32

Recommended daily amount.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:33

Okay. Basically.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:35

Is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:40

What is that in pounds? I'm a pounds girl.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:43

That's like 0.36 grams per pound, basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:46

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:47

So that is just to avoid deficiency, not based on a vegan protein diet. And it's just like a floor for basic survival. It's not a target for like performance, body composition, or even aging well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:02

Yeah. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:02

So this is just like, hit this number so your hair doesn't fall out or what, you know, some of the things we were talking about. I would consider like 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram is more like what you should really think of as the minimum for vegans specifically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:16

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:17

Just to bump it up a little bit, be in the safe zone, and just kinda make sure you're thinking about protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:22

And that would be what, on a grams per pound.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:24

That would be like 0.45 to 0.55 grams per pound.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:28

Okay. So like. So let's say you're 150 pounds, that means on the lower end of that target it should be about 67 grams, right. Of protein. So like 67 to 75 ish grams of protein if, if you were 150 pounds.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:41

Yeah. And I would consider that the minimum, like you wanna try to not have any days that go below that number.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:46

Yeah. So if your diet's all over the place, you might wanna just as a general rule, shoot for a little bit higher than that to account for some of the low ends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:52

Yeah. And so for somebody who's a lifter, an athlete, or just anybody who's in the gym a lot, trying to optimize for muscle mass, trying to make sure they're not losing muscle mass. Yeah. As they like lose weight or get older, things like that. I'd shoot for more like 1.6 grams per kilogram. It's probably really the top end that you need, but you could even go up to like 2.0 grams per kilogram, especially as a vegan, just to like really make sure you're hitting all the check boxes and you're gonna get every ounce of benefit outta that protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:18

Yeah. And that would be for like optimization. Right. For lifting specifically.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:22

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:23

So yeah, like your normal goal is gonna be 1 to 1.2 grams per kilogram for the normals, 1.6 to 2 for like lifters athletes or anyone trying to optimize.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:34

Yeah, that's right. And then that, that 1.6 to 2.0 grams per kilogram is gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of like 0.75 to 0.9 grams per pound. So we're creeping up to like the one gram per pound that people have recommended for a long time, which is like overkill.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:50

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:50

But not dangerous. So if that's just easier for you to do the mental math and you don't have a problem getting protein. A lot of people just prefer to do like one gram per pound of body weight. There's no downside to it, but that does make you eat a lot of protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:01

Now is the per kilogram or per pound, is that body weight or is that actual muscle mass? I can't remember.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:07

Yeah, so that's another thing that people will talk about a lot. Technically the numbers that are studied are based on body weight, but those are body weight for people who are like 15% body fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:16

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:16

So if you're higher than 15% body fat, effectively, or, basically the way I think about this is this, like if you have weight to lose, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:23

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:23

Like, you know, you need to lose weight, then I would just try to use your goal weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:27

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Especially if you're on a calorie deficit, it's gonna be kind of hard for you to do like 0.8 times your body weight currently. Yeah. In grams of protein on a deficit. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:39

For sure. And if you're like 300 pounds, then the obvious connection there is like, your fat doesn't need this extra protein, it's only for the muscles. Yeah. So you'd want to use lean body mass, which is kind of hard to figure out. So we generally just recommend use your goal body weight, it's a little easier.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:54

Hmm. That makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:55

And then for fiber, these numbers are a lot more straightforward. They recommend 25 grams a day for adult women and then 38 grams a day for adult men.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:04

Okay. Not sure if you know this, but do you know why there's such a large difference between what women should eat and what men should eat for fiber?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:13

Yeah, so I don't know a lot about this, but I think part of it is the assumption that men will eat more calories because they weigh more on average.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:21

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:21

Obviously not true in all cases. But also there's some additional fiber for additional risk reduction for some of the diseases that men are more prone to get. That fiber can help mitigate.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:31

I'd be interested if they've done the exact same amount of studies on women, because women are often left out of a lot of medical studies and men are studied a lot more. So

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:41

yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:41

I would be curious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:43

Me too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:43

If they've actually done like good thorough research on how much women should get and not just base it on women are little men.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:52

Yeah, no, that, that's interesting. But we're all kind of failing because most adults in general only get about 15 grams a day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:57

I'll buy that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:00

Obviously vegans, almost naturally get a lot more, but just the global general population, about 15 grams a day on average, which is really low.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:08

Non junk food vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:09

Yeah. Most people are effectively undereating both protein and fiber. So let's not try to increase fiber and say ignore protein. Yeah. When really we need more both in almost all cases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:19

Also, like when are you deciding between eating fiber and eating protein?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:23

That's a great question.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:24

Like I don't understand what the situation is where you're like, well I could eat this fiber or I could eat this protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:32

Especially when fiber, the calories don't count.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:35

Yeah. They minimally count.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:36

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:36

It's like one calorie pergram of fiber basically.'cause it does convert a little, but almost doesn't count.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:41

But that's like kind of my point, like why would you be trading protein for fiber when fiber doesn't really count as calories anyways.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:48

Yeah, I guess the thought is to get the fiber, you gotta eat a lot of beans and then maybe that would mean you have to eat less protein or something along those lines.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:55

Well, beans are protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:56

Yeah, I know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:57

And yeah, well hell you could just throw some Metamucil in your water. I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:04

Yeah, so some vegan considerations for fiber specifically, most vegans naturally get way more fiber than 15 grams a day. Yeah. Just because all of the other stuff we eat that has protein and has fats, or not all of it, but a lot of it has fiber as well. Now on the other hand, junk food and ultra processed vegan food will still be low in fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:21

Yeah, I think like beyond patties and impossible patties don't have much fiber, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:25

Yeah. I'm not sure, but I know definitely cookies don't.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:27

Cookies don't, yeah. There's not fiber in plant-based butter or sugar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:32

Yeah. Coconut oil. Not much. Not much.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:35

Not a whole lot. The coconut though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:37

Yeah. And again, if you're doing mostly whole food, you're probably in pretty good shape. If you're more like a packaged food, junk foods, 80% of your diet type of thing. Yeah. You might need to check your fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:47

Keep an eye on it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:47

Yeah. Also if you're new to veganism or you're just trying to ramp up your fiber in general, take it slow. Yeah. If you're coming from a low fiber diet or the standard 15 grams a day that we were talking about, then start slowly increasing your fiber, make sure you drink a lot of water as you increase your fiber. It helps everything move along. You won't get bloated or have any issues. Yeah. Because jumping from 10 grams a day to 40 grams a day overnight is gonna get you, uh, a lot of gas, a lot of bloating, kind of those extreme uncomfortable things that people talk about when they eat beans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:19

I have kind of a funny story on this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:21

Tell me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:21

Okay. Somebody was asking for I want to do vegan gummy worms for my kids' birthday party. The only vegan gummy worms I've ever found are these ones that are like crazy high in fiber. Like you're talking like 30 grams of fiber for maybe 10 of them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:38

I feel like they're just medicine at that point.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:41

Right? So, so like obviously I comment back with like, Hey, these are the ones I use, but use them sparingly because they are loaded with fiber, right? And then I had someone comment back and was just like, what's the problem with that? Everyone's getting too little fiber anyway. And I'm just like, oh my God. I just think probably you shouldn't be feeding five year olds fiber gummies that taste like candy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:05

Yeah. I will not be supervising the birthday party with a bunch of little kids with 30 grams of fiber in their gummy worms. I'm sorry.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:15

You, you send these kids home and they've eaten like 60 grams of fiber and they have like these horrible stomach pain.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:23

Oh no.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:23

Oh my gosh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:24

I don't think anybody's showing up to next year's birthday party Timmy. I'm sorry.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:27

And they probably won't be able to figure it out. They're like, oh my God, I have food poisoning. No, no, no. You just have severe gas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:34

Probably also wouldn't recommend handing those out for Halloween.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:39

Yeah. I use them in dirt pudding and only dirt pudding and, uh, we both know they have a lot of fiber, so. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:46

So, yeah. The overarching thing here is you can eat a lot of both of these. You can eat a lot of protein and you can eat a lot of fiber. Eating protein should not, and does not mean that you're sacrificing your fiber intake.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:56

Yeah, absolutely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:57

I've actually had a couple conversations on this online recently, but I've got a screenshot from one of my, what I eat in a day posts from Instagram that shows like a pretty standard day when I'm hitting all the goals and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:07

Yeah. Locked in.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:08

Right. Where it's like 190 grams of protein on the same day I got 55 grams of fiber and that's like a pretty normal day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:15

Yeah. You weren't like trying, necessarily trying to get fiber or protein really.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:18

Yeah, exactly. So. I mean there, there's no reason anybody has to choose if I can do that as a vegan especially.'cause like this argument isn't even a vegan specific argument out there. Yeah. So if I can do that as a vegan, then nobody should have any trouble hitting whatever their protein goal is and getting plenty of fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:34

Oh my God. I would say like one of the best fiber plus protein hacks is uh, those plant protein tortillas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:40

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:41

Dude. Those have like a crazy amount of protein and a crazy amount of fiber.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:45

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:45

And they taste just like a tortilla.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:47

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:47

Just eat those. I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:49

Plus for vegans, a lot of the normal vegan protein sources also have a lot of fiber. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:53

A lot of your soy,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:54

Yeah. All the soy foods do beans and lentils. Yep. Pretty popular. Again, not like a great protein source, but they're the things people think of as protein and they're an amazing fiber source. Yeah. So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:02

TVP is pretty decent for fiber and for protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:05

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:06

Tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:07

Yeah. Which is a big reason why vegans end up with a lot of this naturally. Yeah. You can also just use protein powder if you need to, to hit your protein goal. And that'll have very little impact on your calories for the day and how much fiber you can eat because it's almost pure protein. Right. And then in general, depending on what you like for your range of fats, most people the optimal range is somewhere 400 to 550 calories worth of fats. So then you've got the rest of your calories for the day to use on protein and carbs. And the carbs can have fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:33

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:34

So we're talking about like probably on the low side, a thousand calories to split up your protein and your fiber if you want to do it that way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:41

Yeah. And like once again, fiber can be almost zero calories.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:45

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:45

Like if you want to just cheat mode it, just throw in some metamucil in your water. I mean, realistically. Yeah. Right. Or like eat like low carb tortillas or like low carb bagels or there are like plenty of ways to get fiber real easy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:58

Yeah. You can have these days where you just, uh, eat a bunch of protein powder, eat a bunch of Metamucil, and then you can drink coconut oil or something the rest of the day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:05

Yeah, yeah. Go crazy. Just eat pure fat with the rest of your calories.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:09

Don't do that for the record.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:12

No. We would mostly suggest you eat whole food, plant-based, but the point being that you can still get your fiber on very, very, very minimal calories. Right. So it shouldn't be an either or.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:23

Yeah. And so a couple of the arguments that we talked about earlier, I just want to dive into 'em a little bit. And the one is protein doesn't matter and you don't have to worry about it, just eat plants, which kind of mostly comes from the whole food, plant based crowd that we talked about. Now this argument is okay, if you're in that realm and you're really strict with that diet, but it makes a couple of assumptions that are definitely not true for even most vegans. Which is everybody is eating mostly whole food plant-based.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:47

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:48

Which they're not. Some are, but not everybody.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:50

Yeah. Most people are still using oils to cook with or relying on some processed foods.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:55

Yeah. Yeah. And they're also, assuming that you're not in a calorie deficit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:58

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:59

Because that really changes how much stuff you can fit into your calories for the day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:02

Yeah. Or even just not in a calorie deficit, but just not in a low calorie situation. Right. Like you can have like metabolic disorders or you can just like. Be on the shorter side where you, you literally don't have many calories.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:16

Yeah. And then they're also assuming that you're not trying to build or maintain muscle.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:20

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:20

So, a lot of people who you see this argument from are just thinking okay, this is not really somebody who goes to the gym. This is not somebody who's managing their calories or their weight and they're eating mostly whole foods. Which, if that's you, great. That's not a lot of the people. And definitely it's not a lot of the people who are out on the internet looking for fitness advice.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:40

Yeah. If you're just vibing and you're happy with the lower end of the protein, that's totally fine.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:44

Yeah. I mean, if you're eating mostly whole Foods, you're at a healthy weight, you don't have anything to manage, you're not like hitting the gym, trying to build muscle. You probably don't have anything to even think about here. Yeah. But that's like very few people.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:55

Yeah. And I think that's where this advice becomes a little bit dangerous is because like somebody could read like some of the comments I'm getting in my stuff where it's like, oh, you only need 5% protein. Someone could read that and think that's true. Mm-hmm. Even though they're only on 1500 calories and that's like what, 20 grams of protein or something? Yeah. And it's like, that's not enough for you. Don't eat 20 grams of protein. Yeah. Like it's a little, you know, I think the advice can be a little dangerous without the nuance of all the other factors that go into setting your protein target.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:25

I would take anything you see online in general, if you plan on actually implementing it, and if you have any doubt about it, maybe even if you don't, depending on your relationship, uh, with your doctor, I would run it by your doctor. Yeah. And say, Hey, if I eat 20 grams of protein a day, what'll happen, doc? And they'll probably say, well, not, not a lot of good things. Maybe try to get a little more than that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:43

Probably don't do that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:45

Yeah, the reality here is, people eat convenience foods.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:47

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:47

People eat bread and pasta to make up their calories. They're gonna eat junk food, they're gonna skip meals. That's another one. We've talked about some of these levels where maybe you should try to aim for a higher protein intake or a higher fiber intake to make up for the days where you have low intake or you aren't able to get in your meals and things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:04

Yeah. Like inconsistent days.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:06

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:07

Which I think is pretty normal.'cause like, maybe you're really locked in during the week 'cause you're preparing your own food, but maybe on the weekend, like you go out to eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:15

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:15

And if you're going out to eat, most places aren't focused on protein at all.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:19

Yeah. So if you're hitting a gram per pound being pretty overkill, but if you're hitting a gram per pound all week and then you're coming into the weekend and you're getting like 50 grams of protein a day on the weekend. Yeah. Then it's probably a good thing you overkilled it throughout the week.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:31

Yeah. It, it offsets it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:32

Also, just being a little intentional about your protein and thinking, okay, how am I getting protein in today? Just at a high level, even if you're not tracking or you're not trying to maximize that, it's pretty low effort and it's a pretty high payoff for long-term benefits.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:43

Yeah. And I think you could track a couple times or just read the labels a few times to get an idea. Maybe you just have to say, well, I had tofu at this meal and I had TVP for lunch and I'm good. Yeah. Like, I feel good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:58

Yeah. I almost feel like, especially people who are new to this space, tracking is better for just educating yourself about how food works and what kind of causes different macronutrient outcomes and stuff for a week is more valuable than tracking day to day for a lot of things. Yeah. Because some people won't wanna track every day, but I think everybody should track their food for a couple of weeks just to understand how this stuff all works.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:19

Yeah, and I think especially. I would say for people going from omnivore to vegan or vegetarian to vegan, it's important to track for like the first week or two.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:28

Absolutely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:28

Because like your foods are completely different. Like, maybe you used to rely on cheeses for some of your protein. Now vegan cheese doesn't have any protein. Yeah. Like, you're just, you're.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:37

Which you might not realize, by the way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:38

Yeah. You might not realize any of that stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:40

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:40

It's a different world if you're not used to eating those protein sources and maybe you'll see , Hey, I don't even really have a protein source now that I'm vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:47

Yeah. Yeah. That's a really interesting one because like if somebody who's not focusing on protein, maybe they were just accidentally hitting safe limits mm-hmm. With like dairy and cheese and stuff or, yeah. And then they go vegan and, you know, that's not things anymore. So they, you might suddenly be in this weird situation and you didn't even realize that you kinda lost those protein sources. So yeah, definitely track at least a little bit when you do some big dietary change or when you first start like getting into nutrition, things like that. And then the other argument is the, basically the carnivore point of view that says you don't need fiber at all. Yeah. So what this stems from is like the truth that carbohydrates are not technically necessary for survival. Like your body makes the carbohydrates you need to actually live.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:28

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:29

But, that doesn't mean that carbohydrates are not useful or healthier than not having them in your diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:35

Yeah. It kind of negates all of the future information on are you more prone to getting cancer or all of these other diseases that are related to low fiber diets.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:45

Right. Or just energy level type stuff. Yeah. Carbohydrates are basically the body's primary energy source normally. And you know, if you're doing keto or low carb, you know that your body can also technically run off of fats from ketones, but it's not quite as efficient, so you'll feel a lot better oftentimes with more carbohydrates just on a day-to-day basis, especially if you're exercising.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:06

Yeah, and I think the interesting thing about fiber is , I don't really think there's a downside to eating fiber, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:11

Unless you have too much in a day, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:12

Yeah, I guess. Yeah. If you have too much drastically in a day different than your normal days, that would be not great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:18

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:18

But like, there's not like a long term downside for fiber consumption, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:23

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:24

So eat it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:26

Right? Yeah. And so carbohydrates, fiber not technically essential for , bare minimum I'm alive survival. But the research on the long term health outcomes is. Overwhelmingly in favor of people who eat more fiber, not less fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:40

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:40

And that's over again, decades of research. Very well studied. This is not like a fitness specific study area. This is like a general health population study area that's extremely well covered.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:50

Yeah, I think I saw some pretty interesting, I think it might have been in how not to die perhaps, it was an Asian country that started eating closer to the standard American diet and they saw an increase in like colon cancer and they related that back to a lower fiber intake or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:05

Oh yeah. That's interesting. Did you see that? I do remember that being somewhere. I don't know if it was.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:09

We've read a lot of things. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:12

This one's interesting too because, if you're a vegan, this argument probably doesn't mean anything to you.'cause you're almost definitely not gonna be zero carb Yeah. As a vegan, and you're probably gonna accidentally get a decent amount of fiber as a vegan. But it is still good to know the points of view because there are some people out there who are maybe trying to decide, um, especially if they're strictly doing like a vegan diet or a plant-based diet for health reasons.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:35

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:35

They might be sitting there as a normal non-vegan saying, well, what's the right choice for me? Should I try like a plant-based diet or should I try this carnivore diet?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:43

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:43

And so, a vegan isn't gonna have this decision, but I would recommend fiber is good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:48

Right? Somebody that's not looking at the ethics of veganism, but they're just strictly saying , I'm looking at which is the best diet for me, carnivore or plant-based diet, which a lot of, your normal population doesn't even understand that vegans are vegan for the animals. This could be a real scenario where someone's trying to pick between two different diets that they think are fads.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:07

Especially somebody in a dire health situation. Like if they get cardiovascular disease or they just had a heart attack or they have diabetes and they're not working with a nutritionist or something for some reason and they're just like desperate trying to figure out what's the right way. Yeah. And they see these totally different diverging paths.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:22

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:22

Um, it's hard to make those choices.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:23

Yeah. And that's why I think that that book, how Not to Die is kind of interesting. You kind of like deals with some of those situations where people have those dire health situations and they need to choose a diet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:33

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:34

And like what the outcomes are.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:35

Yeah. So I would definitely lean towards the direction that has more fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:38

Yeah. And I've actually heard people talking about certain health issues they're having and I've like not pushed it, but I've mentioned , Hey, maybe you should go read this, how not to die book.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:47

Well, I know just personally going vegan definitely made all my blood work better and made my general quality of life better for some little things I was dealing with here and there. So, yeah, uh, it works for me. And then as far as like tracking protein and fiber, you don't necessarily need to track every day unless you're trying to optimize. I mean, people who are really actually bodybuilding or something like that probably are tracking protein every day 'cause they need to know, but just, you don't have to do that. You can just try tracking, like we said for a couple weeks, see which food options and combinations and stuff that you're like, you like, like maybe some of your favorite things. Just understand how those impact your protein, your fiber, your fats, things like that. Just so you have a general idea of what maybe you wanna tweak or cut out as a long-term thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:26

Yeah. And I do feel like, once again, this is really important if you are just switching to a vegan or plant-based diet, like tracking the first few weeks and just figuring out what has fiber, what has protein. Pretty important. Yeah. For figuring out what you're gonna be eating going forward.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:39

Yeah. I would say, you can think of it in terms of just daily structure, if you have three meals a day, every meal has some kind of like protein focused item, like a tofu or a TVP or something and a fiber focused item that could be like a fruit or a vegetable. Then you're probably gonna be in pretty good shape if like every meal you have has both of those on there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:57

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:58

So some examples, you could have seitan and broccoli, so that's protein and a vegetable. For fiber, you could have a tofu scramble and fruit maybe for breakfast that has both. And then a whole grain pasta with something like a TVP or some other protein source. Yeah. Yeah. So, you can also just think about it like that instead of actually using some kind of tracking app. And it's about the long term trend, not necessarily being like perfect every day. So yeah, as long as you're getting enough fiber on average through the weeks and months and protein on average through the weeks and months, it'll work out and benefit you in all the ways it's supposed to. As a general summary of that topic. Protein and fiber are on the same team. They just do different jobs. You don't really need to choose between them at all.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:37

Choose both.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:38

Yeah. Protein for vegans is worth maybe a little extra attention, at least to be aware of the trade-offs versus non-vegan proteins. So just being aware that you might need a little more if you're optimizing and they are technically a little less bioavailable in a lot of cases. Technically a little less amino acids in a lot of cases, but in real life for almost everybody, they don't lead to different actual outcomes. But it is good to just know what you're putting in your body. And then fiber specifically is a huge benefit to long-term health and definitely shouldn't be ignored. And I would probably try to increase it from whatever level you're currently at because most people are probably not getting quite as much as they could to maximize the benefits. And so we're curious, which one do you guys struggle with more? So if you wanna leave a comment or send us a message or something and talk about, are you concerned about your fiber intake? Are you concerned about your protein intake? We'd like to hear which one of these you tend to think about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:27

Yeah. We'd be interested in knowing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:29

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:30

I also feel like as a vegan you get a lot more questions about your personal nutrition than people that aren't on a vegan diet. So I think knowing this stuff and being able to be well versed enough to speak on it is important when you get those questions.'cause, I don't know, the questions can be annoying, but they're also like a learning opportunity for other people that are asking them. So it's like a good time for you to explain like, Hey, it's not hard to get fiber or protein on a vegan diet, and like, here's what I eat. Yeah, I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:57

Definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:58

You will give those questions so like why not know about it and be able to explain it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:02

Yeah. As soon as somebody finds out you're vegan, they'll probably have at least one question.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:06

Yeah. And it is almost always gonna be where do you get your protein and don't you miss cheese? Those are the questions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:15

Yeah. I saw a post on threads a few days ago that was from a vegan who was saying that before they went vegan, they thought, oh, I could never go vegan because I'll miss cheese too much. And then they said, well, now I never even think about cheese. So, and I've had a lot of those moments myself where it's those like hesitations I had before about like, oh, what do I do about this? Or, oh, I'll miss that food. I like, I literally never even think about those things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:36

Yeah. For me, cheese was like my big, oh my God, like how am I gonna live? But damn, there's a lot of really good vegan cheeses. I don't ever really think about it at all. Ever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:46

Especially the pizza cheese that you make.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:49

We're having that tonight.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:52

All right. So next up the myth of the week. This week, the myth is that vegan and plant-based can be used interchangeably.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:00

This is, I think, a pretty interesting topic and I think something people outside of the vegan space don't have a good understanding of. So we thought we'd kind of go over it and share the differences. So like in general

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:11

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:11

Veganism is, it is an animal rights stance. It is that like we are trying to do the most harm reduction possible. To basically improve animal welfare. Yeah. We don't believe in using animal products, whether that is eating, wearing, whatever , it's harm reduction as much as feasibly possible.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:31

Yeah. And part of that by extension is like supporting and advocating for plant-based replacements in food and diet specifically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:39

Right. So then like you have plant-based, now plant-based diet and vegan diet can often be kind of interchangeable, but plant-based kind of implies they're doing it for health, or it could be for environmental reasons, but they usually aren't also extending that to like clothes you wear, home products that you use, that kind of thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:04

Also, an important distinction, plant-based diet does not necessarily mean no animal products. That's true. It only means predominantly plants. Yeah. So there are a lot of people, still eat meat sometimes. It's just mostly a plant-based diet. Yeah. So , it's really just not equivalent if you come in and say, I follow a plant-based diet, and you're saying that in a vegan community, they might not really know what level of that you're on. Right? So you could be fully vegan, you could be somebody who eats meat twice a week. All those things could technically fall under plant-based diet. So it doesn't really equate to the same thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:38

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:38

So you can follow a plant-based diet and not be vegan, because maybe you're following a plant-based diet for your health reasons or environmental reasons, or you have some other reason that doesn't necessarily correlate with veganism as a whole.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:52

Yeah, and this is where I think if you are plant-based or if you are vegan, it's kind of important to know the difference in the terminology, because I think like vegans would appreciate if you don't call yourself vegan when you're not a vegan, because I, as a vegan would appreciate if you don't call yourself vegan. If you're not a vegan, if you're just plant-based. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, like for instance, I've had a lot of conversations with not vegans, like with omnivores, where they say things like, vegans are so fickle. Like they'll say they're vegan and then I see them eating chicken or they say they're vegan, but they're buying leather. And it's like, well, they're not vegan, they're plant-based. I think when you don't know how to identify yourself, it gets more confusing for people outside of our community. And then they start thinking that vegans are wishy-washy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:39

Yeah. Because that's what they've encountered. And so you'll say, oh, I'm a vegan. I can't eat that. And then they'll be like, oh, well, do you eat it sometimes? So it just gets a little awkward and murky for everybody involved. Yeah. When you kind of mix the terms and also like a plant-based items, like in the grocery store mm-hmm are not even necessarily vegan items anymore, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:56

Yes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:57

So there'll be like plant-based items that have milk and eggs in them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:00

Yeah. So it's pretty confusing. But then you also have the ex vegans, and I'm in the camp of there can be no ex vegans because like if you're vegan for animal rights and you believe that eating animals is wrong. There's like no scenario in which you become not a vegan anymore and you're like, eating animals is fine. Yeah. Like I used to think that was immoral, and now I'm like, totally fine with it. Like, come on, you're ex plant-based. Yeah. Like I, I just, you see it all over the internet. People saying they're ex vegan and I think it's really bad for the movement because they're claiming to be a vegan, you know? But they weren't, they were never a vegan. They were plant-based.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:39

Right. Which, you know, whatever, I don't really care what you are, but when you like, define yourself in a way that doesn't align with the group that you're trying to say you're part of or whatever, it just confuses everybody is really the big issue.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:52

Yeah. It's more of just like confusing. Like, I get tired of people assuming that I go home and eat chicken nuggets because there aren't any real vegans. Like, that's annoying.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:02

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:02

Like obviously I don't, and I also think. When people say, oh, I'm vegan for health reasons, that's not a thing. Like veganism implies the animal rights aspect. Right. And I am so excited that you are plant-based for your health reasons. I don't give a shit why you're eating a plant-based diet. I'm super stoked to have you. Please come on board, eat all the plants, stop eating animal products. I don't care why you do it, but like identify yourself properly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:27

Yeah. So in general, the plant-based thing has gotten pretty murky and there's whole food plant-based, which is a strictly vegan diet, but that's also, a lot of the times for health reasons, some of those people are also vegans. But it's all just really murky when you start throwing in the plant-based term now, because that can mean so many different things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:43

Yeah. So I think in summary, plant-based and vegan, I would not use those interchangeably. I think a plant-based diet and a vegan diet can be the same in some cases, but the veganism implies that you're pro animal rights, like you're doing this from a place of reducing animal harm and plant-based could be a variety of other things, and is specifically about a diet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:07

Yeah, I think it only works one way, like vegans are plant-based. Vegan diet is a plant-based diet, but it does not work the other way around.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:15

It's like the word game that's on like the ACTs, those logic things of like, not all vegans are plant-based, not all plant-based are whatever. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:24

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, this is not like a judgment thing. It's just a, we probably need to cut down the confusion by using the right terminology.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:33

Yes. And hopefully this will help some of you not get yelled at in the vegan subreddits.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:37

Yeah. A lot of people come in there and they're like, Hey, I'm a vegan and I, you got these leather shoes and I eat meat twice a week and that's not gonna go over well for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:46

It's not gonna be a good day for you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:49

So I wouldn't recommend doing that. And then for some recipe news from protein deficient vegan here. A lot of good holiday recipes on the website and in some of your recent posts. Thanksgiving just ended, but people have a lot of other friend and family gatherings, this time of year, potlucks leading up to Christmas and New Year's Eve and all those things. So a lot of good recipes on the site that you can take to those events or make for yourself if you're hosting those events, that have protein in some cases. Some cases they're just like normal recipes, delicious desserts, things like that. Any that you would particularly recommend if you were taking it to a gathering of people who've never had vegan food before?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:24

Yeah, I would probably take spinach and artichoke dip. That's a good one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:29

That's a good one. That's safe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:30

Yeah. Taco Dip. We have like a seven layer Taco dip.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:33

Yeah, the Taco Dip recipe. I really couldn't tell that that one was anything different. Vegan or protein or otherwise. Yeah, it just tastes like normal taco dip, so I think that's a really good option.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:43

Shepherd's Pie is a good one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:45

I would not take my high protein pumpkin pie to a gathering of people that don't give a shit about fitness or veganism.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:54

Especially not with the crust that's on there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:55

Yeah, I use the TVP crust and personally I think it's great for like a protein snack and it gets you in the holiday spirit, but like. I just, you know, most people don't give a shit about high protein desserts, so they're probably not gonna like it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:07

Yeah. You gotta be really careful introducing things that people have really strong emotional attachments to as like a new vegan alternative. You're coming in, they've had pumpkin pie for 40 years of their life and you're coming in with the vegan pumpkin pie without telling 'em you gotta, you know, maybe, maybe take something that's a little less common.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:24

Take it to your gym friends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:26

Yeah, exactly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:26

Your gym friends are gonna appreciate this. Yeah. You know, but trying to give it omnivore families food is really, really hard.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:34

Yeah. And some of the ones you mentioned and a lot of your other recipes will pass and be totally acceptable with things like that. But yeah, the ones that are like really obviously super high protein, maybe you don't go that route.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:43

I dunno. Yeah. I go for like when I'm taking stuff to my omnivore family or his omnivore family, I think. Butter, you know? Yeah. Vegan butter, lots of sugar. Like, they're not even gonna notice it's vegan because I'm gonna put so much fat and sugar in it and they're not even gonna think about it. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:01

Sounds like the right idea to me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:05

But like, I do like a lot of them for like, just like me personally. Like it's funny eating pumpkin pie in November.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:11

Oh, I love the pumpkin pie. But you can make that every day, uh, November through, I don't know, October. Yeah. I think we'd be in pretty good shape.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:19

I think of it the same way as like TVP muffins. Would I like take them to a brunch with friends like that aren't vegan or care about fitness goals? Probably not. But like they're really great for breakfast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:33

So it's like pumpkin pie is like seasonal breakfast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:37

Yeah. All right. Well that about wraps it up for this week. If you could please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. That helps us out a lot and we appreciate the people who've already done that. Also we have some links in the show notes. We have a link to send us a text if you want to ask a question for us to answer here on the podcast. We also have links to our social media accounts, both of the websites you can reach out there on any of those. If you have any questions or comments you'd like to leave, you've been getting a lot more Haiku comments on your recipes lately.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:03

Yeah, I love those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:05

And then, also YouTube account. You've been posting more of your long form YouTube videos, so check that out. Alright, I think that's it. Do you wanna say Bye?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:11

Bye.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:12

Bye everybody.