Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. This is episode 34 I'm the Muscle Deficient Vegan here with the Protein Deficient Vegan. Do you wanna say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:06

Hi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:07

Hi everybody. This week we have a special guest, Stu Giddens from the Veganuary organization, to celebrate Veganuary this month. And then our myth of the week. This week, we will cover the new, uh, food pyramid dietary guidance that was released.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:21

It's gonna be the best podcast ever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:24

That's right. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:26

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:27

So PETA named Eat Just the company that makes Just Egg, the company of the year for 2025.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:33

That's pretty cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:34

Yeah. So there were some issues with egg shortages and egg prices earlier in the year because of bird flu. So PETA had a campaign where they basically handed out Just Egg to people and obviously Eat Just the company was all over this with their marketing and their products to help fill in the gap.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:51

Yeah. I remember this because all of you guys who normally eat eggs were buying my vegan eggs and then I couldn't find them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:58

Yeah, they, it was actually kind of hard to find Just Egg there for, it was, it seems like they ramped up production after just a couple weeks.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03

They did. Yeah. They've also added a lot of different items to their products. They've got like a couple different kinds of protein powder that also use mung beans, but they also have eat just chicken.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14

I just saw that when we were looking at this PETA article, I didn't even realize that they have, I think they're calling it Just Meat and then chicken version basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21

Yeah. I think they have a couple other products too. We have yet to see them.'cause our grocery stores, I guess, suck here, but hopefully one day we'll get to try it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:29

And also if you can't find Just Egg, you have a recipe on your website that you can kind of make your own Just Egg concoction in a shaker cup.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36

Yes, you do need Eat Just protein powder though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:40

Yeah. Which is made of Mung bean, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:42

Yeah. It's like over 90% protein. Yeah. And you need to use that specific one'cause I've tried it with other ones and it gets real goopy and gross.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:49

Alright, so next is the top 10 global vegan restaurants for 2025. Was released by Happy Cow. We looked at the list and I don't think we can pronounce most of these names and we don't wanna butcher them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:00

We tried with one another and we failed really bad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:03

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:03

We'll save you that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:04

We'll put the link in the show notes, but what I can tell you is some of the countries that these places are in. I'm just gonna read the countries that are on the list. So we have Spain, Vietnam, Italy, Slovakia, Mexico, Wales, Japan and Jordan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:20

So go check out the show notes if you wanna see what these are, and if you know how to say these, let us know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:25

The next piece of news we have is there's a charity called The Vegan Society, and they put out a report called Veganism Around the World. So the new report recently came out and had some interesting statistics for us to look at. The first thing is that the United States has the most vegan restaurants in terms of restaurants per country. But if we're talking about restaurants per capita, in this case they did restaurants Per million people. It's a much different story.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:50

Oh yeah. I mean, the United States is massive.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:53

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:54

And probably most of these vegan restaurants are in larger cities like Chicago and New York and L.A. I mean, if you live in the middle of nowhere in the United States, good luck.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:02

I'm gonna go through the top 12 countries that had the most vegan restaurants per capita. They are Taiwan, Portugal, Singapore, Jamaica, Estonia, Austria, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Canada, Mongolia, and the U.K.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:19

Seems like a good list of places you should go visit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:21

Yeah, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:23

Plan your vacations around vegan restaurants. That's what we do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:26

Some interesting statistics around the percentage of people that consider themselves meat eaters. So the lowest was in India. Only 30% of people consider themselves meat eaters in India.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:36

That is awesome. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:39

On the flip side of that was Japan. Who has the highest percentage of meat eaters at 88%, and Japan also happens to have the lowest percentage of people in who were polled in the survey, right? This may not be representative of everybody, but the lowest percentage of people who understand what veganism is about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:54

I wonder why that is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:55

Not sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:56

What I do know is Chef Kenny's Japanese sushi restaurant is like one of the greatest places we've ever eaten at.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:03

In Texas.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:04

In Texas. But now that's gone, but they still have one in Las Vegas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:08

Oh, that's right. Yeah. I think his big one was in Las Vegas. Yeah, but we went to the one in Texas.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:11

Honestly. Gimme all the vegan sushi.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:13

Yeah. So if anybody has any insight about Japan and veganism, please let us know. I'd be interested to learn more.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:19

Me too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:19

Okay, so that's it for new news. Let's get to our guest.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:23

Woo.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:23

Okay, we have Stu Giddens here from Veganuary He's the content strategist and the face in a lot of their videos, and also a host on the Veganuary podcast. If you don't know, Veganuary is an annual challenge run by a British nonprofit organization that promotes the vegan lifestyle by encouraging people to follow a vegan diet for the month of January. So Stu, first off, do you want to just tell us a little bit about your vegan journey? Our last podcast talked about our vegan journey, so we wanted to hear a little bit of yours.

Stu Giddens: 4:50

Yeah, sure. I started eating primarily plant-based, um, when I was 30. I'm, I'm 39 now, so it was about 10 years ago. Um, so I. For a while I'd been quite conscious of my impact on the environment. So I've been doing lots of things like, um, trying to cycle more, uh, and use public transport as much as I could. Um, I was trying to use, um, not use virgin plastics. Um. All, all those kind of things, all those kind of things that people do when they get interested in the environment. Um, and I think I had a little niggle for a while thinking, um, uh, I should probably change my diet because I knew how much of an impact eating meat and dairy can have on the environment. Um, but I dunno, it was too, it felt really difficult. Um, I didn't, I think importantly, like I didn't really see myself as someone. Who was like a vegan, um,'cause vegans, I don't know. I had a certain idea of what they were like in my head. Um, uh, but I was in a relationship with a vegetarian, uh, who's now my wife, and she went vegan herself during the course of our relationship. So I, I was quite used to cooking and, um, and eating like vegetarian and vegan foods. Um. And then one day she got me to watch the film Vegucated. um, I dunno if you guys are familiar with that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:32

I don't think I've heard of that one, no.

Stu Giddens: 6:34

It. It's ba it's a set, it's, it's a documentary set in the US and it follows, um, three or four, I think, people trying for different reasons to adopt a plant-based diet. And at the end of it, um, there was kind of like a post script where it said, uh. How they were all doing like a year on or something. I think what I found most inspiring about it was that it said, um, you know, I don't know, Anna is now 90% vegan, but occasionally eats cheese and Paul, uh, still eats meat at the weekends. I think it opened up this idea to me that like uh, being vegan was almost like a practice rather than an identity. Like, you don't have to, you don't have to like completely give up who you are and start wearing hemp and, you know, use a compost toilet. Like, there's like loads of different ways to do it and I think that gave me the permission I needed really to, um start eating plant-based. And then I just, I just did it overnight. I went from eating omnivore to eating pretty much plant-based over the years. Every now and then I've had a bit of, um, cheese or, or eggs or something. But generally, I mean, I've never eaten meat since that day. Um, and generally I follow a completely vegan diet. Um, uh, yeah, and here we are 10 years on and, um. Uh, I've got two kids now and we're raising them vegan as well, so, um, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:14

That's so cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:15

Yeah. That's awesome. Our stories are so similar. I got the, you know, she was a vegetarian and basically turned me vegan overnight shortly after she went vegan, so.

Stu Giddens: 8:23

Well, that helps a lot, doesn't it? Because at at least. And vegetarian food wasn't a foreign concept to me. Like Right. I, I understood what the kind of main protein sources were and things like that. I think go, having no idea what vegan and vegetarian food is like, and then immediately China to adopt a p plant-based diet must be quite difficult.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:45

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So it sounds like your transition was pretty easy, but did you have any struggles that you remember when you first went vegan? Maybe just like finding food or anything comes to mind.

Stu Giddens: 8:56

Yeah. Um, yeah, not too, it wasn't too bad. It's like the co I love cooking and actually I found that, um, when I started cooking vegan food, it was almost like. It was almost like, you know, people see it as giving loads of stuff up. For me, it was almost the opposite. It was like I discovered loads of new ingredients and new dishes and cuisines that I wouldn't have previously cooked. So that was really exciting and my family were fine with it. Really. Like they, they kind of, I don't think they completely understand it, but they, they kind of alright with it. Um, as well as. Uh, my full-time job in, I have a side hustle, which is that I'm in a band. And, um, sometimes I found, uh, I guess the people that I'm in the band, the b, are kind of like my closest friends as well. Yeah. And generally those people are supportive, but sometimes there's a little bit of like, uh japes and joking that goes on. And usually I'm pretty thick skinned about that stuff, but it's often, um, paired with like, we'll, we'll go on tour and we'll play gigs. And that involves a lot of traveling. And in those situations it isn't always like easy to find, um, plant-based food and especially plant-based food that feels like nutritional nourishing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:21

Right. Yeah, for sure.

Stu Giddens: 10:23

I remember once we played a, a music festival on a very small island off the coast of the UK called Star and the festival site had one vegan food outlet. And when I came to eat that there was no food left at this food outlet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:46

Oh no.

Stu Giddens: 10:47

And then there was a fish and chips store. So I went to the fish and chip and tried to order just chips or you, you guys would, would say fries. Uh, and they said that they wouldn't let buy fries on their own. I had to buy fish with it. So I bought, I bought the fish and gave it away and just ate the chips. But then, but then the next morning we were staying at a B&B. It was only shortly after I'd made the decision to go plant-based, and my bandmates as a joke, has convince the owners of the Bed and Breakfast who were bringing out our breakfast to bring them all a full English breakfast and bring me a twig on a plane, which like, I don't mind. I kind of normally wouldn't mind that and would find it funny, like they still brought me out a vegan alternative after that. But just in that moment after I'd had that awful experience the night before, I was just so like a sensitive and upset.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:50

Too soon.

Stu Giddens: 11:53

Too soon. Hundred percent. So, um, that was that, that kind of, it, it was just stuff like that. It was finding food on the road and then, you know, it's occasionally dealing with the odd joke when I, you know, my, uh, capacity to deal with those jokes was quite low.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:11

Has that gotten better at all?

Stu Giddens: 12:14

Yeah. Do you know what actually, most of them, uh, I mean, I don't think, uh, any of them would consider themselves vegan, but most of them eat a predominantly plant-based diet now. Like often, um, if we're being catered for, it's just easier to get everyone to eat vegan than it is do a vegan and a meat-based thing, and, and they're all pretty on board with that. So, yeah, it's, it's quite cool actually.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:36

Yeah. That's amazing. I know your podcast kind of does a, like, what's your favorite vegan dish? So we wanted to ask you what is yours?

Stu Giddens: 12:44

Oh, I love, um, I love Asian foods. Uh, I spent a little bit of time in my twenties backpacking around Southeast Asia. Um, and uh, yeah, I love thai food and food. I love Vietnamese food and probably my favorite vegan food is, uh, Pho, um, Vietnamese, like noodle soup. I don't think it's pronounced Pho, but uh, uh, that's how I pronounce it. Um, and yeah, so I mean, traditionally it would be made with beef, but obviously like so much Asian cuisine is, is very vegan anyway, you know, to tofu is a staple, um, ingredient in, in. A lot of Asian cooking. Um, yeah. And I, I just, I love it. And I, there's a, a particular place, I mean, uh, it'll be a long way for you guys to travel, but in Manchester, in the uk, uh, a big city in the north, there's, um, a China town and there, and there is a. A little independent restaurant there called Im fo. And um, I just, I absolutely love that tofu fo whenever I'm in Manchester, I always go there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:58

That's awesome. So you mentioned you like tofu and that, what's your favorite vegan protein source in general?

Stu Giddens: 14:03

Yeah, probably tofu. Yeah. Um, tofu gets a bad rep, doesn't it?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:08

Oh yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:08

It does, but so good.

Stu Giddens: 14:12

I, I really, I love it and I find it quite versatile, which I don't think it's got a reputation for being, but it takes on flavor, so, well, I recently bought an air fryer and I, I do my tofu now for about 10 minutes in the air fryer, and it really like crisps it up and it gets a really meaty. Texture. I, I, I don't know about you guys. I kind of miss meat. I, I feel like you're not really allowed to say that as a vegan, but I, I like the texture of meat and, um, and so stuff that actually has quite a meaty texture I really love. So for me, a tofu whacked in the air fryer for 10 minutes before you throw it in a, a curry or whatever, I, I think is great. And, but yeah, I mean, uh, here in the, I don't know what it's like over there, but here in the UK there's, it's a lot easier to buy stuff like seitan and, um, tempeh now in the supermarket. So, uh, in the last six months or so, I've been experimenting a lot more with other. Um, protein sources and, and I love beans and lentils as well, but yeah, tofus usually my go-to.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:15

That's interesting. I think it's easier for us to get tofu, but we usually have a couple of seitan and tempeh options as well.

Stu Giddens: 15:22

Yeah, it's exciting. In the UK we had a big boom of like, um. Like the pro like processed foods, like fake, fake burgers and fake sausages, and that's kind of dwindled a bit now but in its place have come all these more like whole food protein sources, which I think are much more fun to cook with as someone that loves cooking. So that's really great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:43

Yeah, I agree with that.'cause we usually cook mostly and we don't usually use frozen stuff, so.

Stu Giddens: 15:49

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:50

Yeah. Cool. So we gave a a short intro to Veganuary, but I'd like to hear from kind of your point of view, what is Veganuary to you? You know,

Stu Giddens: 16:00

uh, yeah. Well, um, so Veganuary at its core is, is the, the pormanteau of the words vegan and January. And the idea behind it was, um, can we get people to try a p plant-based diet for a month? And commit to that, uh, uh, and that would, you know, help them, that would be an opportunity for them to learn more about plant-based eating and, um, how to do it. I mean, that was an important bit actually, how, how you go about doing it. Because our founders, Matthew and Jane, when they founded it, felt that there were lots and lots of organizations. Explaining why you should go vegan, but not so many that were actually helping people with resources on how to do it. So that was kind of the gap in the market that they saw. And, um, uh, this was 2014. Um, I don't know if, uh, a campaign called Movember crossed the pond, but this was the idea that men would. Grow a mustache, not shave for the entirety of

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:08

Oh yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:08

Yeah, I've heard of that.

Stu Giddens: 17:09

November And grow a mustache and in doing so, raise money for prostate cancer charities. Um, and one of our founders, Matthew, had done that himself, uh, and he was vegan and he thought, I wonder if you could. Transfer that idea to p plant-based eating, um, and use it as a way to help people learn about p plant-based eating and also as a fundraising drive for animal rights charities, animal welfare charities. Um, so that's how it started. Um, and it's kind of changed. Now, I would say it's morphed over the years. I mean, it's grown hugely. So it started in the uk it's now we have active campaigns in 20 countries, and every year we tend to see at least one person, uh, signing up from every country in the world. Um, uh, and we've kind of changed the way that we talk about it Now. We don't, we try not to talk about it so much as a challenge. I think now I think of it more of almost like, um, festival of plant-based food or, you know, a great big celebration of plant-based food. We, we try to encourage everyone to, we try to encourage people to take part in whatever way works for them by just adopting some more plant-based eating habits over the month. Like it could be. Maybe you eat, eat meat and with your, but then your evening meal will. We, we want everyone, we wanna kind of meet people where they are and really have a very nonjudgmental and welcoming approach. Um, and yeah, just, just position it as an opportunity for people to discover more about plant-based eating. And then there's a whole other strategy to what we do. So all those people taking parts, millions of people around the world. We kind of leveraged that to start raising awareness about plant-based diet by getting loads of media coverage, you know, lots of stuff in the newspapers and on tv, on radio, and on on social media as well, you know? Yeah. Celebrities taking part and that kind of thing. Um, and then, uh, a big part of what we do is corporate engagement. So working with businesses, um, to develop, uh, plant-based foods, plant-based menu items. And of course these things are symbiotic. The more availability of plant-based food there is easier it is for people to take part in Veganuary.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:44

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 19:45

So that's kind of like the three pillars of what we do that we call the Veganuary effect. All these things work together. And then the fourth part of our strategy is to grow a global movement. So that's establishing ourselves in, uh, in other countries. Um. But yeah, it's, it's kind of, the campaign is really focused on diet. Um, we see ourselves as like the entry point for a lot of people for trying vegan, and the nature of it being about something you, you really focus on for one month means that. Diet is, diet is the biggest place where animal products are gonna impact people's lives over the course of one month. Most people maybe aren't buying lots of new clothes or shoes, generally over the course of just one month or, or gonna the zoo or, you know, right. All those things. So we try to focus on maybe just, just the diet aspect of it. And then once people have finished, uh, the month, we try to direct them onto other aspects of the vegan lifestyle. Um. And yeah, so January is the main, the main focus. Uh, and that's when, you know, we get all the businesses and all the press attention getting involved, but actually people can take part whenever they want. Um, we have a registration form on our website and, um, if you register. Uh, you get 31 days worth of emails that are full of recipes and tips and meal plans and that sort of thing. Um, and, and you can choose what date you want those to start. So even though it's, you know, vegan January, it's kind of, it's possible to do at a time that suits you. Um, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:23

Nice. Well, it's definitely working. She went vegan from vegetarian, uh, with the Veganuary campaign.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:29

That's true. And now every January my entire, like for you page on any social media is just all Veganuary. It's awesome.

Stu Giddens: 21:36

Yeah. That's great. So my, my, my wife. Went, went vegan from vegetarian because of Veganuary actually. So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:44

Oh, wow.

Stu Giddens: 21:44

Even though I, even though I personally didn't go vegan after Veganuary, I, I sort of have that tangential connection and, um, yeah. It was her that when my role that I work in now came up, they advertised it by email, so it was there that said, oh, I think you'd be good for this job. And.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:03

Oh my gosh, that's so funny. Yeah. Funny how she already about it.

Stu Giddens: 22:07

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:08

That is really cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:09

Do you have any like participant statistics that you might be able to share with us? Like how many people there were, uh, last year or percentage that continue being vegan? Anything like that?

Stu Giddens: 22:18

I've got absolutely loads.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:20

Alright.

Stu Giddens: 22:20

Strap in. Um, yeah, no, uh, I mean, it, it is a real challenge to measure our impact actually because.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:28

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 22:28

Um, we know how many people sign up to take part via our website, but we don't really know that much about them beyond what country they live in. Um, but we do try our best to, to try and get a gauge of what impact we have. So. We use, um, surveys, um, to do a survey of a sample of the population in each of the countries where we run campaigns. Uh, and we ask them whether they'll be trained vegan during January, and then we project that based on the population sizes of each of those countries. Um, so we estimate that in January, 2025, so last January. Million people around the world tried, uh, vegan during, um, January. Uh, we have a presence in 20 countries and our, um, resources are translated into nine different languages, so it's truly a global campaign. And then, um, some of the other stats that are important to us went up, you know, the, the, the key pillars of our strategy I was talking about. So, uh, last year in January, we generated over 12,000 media stories during January. Um, wow. We had 228 organizations taking part in. Our workplace challenge, which is when we get workplaces to get involved in Veganuary. It is what it says on the tin. That's, so, uh, we saw, um, over 1,400 new products and menu items launched for Veganuary worldwide. So, um, like the impact of beginner is, is undeniable. And then you asked me about, you know, how, what percentage stay, stay vegan. I mean, it's very hard for us to survey everyone that's trying vegan unless they register on our website. But we do survey those people that register on our website. Um, um, we, we register them right at the end of their month of trying vegan and then we also survey them six months on. So right at the end of their month. After last year's Veganuary. Um, we found that 81% said that they plan to make significant diet change. So that means that 31% of them say they plan to go fully vegan after, and then another 50% said they plan to reduce. Um, animal products from their diet by at least half. Um, so that's, you know, a really great impact. And then of the people that said, well, actually I'm not gonna continue with a vegan diet, we asked them, well, would you try vegan again in the future? And we find that of those people, 90% tell us that they do plant to try vegan again in the future. Uh, it's quite interesting. I've been working on a little project looking at people who do Veganuary year after year after year, there's a good amount of people that do that and reduce slightly each time. So for, for a lot of people, just one month is maybe not enough. Maybe even three years is not enough. But they're working, you know, they're progressing towards a fully plant-based diet all the time. With us, which is, is great. Um, we also ask people about their health. So, um, we see that 45% reported improvements to their overall health. Um, only 3% people of people said that their health was worsened. The rest said that there was either no change or they, they didn't, they weren't sure. Um, so we think that's really, really encouraging that 45% are seeing their health improved.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:04

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 26:05

Um. And then in our six month survey, we just, we, we ask people sort of slightly broader questions, I think, but 67% of people say they feel more inspired in the kitchen six months after taking part in Veganuary. 49% say that they feel Veganuary helped them make more sustainable food choices. Um, 41% say Veganuary, helped them make healthier food choices. And then after six months, 56% of people also tell us that they are more active at promoting veganism six months after taking part in Veganuary. So, um, yeah, sometimes people challenge us on saying, well, it's, it's just a month, and then people just go back to doing what they've always done. And I, I think, uh, our research suggests that isn't quite the case. That people are, you know, adopting, um, the things they've learned during Veganuary long term.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:56

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:57

Yeah, those numbers are amazing. I mean, even if they only do it for one month, that's still insane. Like that's still insanely beneficial to the animals, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:06

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 27:07

Yeah, a hundred percent agree.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:09

You mentioned there that there was a survey question about feeling more inspired in the kitchen, and then you mentioned earlier that when you went vegan you tried a bunch of new dishes. So I've had a couple discussions online with people who think like the vegan diet is restrictive, but my view on it is like I've tried way more different things, uh, as a vegan than I ever would have or did, you know, before I went vegan. So I see it as, as kind of the opposite.

Stu Giddens: 27:32

Yeah, I agree. It's like, I mean, it forces you out of your comfort zone, right? It forces you to, to, to experiment a bit more and it forces you to Google a bit more. Um, and like when I went vegan, I started eating plants that I'd never even heard of just because Right, exactly. They were there. They were there and I was like, oh, I wonder what I could do with this. And, um, for me that was, that was very energizing and, um. Yeah. I, I do think there's a difference though between people who, basically people who can cook and, and yeah. And erupt for that experimentation. Mm-hmm. And people who maybe aren't, and I do think we need to make sure there's room for, for them in this as well. You know? Um, a lot of people can be a bit hard about, well. Vegan diets are full of processed food and it's all burgers and, and soya sausages and stuff. And I, I do understand that. Like I, I do understand that we, we wanna be encouraging people to eat healthy vegan diets and whole food vegan diets, but I think we need to appreciate as well that, you know, not, that isn't gonna fit with everybody's lifestyle. Definitely. Um, so I think it's really good that there's, there's options for everyone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:48

Yeah. I agree. What are some of your favorite, uh, campaigns or projects that you've personally worked with on Veganuary?

Stu Giddens: 29:00

This is gonna sound weirdly negative. It's, it's quite, it's kind of the same every year in a way. Like every year it's the, it's the same proposition. Uh, we want more people to try vegan and, and it is kind of like, if it ain't broke, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But, um, for me, like in 2019, which was the. Second or third, sorry, it wasn't 2019. It was 2020. There's a weird thing for me working at Ary that years start, that the years start meaning strange things because from 1st of February onwards, I'm always thinking about what's gonna happen next year in January. Um, so anyway, yeah, I think it was January, 2020. Um, there was a, a big release. Of a, a product in a, a, a brand called Greg's. I suspect you won't have, won't have heard of Greg's, but it is a bakery and it is kind of very, it would be seen as a very sort of working class. Brand and quite northern, which in the UK is kind of, the two things overlap quite a lot. Like generally we kind of think of people from the south being posh and people from the north being quite, you know,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:30

I think we're reversed over here. Our Southern is our working class.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:33

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 30:34

Hundred percent. So, so Greg's will be seen as this very kind working class northern brand, although they have these bakeries all over the country and they, um. I did a new product to their stores, which was the vegan sausage roll. Um, and again, I don't even, I'm not even sure if a sausage roll is like a big thing in the us but here it's like a, a proper kind of like traditional food. Um, and it generated so much press interest. Um, and it was just this really exciting moment. You know what I said right at the top when you were asking me about my vegan journey of this thing of having a concept of what a vegan was? I loved it because, because the cliche vegan would never shop at Greg's, and so to have a vegan product land at Greg's really said something about how veganism is a movement in the UK had broken into the masses, I think. So that was really exciting. And then that was topped off with in 2020 January, 2020, my wife was pregnant and, um, uh, the, we've gone past a due date and the baby wouldn't, didn't seem to be showing any signs of arriving. And we'd nearly given up and she was gonna have to go into hospital for, uh, you know. Uh, to, to, to kind of get things moving. But then she ate a Gregs vegan sausage roll and she went into labor.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:07

Oh man. Oh my. They need to add that to their marketing, I think.

Stu Giddens: 32:11

Yeah, absolutely. So yes, the, the Greg Sausage Roll was really exciting and that, I suppose on a more personal level, there have been. Here and there when I've kind of met someone in the wild who like recognizes me from Veganuary or um, or you know, I happen to just mention that I work for Veganuary and they'll. They'll stand back a gasp and say, oh my God, I, I've done Veganuary and so often people tell me how much it meant to them and how supported they felt, um, and how much they love, you know, our non-judgmental approach. Um, and I always just find that really moving. Like ultimately we are doing it to help, uh, animals and the environment, but. Before we get to those, we help people. And I think because, you know, my role is very much being the kind of person that, um, is, is handholding them and guiding them through the journey. It, it feels quite personal to me to, to have, have that role and, and hear that, um, individual feedback.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:21

Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm, I'm glad everything worked out with the baby. That's good to hear. Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 33:27

He's going strong. Yeah. And he, do you know what? He loves sausages now as well. That's funny.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:34

Uh, so what, uh, what's something that you have maybe learned in your time with the January that you didn't know before?

Stu Giddens: 33:44

Came? The big difference for me is, um. My attitude to, to animals has changed quite a lot. So, um, you know, I said I was, I was primarily motivated by, um, the environment. Uh, and I, you know, I, I wouldn't say that I didn't care about animals. I didn't just think, I didn't think about animals. I didn't, I didn't think about animal suffering, really. Um, yeah. You know, I've had pets here and there through the years, and you obviously have a connection with pets and, but I think I was, you know, you get, you're, so if you, if you brought up an omnivore, you're just so used to just completely detaching the idea of meat from the idea of animals. And I think that's what it was for me. Um, and since I've, you know, since I joined Veganuary, I, I was kind of forced to, to, to look at, I mean, in Veganuary we don't share any, anything graphic, um, you know, we really avoid doing that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:46

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 34:46

Because we, like I've said, it's, it's really the entry point for people and we want people to feel warm and weclome, and we don't want to scare them off. In the course of my work work, I, I have happened to see some really shocking and upsetting things that go on in animal agriculture, and then all, you know, the flip side of that is I've had lots of opportunities to go and visit animal sanctuaries, you know, to do bits of content here and there and filming and things, and had the opportunity to get really close to. Rescued animals. Animals, um, chickens, which I find chickens a bit frightening because they move so fast. Um, but pigs and cows who are much slower that I, I really love. Um, yeah. And so my whole perception of, um, animals and, and how we should respect animals more and value animals more has changed and I also think that something that's change with me is a real intolerance to violence. This might sound a bit strange, but I, I find it really hard to watch violent films now. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I, I, I actually, I love horror films, but I don't like them when they're very gory and see, you know, being, having their head smashed in. So, and that's really kind of only started since I discovered plant based eating. And it's interesting, I think, I think it's something about. I think it's something about understanding how every day an occurrence. At scale, that kind of violence is against animals and, and, and, and maybe almost noticing that when we see lots of violence, it's about numbing us to it and kind of thinking it's okay. And, and you can apply that to all sorts of other aspects of life, you know, um, the, the wars that are currently being waged in, in the world and, and that kind of, um, yeah. So they've been the big takeaways.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:49

That's really neat. In your position working in Veganuary, I think you probably have a much different view than the rest of us on like, what is vegan activism and how to plant the seeds of veganism with omnivores effectively. So are there any tips or tricks you can share with our listeners?

Stu Giddens: 37:08

Yeah. Well, FI think first of all, I'd say the Veganuary approach is just one approach. You know, the idea of, of really, um, being very, you know, baby steps into plant-based eating and, um. Being really warm and felt welcoming and, and not sharing graphic content. That's just one way. And I think we exist in a, in an ecosystem, and I think there are other groups, um, doing other kinds of. Perhaps more emotive campaigning. Um, and, and I don't wanna suggest that that doesn't have value. I just think there's different approaches and I think, yeah, it's, it's an ecosystem and different things are gonna reach different people, and I think that's, that's really good. Um, but yeah, so the Veganuary approach is very much about being patient. Um, being kind, I think recognizing that we live in a carnistic society where to, like, I, like I was talking about my relationship with animals and meat, that for most people that is just normal and there's, there's no reason to question that. Mm-hmm. And I think. I do understand why, um, if I tell someone that I'm vegan, sometimes they can just feel threatened just by me even saying that. Yeah. And they can be very reactive to that. Uh, and I think it's helpful to recognize that, that they are part of the system as well as the slaughterhouse are. Okay. Um, so yeah, that's the, I try to be empathetic and then I also try to just think, like I try to pick my battles. So, um. I can tell if I'm a social occasion and I'm mentioned that I'm vegan and someone starts dropping all the vegan jokes and how can you tell if someone's vegan? Don't worry. They'll tell you. I kind of know that that person is never gonna go vegan from anything that I'm gonna say, and so I don't bother. Um, but there are other people who say, oh yeah, oh, well what do you eat? What you know? You know, I took, I went to a party over Christmas and I took some cheese and people were saying how much they liked, and so that's when I noticed. There's an opportunity, there's a little, there's a little glimmer and I, and that's when I start trying to have conversations. And, um, I just try to approach it really, really gently. And I often, I try to just center myself in what I'm talking about by saying. I do this and I feel like this and, and this is how I adopted certain plant-based eating. And, um, and, and, and try not to actually put too much pressure on them. I think it's just like planting seeds. That's my approach.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:58

No, I like that. Sometimes I get a little excited. I'm like, oh, there's a glimmer of hope. Let me really jump on this. And then I'm like, oh, did I, did I push too hard?

Stu Giddens: 40:08

Well, we just feel so passionately about it, don't we? I think that's, that's so, you know, sometimes I see feedback from people that have taken part in begun We, and they've been online and, and posted in vegan groups, and then. They've all this feedback from other vegans saying, well, you know, you are doing this wrong. Or, um, and, and they find that really offputting and, and you know, I think that's a shame. But I do also recognize that people within this movement, like the scales have fallen from their eyes and they just, they care so much. Uh, yeah. And it means, it, it, it's so important to us that it can be hard to restrain yourself sometimes from going from going all in. Um, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:49

I know Reddit vegan can be pretty brutal. We've been in there, it's like, ugh. You never know what you're gonna get.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:58

Yeah. Um, can you tell us a little bit about the specific like support and resources that Veganuary offers when somebody does sign up? Like what are they expected to get?

Stu Giddens: 41:07

Yeah, so I, so I actually write these, the, I actually write all the content for the 31 emails that we send. Um, that's awesome. Uh, so we send an, an email a day, and it covers, we try to cover like a really bite-sized subject. Each email takes about 10 minutes to read. Um, so we cover things like, um. Uh, you know how to go, how, when, when you're dining out on as a vegan. Tips for that, um, tips for dealing with friends and family. What happens if you just have a slip up and you, you accidentally eat some cheese because you didn't read the label properly or properly, or you just. You know, you just wanted to eat some cheese. What happens then? Um, you know, all kinds of things. Uh, lots of nutritional advice. So we, we have different emails focusing on protein and B12 and iron and Omegas. Um, and then within that, every email that we send contains two recipes. So there's food inspiration every day. And then on top of that, we have. Loads of, uh, additional downloadable PDF resources. So we have cookbooks, we have meal plans, we have, um, nutrition checklists, um, and all that kind of things. And then possibly the, the people listening to, to your podcast. We've actually introduced, um, a, a new resource this year, which is our plant protein cookbook, where we've got 17 recipes from athletes, fitness coaches, and nutritionists for people that are looking for, uh, um. Uh, a diet which is higher protein, you know, if that's strength training or whatever. Um, so yeah, that's, that's the kind of thing we offer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:40

That's awesome.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:41

That's awesome. Yeah. Sounds great. Uh, if we have any listeners that are considering trying vegan or just veganism in general, what's the best way to get in touch with the organization?

Stu Giddens: 42:53

Well, as I've said, we, we consider anyone doing any kind of plant based activity through January as taking part, but the, the kind of, of, I guess the kind of official way would be to go to our website, um, click the try vegan button, and you, we just ask you for your email address, your name, and the country you live in because our resources are adapted specifically for different countries. Um, so yeah, that's, that's the best way to do it. But, uh, we're also on all social media channels. Um, we have a podcast as well, as you kindly mentioned.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:28

Yeah, for sure.

Stu Giddens: 43:28

Um, we have quite an active YouTube channel, so there's all kinds of other ways to, to get involved with us as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:35

Yeah, that's a cool note that you just mentioned, that your content is kind of tuned towards the, the country they're from, because we do have a little bit of an international audience, and sometimes we'll recommend things and they'll say, oh, I can't get that here. So I think that's a really cool thing that you guys have done there.

Stu Giddens: 43:49

Yeah, we have, we, uh, we've got, we have a, a, a team of people working in the States. We, uh, we've got actually our CEO is based in the states, Wendy, and then we, we have a, a corporate wing in the states as well. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:01

Yeah, and I wanted to mention the social media'cause I, I follow you guys on social media and they post so much good stuff. Like Chockfull should definitely follow Veganuary everywhere.

Stu Giddens: 44:10

Uh, thank you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:12

Um, so if we have any vegan listen listeners that are kind of inspired by the work that Veganuary is doing and want to support the organization that way, what's the best way for them to get involved on the support side?

Stu Giddens: 44:23

Well, that's very kind. We we're, uh, for the, for the opportunity. We are a nonprofit. We're a charity based in the uk so the, the best way that you could support us is by making a donation. So, um, you can do that on our website as well. There's, you'll find a big donate button and, um, yeah, we, we've, we don't have a huge team, but we do have a team of people that are developing all these resources. Um, and, uh, you know. More importantly than anything is just driving awareness of what we do and and reaching more people. And obviously the more people we can reach, the more people who are gonna take part, and the more people that are likely to stay vegan, and then that has a great impact for the environment and for animals. And what we really en envisage. Being able to, to slowly shift the dial on our food system so that we're eating less animals and we're eating more plants. Um, and, and that's what our donations go towards. So it helps us in all aspects of our work in developing the resources, um, in reaching out to media, in reaching out to corporates and growing a global, um, growing a, a global organization.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:33

Awesome. And then lastly, on more of a personal note, I know, uh, you do a little bit of strength training in the gym. So tell us a little bit about what you do there and then what advice you might have or be able to give to vegans or vegan curious people that might be concerned about being able to perform athletically or like build muscle on a vegan diet.

Stu Giddens: 45:51

Yeah, I go to the gym, when things aren't too stressful with work and fun, I try to go to the gym four or five times a week and I, I like lifting, but I don't have huge ambitions of building loads of muscle, really.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:04

Right, right.

Stu Giddens: 46:04

I kind of just like the, I like the discipline of going and I like having, you know, a routine and, um, but you know, I'm not, I'm not kind of like one of these, I'm not like a gym bro, so much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:18

Yeah.

Stu Giddens: 46:19

Um, uh, so yeah, that's, that's why I do at the gym, um, uh, for me, um. You know, I, I honestly, I don't, I, I don't, I don't check in with my nutrition probably as much as I should. Um, but I just try to have a good range of, um. Every meal. So, uh, my breakfast is usually porridge and I'll have like cheer seeds in there and, um, flax seeds and stuff to get a bit protein up. And then, um, I, I tend to eat a really healthy salad every day, but I put in like half a can of lentils and half a can of beans into that, um, with loads fresh. Use a different, a different, um, uh, a different protein source for each one. So tempeh or tofu or seitan or, you know, um, beans, pulses. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of what I do. And then I'll, if, if I have worked out, I'll follow it up with a vegan protein shake. Um. Uh, I don't, yeah, I haven't ever, you guys will have looked into this much more than I have. I haven't ever looked that hard at my nutrition, but I, what I, my knowledge is that having us varied, uh, uh, protein sources as you can is really, is really helpful for building muscle.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:48

Yeah, definitely. If you stick with tofu, you're in pretty good shape, but if you wanna keep it varied, it's definitely good to go around and do a bunch of different ones.

Stu Giddens: 47:53

I'm, I'm interested. How do you, do you think there's any interesting crossovers in the way that, um, like gym going and eating plant based is communicated? Because sometimes I do, you know,'cause it's just been the new year. I've been looking a lot at some gym content on social media and it's all like, um, uh, uh. Like about how you should be going. Why haven't you gone to the gym today? And you should, you should be gonna the gym every day. You're not working hard enough. It's kind of all like all or nothing. And I sometimes think that can be true of like the way people communicate about plant-based diets as well. Yeah. That's interesting. It's interesting to me because, because sometimes I think it's always good to think about the way that it's always useful for me to think about the way that someone who is entirely new for vegan to, to a vegan diet would, would take the way I communicate. And I sometimes think like my relationship to gym going is also almost like a similar kind of relationship. Do you know what I mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:03

Yeah, definitely there. There are definitely people who take it, you know, very seriously. And then people who just want to kind of stay healthy and fit, and we try to address both of those.

Stu Giddens: 49:12

What's usually your number one tip for nutrition in the gym?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:16

Yeah, I think it's just try to get a little more protein than you were before and think about it a little bit. You know, it's, um, it's mostly useful if you are, if you're not lifting weights, protein is not quite as important, but if you are lifting weights, it's probably a good idea to bump it up a little bit so you're making your, most of the time you do spend in the gym because it's a pretty big time investment. So if we can get, you know, 20 or 40 extra grams of protein a day and maybe make that investment 20% more effective. That seems like a pretty good trade off to me.

Stu Giddens: 49:43

Yeah, and I mean, having said, I'm not that bothered about building muscle, I do have bit when I look in the mirror and I look great. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:51

There's one, uh, kind of nutrition guy out there that writes a book about, longevity kind of, but he talks about something called, I think he calls it like the Centennial Olympics, but basically it's not really about building muscle to build muscle, but it's about still being able to do this list of physical things if he lived to be a hundred years old. Yeah. So if you think about it that way, where it's like I just wanna be fit enough to stay mobile and healthy into old age, I think that's a great goal. Even if you don't wanna like really pack on the muscle.

Stu Giddens: 50:17

I think about that all the time. You know, when you see like older, older people in the gym and they, and they're looking great and they must be in their sixties or seventies, I think like, oh, I'd look. I hope that I'm still looking like that when I buy age.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:31

Have you noticed, I, I assume you went to the gym probably before you were vegan. Have you noticed any detriment when, since you switched to vegan?

Stu Giddens: 50:44

I, I, I've kind of had periods in my life where I've gone to the gym and then periods of my life when I've done other things like run, uh, long distance running and I got really into triathlons for a bit. Oh, yeah. Um, so when I first started going to the gym, I, I, I was, um, I was still omnivore and actually I, I went for a really, um, oh God, what's, I can't remember what the kind of diet is. It's, it's not like a carnivore diet, it's something else.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:12

Oh, the paleo.

Stu Giddens: 51:13

Yeah. Yeah, paleo. Paleo, that's the one I tried to follow, like a paleo diet. And actually, funnily enough. I, I don't remember my body really changing at all in that period. Yeah, it just kind of looked the same. And then during the period that I transitioned to a vegan diet, that's when I was doing the more, um, endurance stuff than I was doing marathons and triathlons. And I felt great. I felt really great at that time in my life. Like, um. My recovery was great. My endurance was great. My, my, I mean, that's the fittest I've ever been and that, that felt brilliant. Um, I kind of got back to gonna the gym when I started having a family because it's much harder to Oh yeah. Long hours of running. Exactly. Whereas with the gym, I could just put aside, you know, 40 minutes to an hour a day and just do it. Um, but definitely in terms of building muscle. I, I've probably started going to the gym again. Two or three years ago. And, and, and, um, and, and it's gone up and down because I've had a second kid that, right. Um, uh, but yeah, um, de definitely within that period, I, I was looking the most toned and muscly that I've ever looked like, the hap the happiest of my body that I've ever looked. So that was cool and that, and that was all on a plant based diet. Um, and I feel, I do feel my recovery is really good. Like, I get, I, I mean. I've got some pretty achy legs today after gonna the general day. But, um, yeah, generally my, my recovery's great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:50

That's awesome. Yeah. Well, um, I think that's all we had for you. Is there anything else you wanted to share or just put out there?

Stu Giddens: 52:58

No, I, I feel like you've given me the opportunity to say absolutely everything I wanna say, but, um, thanks so much for having me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:05

Yeah. Awesome. Uh, thank you for joining us, Stu. We really appreciate it. Okay, so now for our myth of the week, this week, the myth of the week is that the new food pyramid says saturated fat is fine.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:17

I think pyramid is used pretty loosely here.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:20

Yeah. So, um, it is the new dietary guidelines for Americans specifically. I know not of all of our audience is American.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:27

Yeah. And if you're not American, you can ignore this and should probably ignore this. And if you're American, maybe you can also ignore this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:35

Yeah. Well, first of all, the new pyramid didn't really directly replace the old pyramid like a lot of people are talking about because we haven't used the old pyramid in like 15 years. We've been recently using a system called MyPlate from the government, which was just a little picture of a plate that had like, you know, a fourth of it is protein, a fourth of it is vegetables, uh, something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:54

And the greens.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:54

Yeah. It was just kind of visual.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:56

Yeah. Which I actually thought was kind of helpful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:58

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:58

For figuring out how you should set up your meals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:01

Right. But the, you know, the picture doesn't tell the whole story for any of these, so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:04

Sure.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:05

The myth this week comes from the fact that the pyramid, the upside down pyramid picture that they used for the new dietary guidelines has basically all, all in the top left corner, which means eat more of this, they have things like butter and meat and uh, like red meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:20

Specifically red meat. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:22

So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:22

I think red meat steak specifically is at the very, very, very top.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:26

Right. So it makes it look like, you know, you maybe you want to eat a lot of saturated fat or something like that. But, um, if you go past the picture, which you know, you probably always should.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:36

Which nobody will though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:38

Yeah, yeah. But if you go past the picture to the actual dietary guidelines and you can find them. So what was myplate.gov, the website now is realfood.gov because the emphasis on this new dietary guideline is to eat real whole foods.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:51

Butter is a real whole food guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:55

But you can find the actual guidance document, which is like a six or seven page document that lays out their actual guidelines and in there there are some interesting things that maybe, uh, I think, and a lot of people seem to think don't really align with the picture.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:08

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:09

And really aren't that much different than MyPlate.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:11

Well it seems like the picture is very heavily influenced by the meat and dairy industry, I would say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:16

Oh, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:16

And they're kind of hoping that no one goes and looks at the text.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:20

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:20

And you just look at the picture, which is not really representative of what comes after.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:24

Yeah, so I'll have a link to the actual guidance in the show notes, but let's go through a couple of bullet points for things that are actually in the guidance that sound more reasonable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:33

You mean more reasonable than putting butter directly next to grapes on the hierarchy?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:40

I see you have a lot of feelings.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:41

I have. I always have a lot of feelings.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:45

So in the actual guidance, they still do recommend limiting saturated fat intake to 10% of your daily calories, even though a lot of the rhetoric around these new dietary guidelines has been about full fat milk specifically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:56

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:56

Has been a big one. Red meat. And then, I think one of the quotes from some official was ending the war on saturated fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:03

Oh, and the war on protein, which is crazy, because there hasn't been a war on either of those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:09

Yeah. So it is still in the guidance limited to 10% despite the prominent location on the picture of a bunch of things with saturated fat. Also they did increase the protein recommendation, so they recommend trying to get a minimum of 1.2 grams per kilogram of protein. Which I think personally is probably a little more helpful than harmful in most cases. Especially if you're like trying to be fit and work out. You know, I, I say a lot with protein, it matters more if you're working out, but kind of the underlying thing there is I also feel like everybody should be working out to some degree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:42

Yeah, just maybe just for longevity purposes, if you don't have specific fitness goals in mind.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:46

Right. If you're able. Obviously some people can't work out, but if you're working out a little more protein is probably beneficial in almost all cases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:53

And they do specifically include that plant-based protein sources.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:57

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:57

Like alongside of the animal derived ones.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:00

Yeah. In the actual guidance doc, they mentioned several plant-based protein sources right there with all the others.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:05

Would've been nice to see tofu in this weirdo pyramid.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:08

They do recommend eating mostly whole food, which is something we've said and something I think is pretty well known for general health. So this is another one that's actually been kind of controversial, I guess, with the new pyramid is that they put whole grains at the very bottom. Basically, the picture makes it look like you maybe shouldn't eat a lot of whole grains.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:23

It makes it look like you should almost completely cut out non vegetable carbs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:27

Right. Yeah. So, but in the guidance document, again, they do recommend a high fiber intake.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:33

What are the numbers they're recommending on fiber, do you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:35

They don't. They don't recommend. So actually the fiber recommendation fell into like a general little gut health recommendation. So it was talking about like probiotics and things like that, and it mentioned some fermented foods and then it mentioned also have a high fiber diet, but they didn't have a number.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:50

Well, you will not be getting fiber from red meat and full fat milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:53

Yeah. And then they also recommend eating and, and this is, you know, their words eating a wide variety of different color fruits and vegetables, which again, is always good advice. I know, um, Dr. Gregor, who wrote How Not To Die, has his daily dozen and he's always emphasized eating a lot of different colors, specifically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:10

Yeah. And very pigmented.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:11

Right. Because color kind of relates to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:14

Antioxidants

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:15

Antioxidants, and other nutrients in the vegetables. So if you like do different colors, you can make sure that you're kind of covered in a lot of different areas.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:21

That's why blueberries are so highly recommended.'cause they're like very dark in color.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:25

Yeah. So looking at the actual guidance, I would consider it really similar to my plate, just with a little more focus on protein, which I'm not gonna argue with.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:33

Yeah, I mean, the picture is, I feel like very misleading, in terms of what the actual recommendations are.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:40

Yeah, it definitely seems that way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:41

If you guys have any questions on the pyramid, any specific questions or any specific questions on the guidelines, drop us a comment or send us a message.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:49

Alright. So that's our myth of the week. So the new food pyramid, as long as you look at the guidance, does not emphasize saturated fat and still basically has the same limit it always has.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:58

The new upside down food pyramid.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:00

It's a stranger things collab.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:02

The upside down is a bad place always so. You, you should really go watch strangers things. I liked it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:11

All right, so let's talk a little bit about Protein Deficient Vegan updates. What do you have going on?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:16

Okay, so I started this new series on my social medias where I roll the dice to figure out which random high protein recipe I'm going to make from my free Veganuary ebook.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:27

Yeah. And what I know about that is this week you rolled the dice and then awesome pizza appeared in the kitchen. So I thought that was pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:33

Awesome pizza appeared in the kitchen twice, 'cause somehow I landed on vegan cheeses twice, which I'm also not complaining, but like what are the odds of that? Yeah, I'm very happy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:46

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:47

So yeah, we've learned a lot about the statistical probabilities of, uh, two 20 sided dice.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:52

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:56

What do you got going on?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:58

Well, I had my Veganuary personal training giveaway, for the last week or so. Ended up with over a hundred entries in that and ended up with 10 winners.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:07

Yeah. You got a lot more than you bargained for, huh?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:10

Yeah. No, I mean, the interest was really cool and it was really cool to see a lot of people's stories and mostly made me a little sad that I couldn't like pick everybody. Right. But.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:18

Guys, he wanted to put pick literally everyone. He was really struggling.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:24

Yeah. So, um, there were, there were five winners that were randomly selected and then five winners I picked based off kinda what they told me and who I thought I could help most in the 12 weeks. So, uh, looking forward to get jumped into that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:36

You doing anything with the rest of the people that didn't win?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:39

Yeah. So for everybody that entered, I'm putting together some information to hopefully kind of jumpstart you for the year and then give you some guidance. And then also, you know, we're always around in Discord or Instagram. You can reach out and ask questions and stuff as normal, but I do plan to put some kind of package together to try to help you out anyway.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:55

Can any of our listeners that didn't enter and still want that packet you're putting together, is there a way they can get that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:00

Yeah. Once I get it put together, I'll probably put it on the website. So I think that's it. If you guys want to keep in touch with us or make sure you follow the podcast, um, if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, that helps a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:11

We love reviews, we love comments.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:13

You can also leave direct comments on YouTube or Spotify. Uh, and then we have.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:18

Timmy Tooter, we love you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:21

And then we have the link to the Deficient Vegans Discord in our show notes as well. We're up to almost 30 people in there now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:27

Yeah. It's actually getting a lot more active. We got a lot of people chatting. It's, it's really fun.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:31

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:32

And we, oh, and we started the accountability channel. So if you're having trouble finding like accountability buddies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:37

And if you're not familiar with Discord, it's just a chat platform. So we join, we got different channels to talk about different things, and keep everybody motivated and accountable throughout the year if you have a fitness goal or to just come in and talk about vegan stuff, if that's what you wanna do.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:48

Yeah. You can find new vegan friends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:49

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

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:51

Bye.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:52

Bye everybody.