Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast, episode 40. Sounds like we're over the hill now. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient vegan. You want to say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:08

Hi!

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:08

Hi, everybody. So this week, we're going to talk about understanding nutrition labels and nutrition information from recipes. And we'll also cover our myth of the week this week, which is that you need a restrictive diet to lose weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:20

Hmm. Hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:21

But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:23

New news!

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:24

So the first piece of news we have here is that a French startup called Verlay Milks is creating an animal-free whey protein with precision fermented whey. It's kind of similar to some of the stories we've talked about previously with kind of the fermentation creating alternatives to some of the animal-based protein products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:41

Like egg whites, which we, I think, talked about last week. Yeah. Anyway, we got the egg whites. We tried them this morning. They're very similar to egg whites. Yeah. As you might expect.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:51

Now, the cool twist on this product coming out in particular is that the first consumer product they're going to launch is a protein shot, shot which if you're not familiar with that it's like a very small bottle of clear liquid that is basically really dense with protein and so they're typically sometimes there's only a couple on the market now the most popular one i think is genius shot and um it's either 20 grams or 40 grams of protein basically in this shot you drink in one swallow dude

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14

That shit has to be nasty.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16

Yeah but you don't taste it for very long i

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18

Can't okay i can't do shots and i also can't do like liquids that taste bad or have a bad texture in my mouth, I, like, for some reason, I just chipmunk them. Yeah. Like, I just, like, hold it in my mouth and I, like, physically can't swallow it. So that would be me with this, like, nasty little shot, I feel like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:38

Yeah, probably not for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:39

I would just sit there holding it in my cheeks and wouldn't be able to swallow it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:43

It probably will be interesting for a lot of people. I'm sure they'll be quite expensive for the amount of protein you get. But there are probably some scenarios, like if you're on a plane or something, You just want to get a dose of protein in for the next few hours.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:54

Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. Or like you're stuck in BF, Iowa, and I was stuck in Iowa a lot for my previous job. Yeah. And there's like nothing to eat, and you're like, you know what? I kind of need 40 grams of protein right now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:08

Yeah, there you go. So looking forward to seeing how that plays out. Next piece of news is Parato's. I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce that, but it's a large confectionery company is launching their first cell-based chocolate to help address the cocoa supply chain issues for companies. This is targeted more at professionals using cocoa. So like a business that's making chocolate products, things like that. It's probably not something you'll find on the shelf at the supermarket.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:32

This is kind of interesting because I only know about any of this because of the stuff Chomp chocolate went through. Right. With just having trouble finding like suppliers that had ethically sourced cocoa that wasn't super, super expensive. So I think this would be interesting. Yeah. If it brings down the cost and like helps businesses use a more ethical source of cocoa.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:54

Yeah, definitely. Imperatos is working with a California food tech company called California Cultured to create this one. And then last but not least, there is a bill being introduced in Italy to make horses, donkeys, and mules classified as pets so that it is then illegal to slaughter them for meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:12

That's awesome. I don't know why they do that anyways. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:15

Apparently, and I didn't know this, Italy is one of Europe's top consumers of horse meat. That's odd. Sounds like it's come down pretty drastically, but they are still one of the top consumers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:25

That's so interesting to me because... man i don't know i guess in the u.s i feel like horses are something seen as like only like rich people have yeah so it's odd to me i mean i guess you know in italy maybe they're cheaper yeah i don't know it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:41

Is strange i mean i don't know how expensive is a cow

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:44

I have no idea yeah is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:47

A cow more expensive than a horse

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:48

I don't know i also my thing is like okay this is one thing i've never really understood is for me horses and cows seem like the same yeah i don't understand why we eat one but not the other like for me i don't know just like they're always in the field together yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:02

We both grew up kind of in the country in kentucky so in ohio so uh horses and cows are always kind of right next to each

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:11

Other just like vibing yeah but.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:13

Yeah it is interesting for sure

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:15

And donkeys, they're eating donkeys?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:18

Yeah, I saw that. I'm not actually...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:19

I love donkeys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:20

I'm not actually sure if they're eating donkeys and mules or if that's just part of the law. Part of the horse law? It's an equestrian thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:27

This is interesting. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:28

Are donkeys equestrian?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:29

I don't know. What does equestrian mean? I thought that just meant horse.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:33

We need some horse people to help us out there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:36

Ooh, fun fact is like one of the very first books I read as a child was called My Donkey. Yeah. It was like a book, I think it was a book my mom had. Like one of those little golden books from like many decades ago.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:50

With the flowery golden golden thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:52

But basically there was a donkey with cold ears. And then this little girl, like the whole book is like trying to figure out how to get the donkey's ears warm. And eventually she knits some ear warmers. So I've always really liked donkeys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:04

I can't imagine why you ended up as a vegan. Between that and Charlotte's Web and Babe. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:13

Sneaky propaganda.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:14

Your whole childhood was vegan propaganda somehow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:17

And then my parents were shocked. It's just, you read me a book about donkey ear warmers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:24

All right. Let's get into the main segment here. And so the first thing we want to talk about on the nutrition labels is kind of the high level, the macronutrient breakdown on there. So there are a couple of prominent things you'll see on a nutrition label, at least in the U.S. They do look a little different even in Canada, definitely in Europe. They look a little different. But they all basically have the same information on them, just in a different format. So you'll see the calories in America that's just listed as calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:51

Per serving.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:52

Per serving. Yeah. Calories per serving is how America does it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:56

Yeah. I think other countries do it per 100 grams.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:58

They do it different. Yeah. The common way to see it in Europe is like kilojoules per 100 grams. And then it's like also kilocalories showed with it per 100 grams. And also, if you don't know, a Kcal or a kilocalorie is the same as a calorie. Yeah. So a little bit of weird nomenclature there. Yeah, you'll see one of those measures on there is kind of the most prominent thing. And then it'll break it down by your macronutrients, which are protein, fat, and carbohydrates. And then sometimes you'll see under fat, you'll have like saturated fat. Under carbohydrates, you'll have fiber broken out. You'll have sugars usually broken out and some other things like that. But typically, it's broken down by macronutrient in the top section.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:42

Per serving.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:43

Per serving, right. Yeah. Something else you'll typically see, again, mostly focusing on the U.S. version here, is kind of to the right of the value, like if you saw, you know, 10 grams of protein or whatever, over to the right of that, you'll see a percentage, which is called the percentage of the recommended daily value. And they base this on a 2,000 calorie diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:03

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:03

That doesn't mean you're recommended to eat 2,000 calories. It's just a number they picked that at the time was like in the average range of what people eat. And so they're just basing all the numbers around that to standardize.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:15

Yeah, I never really look at this unless I'm looking at like the vitamins.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:19

Yeah, definitely not for the macronutrients. It doesn't make much sense to look at it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:22

No, especially if you have like specific goals. It's really not going to be super useful for you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:27

I'd say probably the one you might pay attention to, saturated fat, because you do kind of want to look at that. So you might pay attention to that one a little more. If something's showing it's like 20% of your saturated fat for the day, they might be kind of questionable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:37

Fiber's probably pretty accurate too, I guess. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:40

Based on their recommendations of like 25 to 30 grams, depending on your sex.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:45

Yeah. I feel like the macro one's just weird because it's like, what if you're doing like a 30-30-20 split or 30-30-40 split or something like that, you know? Or like, I don't know. It could be whatever you decide. So they're not going to be super accurate.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:58

Right. And none of those are for like, you know, optimizing performance or anything like that. They're just what you should have to not get sick kind of thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:05

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:06

Yeah, those are kind of the main components you'll see in the top section. In the bottom section, you'll see, like you kind of said earlier, you'll see vitamins and minerals, and they'll have percent daily values of those. Oh, and sodium. And sodium. Oh, sodium's another big one, yeah. And the percentage of those are helpful because you do want to make sure you're getting, you know, all of your vitamins and minerals in a day. Also, one of the things that might be confusing on labels is that the rounding is a little funky.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:30

Yeah, if you go in and do the math, like if you're like, okay, there's 20 grams of carbs, let's multiply that by four. There's five grams of fat. Let's multiply that by nine. And there's like 15 grams of protein. Multiply that by four. And then you add all of those up and they don't equal the calories. That's pretty normal. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:47

And it's also correct. So even though, and you'll see this if you go to track apps like in MyFitnessPal or something, like those things aren't going to line up and you'll be confused. But you should always use the calorie value on the label and the macronutrient values on the label. Yeah. There are a lot of different reasons why they're not going to be 100% accurate, But it's not really worth trying to dive into that nuance.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:07

You will drive yourself insane for basically nothing because the other thing is just the calorie count in general could be plus or minus 10% off. And also your measuring could be plus or minus 10% off or something. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:19

This stuff all just works out kind of in averages over time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:22

Yeah. Don't get dragged into the minutiae of it all.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:25

Definitely. Also, I think another kind of popular issue with rounding is that things that are below a certain threshold can just show as zero. Yeah. So one of the more common ones of this is like the spray olive oil. Yeah, yeah. Because it says zero calories, right? But obviously an entire can of olive oil is not zero calories. Yeah. So you do have to be careful with the rounding. And different countries have different rules for how you can round things and stuff like that. One also interesting caveat for the protein percent daily value, I see people kind of, if you do look at that, people kind of get confused about it. So for protein specifically, it will use protein quality to help calculate the daily value in America.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:06

And by quality, you mean the completeness?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:08

Yeah, the completeness.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:09

And bioavailability, yada yada.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:11

Yeah, it uses a score, we talked about it before a couple times, I think, like the PDCAAS score. It's about digestibility and the composition of amino acids. So if you have, you might have a product that is like an animal protein-based product and a vegan protein product, and they could have the same calories, same protein. but the percentage on the vegan one will show lower. That's because they're factoring in the kind of lesser amino acids and the lesser digestibility potentially of the protein source.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:39

Yeah, which also doesn't really take into account other foods that you're eating that would basically make the incomplete protein that you're eating a complete protein because you ate something else that has whatever amino acids were missing from that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:51

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:52

I don't know. I've actually been seeing a lot of TikToks where like more omnivore type people or, like, kind of shitting on vegan protein sources because that number is so small. But I don't, I think there's a lot of nuance to it that's not really being captured.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:05

Yeah. I mean, unless that thing is, like, all you're eating for that big portion of the day, it's really not super relevant, especially when you're talking about, like, that percentage number. That's just not super relevant. Because even if the percentage is low, if you're eating three servings of it, you're still getting all your amino acids that you'll need. So, yeah. But it's just, this is just to let you know why you might see a difference in that percentage.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:26

Right, which I think is also why, like in previous podcasts, you've talked about maybe eating a little bit more than the recommended protein. Yeah. If you're vegan, just to account for some of that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:37

Yeah. If you're concerned about it, you can maybe bump it up 10, 15 percent, I think is what, you know, the theoretical difference would be in the studies and stuff they looked at. So basically just to make up for digestibility, make up for, you know, incomplete proteins, things like that, you just bump up your total protein by like 10 percent and you cover all those bases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:54

Yeah. So, I mean, in my opinion, I don't look at that percentage on the protein because I think it's just kind of confusing and doesn't tell the whole story. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:02

And if you're eating, you know, if you're targeting 100 grams a day, that might just mean adding 10 grams of protein a day. Yeah. Not a big deal. Yeah. And then an easy rule of thumb, if you're looking at maybe protein bars or other things that you're eating specifically because you want to have like a boost of protein in your day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:16

Yeah, like a protein bar or like a protein shake that's pre-made. Yeah. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:20

Something like that, is to look at the grams of protein and compare that to calories and make sure it's, you know, if you multiply the grams of protein by 10, the calories are less than that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:31

Which would mean it's greater than 40% protein on a calorie basis.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:35

Right. So there's four calories and a gram of protein. So if you do the math, then if you have something that's 20 grams of protein and 200 calories, that means that you had 80 calories from protein and out of that 200 calories, that's 40%. You would want that to be less than or equal to 200 calories to kind of hit that 40% threshold, which is what people consider like a good protein bar,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:59

Right? Yeah, I don't really, I mean, I don't know. I've never used this rule of thumb, but I don't really eat like protein bars or really protein shakes. I mostly try to get all of my food around like that 25%, 30%. Yeah, right. range because I just eat kind of like normal foods that are higher in protein. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:18

This really kind of depends on like what your personal protein percentage is like in terms of your total calorie goal because some people will need if they're like on a calorie deficit or something and they're you know higher body weight higher muscle mass they might need like 40 percent of their total calories to be protein but most people probably only need like 20 percent of their total calories to be protein. I think anything over 20 to 25 percent protein is considered high protein by most standards anyway. Yeah. But as far as like a protein bar where you're like specifically eating it kind of like you would use a protein shake or like you said, a pre-made protein shake. Yeah. I think that 40% rule is just what people have kind of settled on as like, this is a candy bar versus this is actually a protein bar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:00

Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, and I think there are like a couple of options depending on like what kind of person you are and how you like to eat your protein. But like if you don't mind shakes and you just want to eat whatever you want normally, I mean, that's, like, a good way to do that. Just, like, you're going to focus on, like, very high-protein-dense shakes. Yeah. And then eat whatever regular food you eat. But, like... Um, me personally, I fucking hate protein shakes and I hate protein bars. So I just kind of try to eat pretty medium high protein foods all day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:35

Right. Yeah. I mean, if you're targeting like your day has to be 20% protein, you just eat foods that kind of hover around 20, 25% protein and then you don't have to worry about protein shakes. Yeah. But if you're like, you're like, okay, I like protein shakes. I don't care. Or you're like traveling a lot or like on the go a lot. You can just drink two protein shakes a day and then your food can kind of be whatever you need

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:54

It to be. Whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. So I think if you're like just starting out and you're trying to figure out like how to get your protein or like what things you should look for, you should figure out which type of person are you. Yeah. Like are you the person that's just going to like make sure you're eating things that are above your protein target all day?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:10

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:11

Or do you just want the freedom to eat like whatever and then you'll just supplement with a protein shake?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:16

Yeah, definitely. And that'll help you kind of understand like what numbers you would want to look for on the label.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:21

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:22

Um, also something to note, food tracking apps like MyFitnessPal specifically and some of the others, the entries in the app won't always match what's on the label because a couple reasons. One, those are user submitted, so there could be just errors in there. Somebody doesn't know how to enter it or just types it in wrong, whatever. Also, products change over time and they keep the same barcode.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:44

Yeah, Mori-Nu silken tofu had a shrinkflation happen.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:49

Yeah, shrinkflation's a big one. And sometimes that will even alter the macro composition a little bit. So you'll have, like, the calories are wrong. There's more protein now in the new formula. There's also now saturated fat for some reason. Like, little things like that will happen. So I would just say, you know, the first time you use something, just double check against the label at least. And then from then on, you can kind of use it from your history and the app most of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:11

And you can actually enter food on MyFitnessPal, too. Yeah. Like, I enter all my recipes on there as global food. So we can just track it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:20

I think you could submit corrections to some products, too. It depends on which ones. Oh, really?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:24

Yeah, I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:25

I haven't done that before. It doesn't, like, fix it immediately, but it, like, flags somebody in MyFitnessPal land that there's something wrong. I don't know what happens with those, but.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:32

Yeah. You can also do quick entries on MyFitnessPal. Like, if something's really effed up and you don't feel like submitting something. Yeah. Just do a quick add with the macros and the calories.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:42

If it's something you think you're only going to eat one time and you don't want to enter a bunch of details for it, just, yeah. And a lot of the times I'll, you know, I might just quick add the calories and protein if I'm in a pinch or whatever.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:52

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:54

And then also another rule of thumb is for fiber. If we're trying to hit 20 or 30 grams of fiber in a day, we can say, okay, does this thing we're eating have like at least one to two grams of fiber per 100 calories?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:05

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:06

That'll get you somewhere in the range of 25 to 30 grams for the amount of calories that most people eat. If you're on a big deficit, you might need to bump that up a little bit for you. But this is just a rule of thumb.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:15

Yeah. And then you can always take the protein shake approach of just like eat a bunch of food that doesn't have fiber and then eat a bunch of those low carb like tortillas. Right. That have a shit ton of fiber. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:28

No, that's a good approach. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:30

There are ways to get your fiber even if you don't have many calories.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:33

So I know something people are very vocal about right now on the Internet is like everything, all these new products coming out and calling themselves like protein products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:42

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:43

And I think it's twofold. People don't really think there needs to be protein and everything, but also a lot of things are coming out saying they're a protein product and they still don't have much protein in them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:53

Yes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:54

So one of the big culprits that seems to catch a lot of heat is the protein Pop-Tarts. I guess that's a new thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:00

I've seen so much shit about this. I do want to caveat this whole conversation, though, with I have seen some like threads and stuff that I think kind of illuminated maybe something that I hadn't considered, which was that there are some people that like can't really cook for themselves or like maybe they don't have the time or the capabilities of cooking for themselves. So like having convenience products that have protein is very helpful for those people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:26

Oh, definitely. And I'll also add to that with the kind of rise of the weight loss drugs, like GLP-1 medications and stuff, like the rate at which a lot of people lose weight on those and they're not going to the gym, there is a pretty big like muscle mass loss problem if you're not doing that in a really specific way. And while, you know, you still kind of need to hit the gym to preserve your muscle mass, it does help a little to have extra protein. So, and also some of them are apparently running into like actual protein deficiencies, which is something typically reserved for vegans, right? But, you know, so just adding in a little bit of protein to a bunch of random things that they might eat anyway is just an easy way for somebody on a drug like that that's, you know, pretty limited in how much food they're going to eat in a day, they can get some of that in. So there are definitely valid use cases for it. And on the level, like extra protein or something's not going to hurt. It's just, there's a lot of backlash against like, you're calling yourself a protein pop dart.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:23

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:24

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:25

I think it's like, for me, I, I'm a little annoyed about the marketing. I feel like it's not super transparent. Um, I don't necessarily have a problem with there being products like products like this on the market, especially if they help people that maybe they can't cook. like a full meal that's around protein or like having convenience options is helpful for a lot of people yeah so i don't really have an issue with that obviously why would i care it's not my, i cannot buy it if i don't want to buy it right which i also feel like all of you people bitching about it if you don't want to buy it don't fucking buy it but i do think they can be a lot more transparent about their labeling and stuff which marketing in general i think oh very scummy you You should really like, I think especially with food, you have the option to go look at the nutrition label and you should always look at the nutritional label and probably ignore any of the words on the front of the package because they're smarmy and scammy and they just want you to buy it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:22

I think that's a good tip, actually. When you pick something up, flip it over, start on the back.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:25

Don't look at the buzzwords. I feel like it's kind of like the one type of product that you can avoid marketing, like the marketing scam, because all of the information's on the back where it's like makeup products or like skincare products. You know, they use all the buzzwords, too. And there's really no way to be like, oh, well, that's not true. Right. Until you buy it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:53

And that's kind of why, you know, the government makes them put the label on there. So we might as well leverage that information.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:59

Just ignore all the shit on the front. Go read the back. Yeah. It'll help a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:04

Yeah. So the protein Pop-Tarts specifically, now that we're talking about them, are 10 grams of protein and 380 calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:13

That's the same amount of protein as a potato. The percentage was.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:18

10 grams of protein. 10% protein. Yeah. And they've also got a gram of fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:23

But if you compare it to a normal Pop-Tart, they've done a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:27

A normal Pop-Tart probably has like, what, two grams?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:29

Yeah, probably two or three grams. So you're probably like doubling or tripling the protein in a Pop-Tart.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:34

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:35

So, I mean, yeah, it is technically a protein Pop-Tart. Would I say it is a protein-dense Pop-Tart? No. Right. It is a protein-added Pop-Tart. Yeah. They have added protein to that Pop-Tart.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:46

It's a pretty low protein number for you to make that the main marketing gimmick for the Pop-Tart.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:52

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:52

Next is something that's a little more popular and is not really new, but it's like a Lenny and Larry protein cookie, which is a popular vegan protein. They make a couple of products now, but a popular vegan protein cookie.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:04

Right. And these have been in, like, gas stations and stores for years. Yeah. It's one of the most easily accessible, I would say, vegan snack. Yeah. Especially like vegan protein snack on the market, in my opinion.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:15

Yeah. So these are eight grams of protein for 210 calories, which is 15% protein. Yeah. So they're barely beating out the protein Pop-Tarts.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:26

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:26

But they do have five grams of fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:28

That's true. That's nice. But if you compare it to a cookie, it definitely has a lot more protein than a cookie. Right. And I think that's kind of where they get away with this because, like, yeah, it is a protein cookie. It has more protein than a normal cookie. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:42

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:43

Feels like it should taste better for only having 15% protein, but that's just my opinion. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:47

It would be more acceptable if this was, like, a 30% protein cookie or even a 25% protein cookie. Yeah. I'd be like, okay, I understand why you taste that way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:56

I know. I know. Because I've made protein cookies and they taste a lot better than Lenny and Larry. And the macros tend to be a little better.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:04

Yeah. So kind of on the other side of that, there's the Mission brand Carb Balance Tortillas. They don't say protein on the packaging or on the marketing anywhere, really. But they're actually kind of like a keto product. Yeah. So they are six grams of protein for 70 calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:24

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:24

Yeah. So that's 34% protein for a tortilla and 15 grams of fiber. And it's not marketed as a protein tortilla.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:33

This is like our cheat code. We eat these all the time. Yeah. It's like a really easy way to add protein and fiber to your diet. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:39

And then another one that I think is super interesting is, so normal red lentil pasta, right, is not marketed as protein. It's just lentil-based pasta, vegan pasta, has 14 grams of protein and 190 calories. So that's 29% protein, 29% with 6 grams of fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:58

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:58

Sitting right next to that on the shelf is the Barilla Protein Plus Pasta.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:04

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:04

With only 10 grams for 190 calories. So the Protein Plus pasta has 21% protein, whereas the just normal red lentil pasta has more than that at 29%.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:15

And it's the same brand.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:17

And it has more fiber.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:18

Yeah. It's the same brand making it. It's the same brand making the packaging.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:22

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:22

But with the red lentil, it doesn't say protein on it. Yeah. I think it probably says, like, rich in protein, but it's not what they're marketing it as. They're not, like, protein red lentil pasta. It's just red lentil pasta. Right. But it's got like a significant amount more protein than your protein pasta.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:40

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:41

But that's like the marketing scam, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:42

Yeah. No, definitely. So when we look at the label, the best way to understand something like this is to look at the protein and then compare it to the calories specifically. So don't look at like protein per serving. Don't look at protein per 100 gram because those are both pretty arbitrary and the 100 gram thing has water weight and a bunch of other issues. So look at the protein per calorie and compare products that way.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:06

Yeah. So take your grams of protein, multiply that by four, and then divide that number by the calories per serving. Right. And you get the percentage of protein on a calorie basis. Right. And then you can compare apples to apples. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:20

Because you're going to see a lot of things that are like... What is it? Like, I see people with peanut butter all the time. Yeah. Peanut butter has, I don't remember, five grams of protein in a serving or something. It's like, okay, but a serving is 300 calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:31

Yeah. I think it's a little better than that, but yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:35

It's a little better. I think it's 240 calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:37

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:38

But yeah, I mean, in general, though, but then you might compare that to something else. It's like, oh, this only has three grams of protein in a serving. Okay, but that's 40 calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:46

Yeah. Once you understand protein percentage on a calorie basis, It's going to help you make a lot better choices that fit your protein and your calories. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:56

And you'll also start to see how serving sizes in the U.S. are kind of manipulated to make you think it looks a little better than it does, even when you do have the label. So they're just assuming you won't do any math,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:06

Basically. Yeah. But I will do math every time I'll choose math. The thing that I think is funny is, okay, so like Lenny and Larry protein cookie, protein Pop-Tarts, blah, blah, blah. Those are like 10 to 15% protein. but then like take dry roasted edamame which is uh 35 to 40 percent protein yeah they don't market as like high protein dry roasted edamame no.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:27

Yeah the dry roasted edamame we have is 40 i think it was like right on the dot of that times 10

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:32

Rule right it's just kind of funny the.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:34

Same as a protein bar by the way yeah and it's just a bean it's a whole

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:37

Food i know i think that's what's kind of funny yeah the the marketing madness is real you got to look past that right or you will cheat yourself every time and.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:47

There are you know like these there are a lot of high protein products out there that are just not marketed as protein because they're just like whole food vegan protein sources that are naturally higher in

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:56

Protein yeah i will say there are a few like uh more like protein snacks that have come out on the market in the last couple of years that actually have like that 35 to 40 percent range yeah the gym snack one i think was around 40 percent crisp power, protein pretzels are around 40%. Yeah. Maybe a little higher than that actually. Yeah. Um, the Endurance Protein Chips, which seem to be on hiatus or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:22

Just the one flavor you like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:23

Yeah, the only one I can eat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:24

The flavor I like is in great stock. They have piles of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:27

Yeah, I'm so happy for you. But yeah, those are like 40%. Bada bean is good. Yeah, bada beans are, I think, around 20%. Yeah, just broad beans. But still better than a Lenny and Larry cookie, and they're not calling themselves like protein bada beans. You know what I mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:41

Right, and they're like one ingredient, two ingredients.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:43

Yeah, they're like broad beans, but with spices.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:45

Exactly, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:46

I mean, yeah. So I think looking at the label is really important. Looking past any markety, gimmicky bullshit is incredibly important. Once you start reading the nutritional label, you're going to see how bad the marketing is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:00

Yeah. And also, something we didn't really mention is that the things that are marketed as protein are usually more expensive. So I guarantee the Barilla Protein Plus pasta is more expensive than the Red Lentil pasta that actually has more protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:13

Oh, but, okay, actually, both of those are pretty decent, cheap options of getting your protein, though, because when I was making that protein database, they were, like, pretty good options. Sure. But, yes, I agree. I agree.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:27

There are probably better examples I don't know of off the top of my head right now. Yeah. Yeah. But anything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:32

Dry roasted edamame versus Lenny and Larry cookies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:35

Right, yeah, something like that. But most of the things that are coming with, like, the protein premium, right? If they're, like, the protein Pop-Tarts are definitely more expensive than a normal Pop-Tart, but they aren't really giving you much more protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:45

Yeah, you could just go eat a regular Pop-Tart and drink a protein shake, and you'd still be better off. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:50

So that's a lot of stuff about the information on the nutrition labels, but there might be situations where you have to eat food and you don't have a nutrition label available. Yeah. You still want to understand kind of where your protein is on those.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:00

Like if you're eating out or maybe if you're looking at recipes online. A lot of recipes online actually don't include nutritional information.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:09

I think yours do, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:10

Mine definitely do. Because it's always annoyed me that like I'm looking at this recipe and now I have to enter all this shit into MyFitnessPal to see if this is even something I want to make.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:21

Which with your recipes you also don't have to do because you put all your recipes into the MyFitnessPal global database.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:27

Yeah, I did all that annoying part for you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:28

Well, you're the perfect recipe creator for lazy, protein-focused vegans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:35

Because I want to be a lazy, protein-focused vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:37

It's really the ultimate goal.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:41

But, like, I do see a lot of, like, recipe reels or, like, just content on social media where they're, like, showing you how to make something, right? Right. And they're like, here are all the ingredients and it's high protein this and high protein that. And, like, you're looking at them and it's like there's no nutrition information. I feel like, okay, here's my hot take. Like, if you're putting out recipes online and you're calling shit high protein or saying any other, like, statement about your recipe, you need to have the fucking macros in your recipe. Yeah. I'm sorry. You don't get to call shit high protein or medium protein or protein or high fiber, low calorie, whatever, unless you have the freaking nutrition information available for people to look at. Right. I don't know. This is, like, my big pet peeve. It's so annoying to me because I'll look at recipes and it's like, these are protein cupcakes. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, this is a normal cupcake recipe with like three tablespoons of protein powder. Right. These aren't protein cupcakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:39

So that's like a quarter tablespoon of protein per cupcake.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:42

I pissed into the ocean. Like. Yeah. Sorry. This is like a big annoyance for me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:48

It happens a lot. And I'm sure it's an annoyance for the people who go to make these too. Yeah. They'll get around at some point to eventually doing the math and be like, wait, what the fuck just happened?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:56

Yeah. The marketing is not just on food you're going to buy in the grocery store. It's also like everywhere, like content creators, influencers. They're also using marketing, the same marketing gimmicks to get you to make their shit or follow their page or whatever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:12

I think it's important to try to be, especially like with you, where you have a protein-focused recipe site, it's important to show the macros so people know what they're getting themselves into.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:20

You need to be transparent. Yeah. Everyone should be transparent. If you're following someone that's not transparent, you should ask yourself, why are they not being transparent, I think, in my opinion. Yeah. You can follow whoever the hell you want. Right. You can make whatever you want. I'm just giving you my opinion as someone who's been on the internet a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:36

Yeah. But in those cases where you're maybe like looking at recipes or you're going to a restaurant and trying to order some food, there are a couple of things you can do to kind of make sure you're getting higher protein if that's what you're looking for. So the first thing is to check the source of the protein. So like there are a couple of vegan protein sources that are really high protein. There are a couple that are like lower protein. So I think kind of the order of operations there is seitan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:03

Yeah, probably the highest.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:04

Vital wheat gluten is typically, like, the highest percentage of protein per calorie.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:07

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:07

So, if you see a dish and it's, like, the protein source is seitan, you can be pretty sure that that's a fairly high protein dish. Yeah. The next step would be, like, something like TBP.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:17

Yeah. So, seitan is usually, like, I don't know, 70 to 90% protein. Yeah. TBP is usually 60 to 70% protein, sometimes 50%. Right. Like, say, okay, so then seitan, 70 to 90, TBP, 50 to 70. Yeah. Next up would be tofu, which is usually around 40%. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:37

So we're still in that protein bar type territory, that benchmark we were kind of talking about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:41

Then you got beans and lentils that are like 25 to 30%. Right. Then if you see things like cauliflower on the menu as the protein source, you know that shit's fucked up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:52

Why do cauliflower wings exist? We can have seitan wings. We can have tofu wings. We can have TVP wings. Why are we making cauliflower wings? Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:03

I don't even care that they make them, but that's a side dish. That's not a main. I wouldn't care if you served it as a side dish, but like I would still like a main protein source with actual like an actual protein source. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:16

Yeah, I mean, I just, if you're going to wrap something in dough and throw it in a deep fryer, please at least put some protein on the inside. That's kind of how I feel. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:27

So, yeah, I think those are the ones you look for. You look for seitan or vital weak gluten, then TVP, then tofu, then, like, beans and lentils.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:34

Yeah, and beans and lentils are still good. They're just, you know, lower protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:37

Yeah, and actually, mushrooms are about 40-ish percent protein, too, but they're very, like, they're not calorically dense, which also means they're not, like, protein-dense on a weight basis, so you'd have to eat a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:50

Yeah, you'd have to have kind of a gallon jug full of mushrooms to really— Which,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:54

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:59

Yeah, so then also something to look at is for that protein source, how much of that is used in comparison to the other ingredients? Yeah. Are you talking—like, we were talking about tofu salads a little bit last week. Like, is this just a thing where you got, like, four cubes of tofu on top of this big cheese and dressing and lettuce and whatever?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:17

Yeah, or, like, it's a seitan sandwich, but, like, it's on a huge, like, loaf of bread, and there's a lot of, like, creamy sauces and cheeses and, like. Yeah. Yeah, it's probably going to water down the protein percentage quite a bit. Right, yeah. I think you can look similarly to the recipe, too. Yeah. Because, I mean, even though they might not tell you nutrition information, I would hope if they're telling you it's a recipe, they're also giving you measurements for, like, how much of each ingredient, so kind of, like, compare.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:46

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:47

And I think also knowing the calorie, like having a general idea of the calorie density of the other ingredients kind of helps. Because, I mean, that's kind of how I look at it, right? Like if I know there's oil in something, like I have a much better chance of keeping the protein percentage up if it's something like seitan versus tofu. Right. You know what I mean? Like, and that's how I build recipes actually is like, um... I'll look at, like, I need to add, like, sugar and flour to this thing. Like, what's high enough percentage of protein that it'll balance out and still end up around 30% protein total? Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:23

Yeah, like, if you're looking at a dish or a plate at the restaurant, there are, like, some things you can see that kind of start to chip away at the protein percentage. Yeah. So, like, the breading, if it was fried, we've got now oil involved. If we've got sauces.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:37

Dressings.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:37

Dressings. So all of that stuff, the more of those things there are, then more calories are coming from fats and not coming from protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:45

Yeah. If you're on a bulk, this probably doesn't matter to you. But like if you have a pretty tight calorie goal and a protein goal. Right. You do want to be aware of these things.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:53

Right. Because you can only eat, you know, 2,500 calories a day or whatever. And you've got to get your protein into that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:59

Yeah. It's like, yeah, maybe the dish was 40 grams of protein, but that doesn't really help me if it was also 1,200 calories. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:06

And I mean, even if you're not really tracking things and you're just like, okay, well, I need to kind of maintain my weight and I want to get a lot of protein in, then you can still use these visual tips to kind of say, okay, I want to lean towards stuff that's got bigger portions of these protein sources, not a lot of oil, not a lot of fried stuff going on, and just kind of, you know, mentally adjust for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:26

No creamy dressings, unless those creamy dressings are made with silken tofu. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:30

Yeah. So those are some tips for the restaurants and the recipes, as well as, you know, all the information for the nutrition label. If you think of any questions maybe we didn't cover that you want a little more clarification on, feel free to leave a comment or reach out or ask us on Instagram or something like that. And we'll be happy to talk more and cover maybe some of that information in a future podcast.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:51

And if I got a little heated on the recipe thing, I apologize. This is probably like my biggest.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:56

you're A passionate recipe creator

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:59

I have a lot of opinions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:03

All right. So let's move into our myth of the week this week, which is that you need a restrictive diet to lose weight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:09

What do you mean by restrictive?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:10

Yeah. So a restrictive diet would be something where you're restricting mostly a macro. So like a keto diet where you're doing really low carb or maybe like a low fat diet where you're basically eliminating fat. You're mostly doing carbs and protein. something like a carnivore diet which yeah aside from the carnivore thing is basically like a very high fat low carb type of diet kind of like keto yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:34

Honestly I feel like there have been so many iterations of this like there was the grapefruit diet where it was like eat only grapefruits or something and then and then there was the Atkins diet I feel like it was one of the ones I remember there was like the slim fast diet of like you're just drinking slim fast shakes right there have just been like so many iterations and I think keto's like the current iteration of it and the carnivore diet is another one yeah and it's like can we just eat normal things i don't know tell us can we.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:02

Yeah so um most of these diets the reason that they're successful in the short term for weight loss specifically i mean there are a lot of under health issues that come along with these most of the time but for weight loss specifically they're all just ways of cutting out a lot of junk food basically so you're cutting out like sodas and you're cutting out you know cookies and stuff like that and then you're typically eating um more whole foods on a lot of them just because the way they're they're made yeah so you will keep losing weight a little bit because you're not eating the junk food as much yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:33

You're also on a calorie deficit too yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:35

Right well yeah i mean the main reason you lose the weight right is because you're in a calorie deficit but

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:40

You might lose additional weight because of like, water weight loss.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:45

Well, you'll see very fast results because the water weight changes. Yeah. So you're going to lose weight on the scale much faster than you're actually losing body mass from the calorie deficit. Yeah. Just because of the diet change. I mean, if you lower your carbs a lot, carbs hold water. So you're going to lose a ton of water weight just by limiting carbs, no matter what else you do. That's not actually body fat at the beginning that you're losing. It's just extra water.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:07

Yeah. And if you add carbs back in, you're going to regain that water weight, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:12

Which, again, still not body fat. It's just water manipulation, basically. Yeah. It's kind of like when fighters go into a fight and they need to drop weight to weigh in. They do a lot of this kind of stuff to a more extreme degree. But you can change your body weight very significantly just by manipulating the water content.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:28

Yeah, which I actually think is like an interesting, this isn't really what this topic is about, but I think it is an interesting piece of like why you can't just trust the scale and like you should be doing, like if you're if you're really on a weight loss journey you should also be doing taking your measurements or like maybe doing progress photos like there's going to be stuff that you see in body compositional changes that can't be measured on the scale yeah so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:51

A lot of these um restrictive diets aren't great for sustaining long term because you get sick of it basically

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:58

Yeah you burn out you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:59

Get burned out and then you go have the cookie or whatever and then you're like okay i want all the cookies and then you're just back to normal so

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:04

I knew a couple people that were doing... like keto a few years ago yeah and i was listening to them talk and they were like i'm so tired of eating butter and bacon and i was just like what the fuck like i don't know it's just like a wild thing to say yeah well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:27

It's like you said it's just it's basically a rehashing of atkins from

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:30

Yeah or the grapefruit like it's just like pick one food and eat it or like the juicing diets Oh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:36

Dude. Don't get me started on the juice cleanses and the detoxes. Pretty much any time you see juice cleanse or detox marketed to you, you're being scammed. Whether the person knows they're scamming you or not, they're just like a middleman for the scam. I don't know. But that stuff is very dangerous in a lot of cases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:54

Honestly, we should just rename this podcast the Marketing Podcast. That actually is the overall summary is don't trust marketing on diets, on food labels, on anything. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:06

So as far as like what actually works to lose weight is a calorie deficit. So you eat fewer calories than you burn in a day. Now, there are a lot of things that can go into that. But if we're just talking about, in this case, the calorie intake side, that's a lot simpler than the calorie outside. So for intake, it doesn't need to be low carb, low fat, whatever. Like the calorie math just needs to work out

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:28

At the end of the day. it's just an energy balance like yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:32

So the general term for this is called like if it fits your macros so basically as long as you're getting in your calories and you're hitting your protein and you're not going over whatever other macros or micronutrients that you've assigned for yourself as goals then you can pretty much eat any combination of food and it should probably be as close to balanced as possible because you know fats are helpful carbs are helpful for performance even if they're not like necessary for the human body to survive protein obviously helpful fiber obviously helpful so that's why you're also seeing a lot of things like stop talking about protein talk about fiber fiber

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:04

Maxing is all over my fyp.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:06

For me i kind of like here's here's the way i like to eat it's uh it's high protein high fiber high carb high fat high everything yeah everything's about within your calorie limit right exactly i eat as much of those things as i can uh and under my calorie limit so um yeah so some ways you can do this that do help instead of restricting entire macronutrients Is to focus on, like, the quality of the food you eat and make sure it keeps you full. So things like high-volume foods, like stuff that has a lot of water or takes a long time to digest.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:39

Vegetables.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:40

Vegetables, mostly, yeah. Fruit also for the water content.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:44

Watermelon. Just eat watermelon, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:46

No, you'll get so full.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:47

I love watermelon.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:48

I dare you to eat an entire watermelon.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:50

I can't wait till watermelon season's happening. Yeah. I remember I used to take, like, a huge Tupperware every morning and I'd just eat that. and I'd be peeing like all day. Watermelon soda. Oh, it's so good. Anyway.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:04

Easy way to get your water in for the day too. Also a high fiber. So that's good to keep you a little more full, but also just good for your health in general.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:13

And the calories don't count on fiber.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:14

Yeah, for the most part.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:15

So it's like you're getting freebies. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:17

Yeah. And then if you focus on mostly whole foods, that kind of naturally leads you towards more of that high volume type stuff. Your body has to like go through the trouble to break it down. A lot of processed food breaks down a lot quicker. So you're hungry quicker, basically, that's how that works. So the closer you can get to whole food, the better. So I would say, you know, do a balanced diet, mostly whole foods, lots of fruit and vegetables, high fiber, drink a lot of water, and then just, you know, try to use that to stay under your calorie limit. And as long as you're in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. That's what it means.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:49

Yeah. I also think the highly restricted and limiting diets—, I feel like those just don't work long-term. You're going to burn yourself out. Like, if you never get pizza or, like, foods that you really enjoy, when you fall off the wagon, you're going to fall off it really hard.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:06

Yeah. My take on this has been you shouldn't really have, like, a set of foods that are a diet food. Yeah. You should still just eat mostly the foods you like, just less of them, especially if, like, the junk food. Like, less of that. You don't have to eat none of that. You should eat way less of that. Right. But then even all your normal foods, like you shouldn't, like when you go to lose weight, you shouldn't be transitioning into, oh, this is the time I eat salad for half the month or

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:30

Something like that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:31

You just, you eat normal food, you just eat half the serving, a little less of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:35

Yeah. Or maybe like add a little bit of protein to it. Like when we eat pizza, we eat pizza with protein pizza dough. Right. And it tastes exactly like normal pizza dough. It just has like higher protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:46

And I think the way to think about that is, okay, if you're changing your diet pretty drastically and eating like totally different foods when you're trying to lose weight, what happens when you get to your weight loss goal?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:57

Yeah. What are you going to be eating?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:58

Do you just go right back to that stuff you were eating and gain all the weight?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:01

You're going to regain it. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:02

So, I mean, it shouldn't be the switch you flip that's like, okay, I'm eating all this different food now because what happens when you get there?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:08

Yeah. You have to have a lifestyle you can maintain afterwards.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:12

So, yeah. The myth that you need to use a restrictive diet to lose weight is definitely not true.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:16

Debunked.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:17

So what updates do you have going on in protein deficient vegan land this week?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:21

Okay, this one's pretty exciting because I am doing my first ever giveaway.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:25

Oh, that is exciting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:26

Because like no other company has ever asked me to do a giveaway before. And I'm actually glad because this one is actually, I would say it's really cool. Yeah. Chris Power makes protein pretzels. Yeah. And they're like 25 to 26 grams of protein for only 200 calories. And they also have fiber.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:45

But they said they would give somebody that comments on my video six boxes, which is like 36 bags of their protein pretzels for free, which is like, I think, over $100 worth of products.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:59

Yeah, it's a lot of pretzels.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:01

Yeah. We've been eating them for like a couple months and they're really, really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:05

Yeah, this is something I actually genuinely like. They have the spicy ones and I'll eat like a bag every day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:11

Really good macros. Yeah. Like over 40%. I like the cheddar ones. Yeah. But my giveaway will still be going on when you hear this podcast on Monday the 2nd. And it will, I think it's closing on March 4th at 3 p.m. Central. Okay. So basically you just have to comment on the video and tag somebody and you'll get entered into it. And then they're randomly selecting someone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:32

Yeah. So if you want a thousand grams of protein worth of pretzels, then enter the giveaway.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:37

I'm just excited. I think more companies should offer to give my people free shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:42

I agree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:42

I don't even really want the free shit. I want you to give my people free shit. I'm very excited.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:49

I think I might enter the giveaway as pretzel deficient vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:53

I'm excited because, like, you see a lot of giveaways where it's like, you get three bags of this. But they're like, no, we're going to give you 36 bags.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:00

It's so much. Like, you had the video where you dumped out basically the equivalent of the pretzel.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:04

Yeah. It's like a shit ton.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:06

It's so many pretzels.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:07

It's going to last you a while. It's 36 bags.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:10

36 bags. So, like, even if you did eat one a day, it's over a month's worth of pretzels.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:15

And they're pretty addictive. Yeah. Anyways, I hope someone who listens to this wins.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:19

Yeah. Good luck.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:21

Godspeed. What about you? Got any updates in muscle-deficient vegan land?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:25

No major updates. Just still working with the clients on the giveaway, doing some research for some blog posts. Hoping to have some of those posted pretty soon. Just chugging right along.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:35

Just like a little choo-choo train. What is the little engine that could?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:42

I think I can write a blog post. I think I can write a blog post.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:45

We believe in you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:48

Um yeah so that's pretty much it if you guys could comment and subscribe and follow and like and do all those cool things on spotify and apple podcast it'll make

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:58

Us real happy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:59

And then um yeah on spotify and youtube you can leave comments which people do and we appreciate it and

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:03

They're always awesome because you guys are awesome yeah oh and if you want to join our discord it'll be linked in the show notes or whatever yeah and we've got like 50 really cool people in there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:12

That's true.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:13

That share pictures of the food they eat, and they talk about how they're hitting their goals, and there's an accountability section, and we have, like, vegan news where people, like, share what's going on. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:24

Pretty cool stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:25

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:26

And then also we've got our website, proteindeficientvegan.com, muscledeficientvegan.com, LinkedIn, the show notes, and our Instagrams and other ways to get in touch with us. So if you just want to reach out, send a message, ask a question, feel free. We both like hearing from people. All right. That's pretty much it. Do you want to say bye?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:39

Bye, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:40

Bye, everybody.