Is Vegan Food Highly Processed?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. This is episode 51. I'm the muscle-deficient vegan, here with the protein-deficient vegan. You want to say hi?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:06

Hello.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:07

Hi, everybody. This week, we're going to jump into the discussion about vegan diets just being a bunch of processed junk food. And we're also going to talk about our myth of the week, which is that eating carbs at night will make you fat. Hmm. Hmm. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:20

New news!

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:22

An analysis of European data shows that plant proteins have not increased in price as much as animal-based proteins. This has resulted in plant-based meat alternatives being cheaper per kilogram than conventional processed meat in Germany and the UK, at least.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:35

Oh my gosh. I need this news to hit America.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:38

Yeah, that'd be nice. Apparently, this is a reversal from pre-pandemic levels when they were more expensive.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:43

Is this the only good thing to come out of the pandemic?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:48

Yes. Yes, I think so. I guess this doesn't necessarily only count the plant-based meat replacements you might think of. Yeah, like beyond. But it's counting anything you might eat that is plant protein instead of eating plant-based meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03

Yeah, like tofu or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05

Instead of eating animal-based meats.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06

Yeah. So like tofu, TBP, tempeh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10

That kind of thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12

Next up, Austria Juice has a new fruit juice product with 30% less sugar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17

Tell me how.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18

Yeah, so this is made with yeast fermentation, and it allows for 100% fruit juice that still has 30% less sugar, so it can comply with some of the new EU breakfast regulations coming out about sugar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:30

This is so cool. I love anything to do with yeast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:33

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:35

I think we can also assume they probably make food-grade ethanol as a byproduct. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:40

So the yeast eat the sugar and then...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:43

And then they poop out ethanol and also carbon dioxide. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:49

So you can use the alcohol afterwards. You can use the yeast afterwards after they dry them back out or something?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:54

Well, typically you wouldn't reuse the yeast because there's usually like a distillation process. So they would get spent because of the heat. Yeast are very particular. You have to keep them in a very specific pH and temperature levels. and whatnot, but usually anything with dried yeast, especially in ethanol production, will get used for animal feed. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:17

Yeah. Cool. Don't know if they're doing any of that, but surely they're doing something with it, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:21

We looked it up and we couldn't find it, but I can't imagine they're just tossing all of that out because you could make some pretty decent money on food-grade ethanol. Yeah. So...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:31

And then last up, the food company Cargill, which is a huge company, has partnered with Voyage Foods to create a cocoa-free chocolate product. This one will be coming first to the U.S. for once. Usually we get things last. But the product is called NextCo, and I guess they're trying to address both the ethical concerns around cocoa as well as the kind of cocoa shortage that's going on right now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:54

Yeah, and just that it's like very highly priced right now, which is driving up prices of a lot of chocolates.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:00

Yeah. I saw they have a quote unquote milk style chocolate as well as a dark chocolate product they're going to be putting out. And I think I saw that it was mostly going to be for like baking chocolate and confectioners chocolate and stuff. I don't know if there was a chocolate bar, but it said chocolate wafers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:15

Yeah. I imagine they'll probably also sell it to chocolate, like confectioners that actually use chocolate to make chocolate bars and stuff that are sold as candy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:24

No, that's a good point. Yeah. It'll probably end up in some stuff. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:27

Very cool that it seemed like they were mostly plant-based options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:31

Well, that's exciting. We are usually last on board, especially for chocolate products. I think there's a lot of vegan chocolate products out there that have been out there for years we still don't have.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:39

Yeah, that's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:40

All right. So let's get into the main segment here. So when was the last time somebody hit you with isn't vegan food all processed?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:47

The last time someone hit me with that? Probably an hour ago.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:52

Very common on social media will say something about vegan food or whatever the nonsense is we're talking about. Yeah. And part of something in the comments is like, oh, that's all processed junk. Yeah. What specifically are you talking about? I never really know, but.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:05

Of course they don't know. They don't actually look into it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:09

Yeah. So the question kind of gets phrased in various ways. Some of those are like, what are all those ingredients in a Beyond Burger?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:15

Yeah. Or like, oh, you know, I thought we were only supposed to eat things we could pronounce. And I'm like, I don't know, sir. I don't think you can pronounce much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:24

Oh, yeah. And if you really break it down, you probably can't pronounce most of the things in an apple, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:28

Yeah, that's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:29

Yeah, and kind of follow on to that. Like, isn't the food all full of chemicals?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:33

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:33

Which, what does that mean exactly?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:35

Yeah, because if you looked into most of the quote-unquote chemicals, which, by the way, chemicals make up literally everything. That's just. how things work but if you looked up these like quote-unquote chemicals you'd find out that most of them are they're not like specific to vegan foods and they also have like either it's shelf stability or maybe like a texture thing well

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:58

A couple of those things people think of as chemicals you know in that terminology is some stuff you actually have here in the kitchen that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:04

You sometimes yeah and i i the one i get the most often in the last week is like tvp is ultra ultra processed oh man and i get it from like omnivores and vegans alike and i think a lot of that is just a not a very good understanding of how food is made in general yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:22

Well i've seen some it's kind of like the oils like they they can have a process that uses some hexane to extract.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:27

Things right um

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:29

There's not much left afterwards usually but also they have processes where they can like cold press or use the expellers and stuff that they don't really use the chemicals they just squish the.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:36

Beans. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:38

So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:38

I think the interesting thing about TBB is like, yes, it's processed, but it's not any more processed than protein powders. Most of the people commenting that are probably also using protein powders every so often. So, yeah, just a lot of general misunderstanding of how things work.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:56

Yeah. There might be a little bit of truth to some of those things, just enough to keep it from, you know, fading away as an argument. So we'll cover some of that stuff. But first, we wanted to talk a little bit about how the vegan diet itself has evolved over time and kind of how we got here.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:09

Yeah, which I think is really interesting. um it kind of like vegans kind of hit specifically like the u.s this is the context we'll give you because we are u.s based but it seems like the first time vegan became like a word that was used was around the 1970s and i think it was kind of like oh you know hippy dippy tree hugger types that just like eat beans all day you know yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:33

It was like mostly cooking from scratch at home whole foods you know because there weren't convenience.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:38

Options right so

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:39

Uh they're focused on things like lentils, brown rice, nuts. Homegrown vegetables was pretty big back then. Still kind of big for people who can manage to do it. You have a green thumb and all.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:48

Yeah. What's interesting is TVP actually existed back in the 70s. Yeah. And I have a video that's kind of going right now on my like black bean and TVP enchiladas. And I'm having a lot of comments like... You know, I grew up in the 70s and we weren't a vegan family, but my mom used to like make the ground beef last longer by mixing in TVP. Yeah. And like I've also had people saying that they grew up in like the 70s, 80s, and then that was used, TVP was used in like their school lunches and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:17

Didn't somebody mention a restaurant that used TVP with their beef?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:20

Yeah. I don't know how much truth there is to it, but there's a lot of conspiracies or maybe not conspiracies that Taco Bell used to add in TVP to their like ground beef. I think there's some truth to it because it seems to be pretty widespread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:34

I don't know what the conspiracy – I mean, I guess you think you're getting beef and you're not, but it's not like they were adding in some poison or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:41

Yeah, but, like, the other thing is, you know, back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, before, like, allergens were well understood and websites were readily available, you usually didn't know what was in the food you were eating unless you specifically asked, and then they'd go back with that, like, binder of food and go look and see what ingredients are in there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:00

Yeah, yeah, the nutrition binder.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:02

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:03

Another one they used to make a lot in the 70s were like the nut-based mock meats. We've actually got a place around here that does a walnut meat, walnut mushroom type meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:10

It's really good. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:11

So, yeah, that's kind of what they were working with at that time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:14

Yeah, and also tofu dishes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:16

Right. And, you know, frankly, this is still how vegans eat the majority of the time is like cooking from scratch with these whole ingredients, no matter what the ingredients are. And what's kind of changed over time is the public perception due to having more of those increased convenience options and options at the grocery store and restaurants and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:34

Yeah, I know how the majority of the time how we cook, it's usually probably pretty similar to how they were cooking in the 70s, except maybe, you know, instead of having to make my own vegan cheese all the time, I'm able to buy a bag of like shredded vegan cheese to use on certain things, but we really don't even use that very often.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:51

Even for that, there are a lot of your recipes that you do make your own cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:54

Yeah, because it's... Not super hard.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:57

The pizza specifically, like almost always make that cheese from scratch.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:00

Yeah, mostly because I can't find one I like in the store as much as the one we can make here. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:05

So how did the popularity of the vegan food increase since the 70s?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:11

Yeah, so I think one of the first things I would say in like the new era of veganism was Meatless Monday.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:18

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:19

It's a movement where basically the ask is don't eat meat on Mondays. Right. You know that everyone can participate in, whether you're an omnivore or, like, if you're vegan or vegetarian, you participate in that every day. Yeah. But it's really interesting. I actually have a friend that tries to do Meatless Mondays. She's an omnivore, but she tries to eat more, like, vegan or vegetarian, plant-based stuff. So I think she started incorporating Meatless Mondays into her routine. Yeah. But that actually launched in 2003.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:45

Yeah, that was a long time ago.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:46

Yeah, as part of, like, a public health initiative.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:48

Yeah, and I think that was actually kind of a reimagining or a resurgence of something from World War I back in 1917, where they asked citizens in the U.S. to conserve food for the troops overseas by doing Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:06

I don't think I could do a Wheatless Wednesday.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:09

It's for the troops.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:10

It's for the troops. Oh, yeah, I guess I'll do a Wheatless Monday.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:14

But, yeah, so back, you know, in 2003, they were like, okay, let's bring this idea back, but make it for the, you know, not in wartime, just for the general public to try to get more familiar with the idea.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:23

Right, because there are some health benefits from cutting out animal products.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:29

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:29

So, yeah, it's kind of interesting that even back in 1917, we were doing, like, Meatless Mondays. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:36

And then, you know, in 2010s, we kind of shifted into more of a mainstream type situation with the rise of social media.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:42

Yeah, you had Facebook, Instagram, MySpace before that. But yeah, I think specifically with Instagram, it's kind of, it used to be more picture heavy, like very.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:54

There's all pictures.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:55

Aesthetic, like pictures that we're taking. So, but the interesting thing about Instagram that I don't think any of the previous ones had really done was the hashtags.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:04

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:04

So you could get your videos or your pictures out in front of other people that you weren't following or that weren't following you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:11

Yeah. Hashtag vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:13

Yeah. So that's actually started trending. People started seeing vegan food because people were taking really aesthetic, nice, beautiful pictures of their vegan food. And like normal mainstream people that have never known a vegan or a vegetarian were like seeing those pictures.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:27

And they're like, oh, that actually looks great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:29

Yeah. It's not just rice and beans. That's crazy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:33

Yeah. So this is proof that like sharing pictures of awesome looking vegan food really works.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:37

Yeah. So if you've ever thought, maybe I should just like create an Instagram or another social media account just to show like pictures of things I'm eating. Yeah. People will see that it actually does make an impact.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:48

Yeah, for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:49

Because you're just spreading awareness.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:51

Yeah. And then there was kind of the rise of Veganuary. So you may remember our podcast with Stu from Veganuary a few months ago.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:59

One of my favorite podcasts ever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:01

But the Veganuary campaign launched in 2014 with just over 3,000 participants. Since then, it's obviously exploded in popularity, introduced vegan food to many, many, many non-vegans over the last decade.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:13

Like millions. Right. Right. It's crazy how much this has exploded because I think it started in the UK and now it's like, I think it's in, And I can't remember how many countries, but it's very global.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:24

Yeah. And, you know, this is basically like the month of January. They put out a 30-day campaign helping people, you know, try more vegan food and give them tips and tricks and things like that along the way. But it's hugely successful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:36

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:37

Another thing that changed over time was kind of the improvement of the vegan alternative foods. So the increased availability of vegan products like vegan cheeses and meats has made veganism way more widespread because now you're seeing it in the grocery store right next to all the other products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:51

Yeah, it's really interesting because I went vegetarian back in 2000. And I remember there were not, like, it was obviously way better than the 1970s. Yeah. But, like, there weren't many options. I remember I was basically able to get vegan hot dogs. Mm-hmm. Not corn dogs, vegan hot dogs that were not very good. Yeah. And then, like, Morningstar chicken nuggets. And I think Morningstar had, like, a veggie burger that I used to get a lot. But I remember, so I was vegetarian, not vegan. But I remember when we were shopping, I saw a vegan cheese option. But there was only one on the shelf.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:25

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:26

And it was awful. Like, it was really quite bad. Yeah. And I think that's, so I remember we only bought it once and my parents tried it and they were just like, oh my God, this is disgusting. And it was also like pretty expensive at the time compared to dairy cheeses. So it's interesting to see how far we've come.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:44

Yeah. And, you know, that's an easy way when you can just see a product on the shelf at the store. It's an easy way for people to be introduced to vegan food without having to learn a lot about cooking and how to work with new foods. they just grab this product and like oh that's vegan or that's like a meat alternative or something i'll try that yeah one of the good ones we had we found the black bee the blackbird seitan at the grocery store and we tried that and ended up eating all the time for like a year.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:06

Straight yeah even bought like a mini freezer to store it in yeah yeah and i do think um you know while i think most vegans aren't solely relying on like processed convenience vegan food items it's really helpful if you're just starting your vegan journey and you don't know how to use things like tofu and you don't know how to make your own plant-based cheeses.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:25

Yeah, definitely. That's very helpful.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:27

Which I think is why we're seeing like an increase in vegans. Because, like, before it was like, if you join the vegan movement, you need to learn all of this stuff. You need to, like, learn a whole new set of skills and have a bunch more knowledge than you do on different food types. But now you could just drop into veganism and, like, make it for a while before you actually had to learn how to cook, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:54

Yeah. And, you know, that's actually helpful because if you're becoming a vegan, like, the food isn't the only thing you have to learn. And there's a whole lot of other stuff that comes with you, like, oh, how do I stop using leather, like, these fibers I can't use, or whatever. So there's a lot of stuff you have to think about, and you can help take the load off a little bit by pushing off the food decisions a little.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:11

Yeah, and it just makes, and even if you are trying to learn how to cook, there are some days that you're going to, like, get off work late, and you're just going to be super annoyed, and having convenience vegan food options that you can go back to, super helpful. Or even just Burger King with the Impossible patties, very helpful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:30

Definitely for.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:31

Times when you're already stressed yep

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:33

And then you know google also helped you know launch veganism into the mainstream a little bit google's been around for a long time but in 2016 the google searches for vegan increased by 90 percent and wow uh by 2017 veganism was widely considered to have gone mainstream and um a lot of that's actually attributed to a lot of the excellent documentaries that came out and sparked interest in veganism around that same time yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:56

I know forks over knives what the health uh game changers like all of those came out in the you know 2010s ish

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:04

Roughly around that time frame so they're going pretty hard and you know obviously that sparks interest especially those those movies were all kind of attacking it from a different angle yeah so you're able to cover like the concerns of multiple different types of groups of people.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:15

Right it's like not necessarily vegan documentaries but plant-based documentaries that might cover human health or environmental and then you know there are obviously, ones about the animal impact. But I actually think the Google point is really interesting because, you know, back before that was, like, available, I mean, you would have to go to the library and try to find a vegetarian or a vegan cookbook. Or maybe you'd be able to find one at a bookstore if your bookstore happened to, like, want to stock the shelves with something so niche. but now on you have google and social media and a bunch of food blogs you can basically find any recipe you could ever possibly imagine veganized i

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:00

Wonder how often the uh like the cooks that were always on tv like martha stewart and paul adine i wonder how often they delved into.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:06

Vegan food i think never yeah actually definitely probably

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:08

Not paul adine.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:09

No and this is actually really interesting because i just saw something about gordon ramsay who we like to watch gordon ramsey stuff because he's he's mean and british and kind of amusing but he used to like adamantly hate vegans and talk shit about them on all of his shows um but i guess his one of his daughters got him like interested in vegan cooking and kind of opened his eyes on that and now he's i think doing like commercials for plant-based butter or something yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:36

I've seen him cook vegan on tiktok and.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:38

Stuff a few times yeah So, I mean, that's cool. I mean, I think that goes to show you how mainstream it's gotten. It's even chefs that were adamantly against veganism are kind of having to adopt it and do stuff with it to stay relevant.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:52

Yeah. Yeah. And especially we'll watch we watch a bunch of the cooking shows and stuff and they'll have like a vegan challenge or a vegan person on there. And everybody's like, oh, no, we can't have butter. Come on.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:02

It's really not that big of a deal. Or they do a vegan week, which I always think is really fun. Yeah. I really enjoy like cooking and baking shows, but they do kind of suck because there's so many animal products in them. I would really love a fully vegan cooking show.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:20

Yeah, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:21

Or like a fully vegan baking competition would be so much fun.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:24

Yeah, that would be a lot of fun.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:26

Yeah, I think, and I've seen this actually on threads a lot. People just like asking for it because they like Top Chef or MasterChef or something. And it's like, yeah, you gave us one week of a vegan challenge, but if you could just do a fully vegan season, season would be so cool. And there are definitely enough talented vegan chefs to run a season like that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:47

Maybe we'll have to have the deficient vegans cooking show one day. Yeah, so now let's talk about when some of our favorite vegan staple foods were invented. Maybe give a little history walkthrough. So plant-based milks, originally, plant-based milks have been around and consumed for centuries.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:03

Which may surprise you since everyone keeps saying don't call them plant-based milks. That's a newfangled thing with you vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:11

Yeah. The oldest is actually coconut milk, likely in use for over 5,000 years.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:15

5,000 years? When was the first cow milk,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:19

I wonder? I was just thinking the same thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:21

Actually.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:21

Is coconut milk older than dairy milk?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:24

Dude, maybe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:25

I mean, logistically, it seems like people would have tried to drink a coconut before they tried to suck a cow teeth.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:30

Suckle a cow teeth, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:33

Anyway, maybe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:34

One's a lot more weird.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:37

Soy milk has roots in 14th century China. Almond milk dates back to 13th century Middle East.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:43

Wow.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:44

And then modern versions of these that you can buy at the grocery stores now arrived in the early 20th century. Oat milk specifically was kind of a more modern invention from the 1990s.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:53

But I remember before oat milk was invented, soy milk was like the non-dairy milk choice. It was like the go-to. Yeah, I don't even think the other ones were really on the shelf as options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:05

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:05

And now I think, you know, most vegans I've talked to actually still prefer soy milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:10

Yeah, that's the one we use now. We actually really like oat milk, but soy milk seems like it's better for all the stuff we use it for, plus it's a little higher protein. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:19

A little bit. Significantly higher protein on a percentage basis. Yeah, that's true. And I think more cost effective if you're looking at it on like a gram of protein per dollar or even 100 calories per dollar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:31

Yeah, definitely. Yes, and they've been called milk for a really long time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:36

Yeah. And, I mean, going back to this processed myth, I would say, you can make pretty much all of these at home.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:45

In your kitchen.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:46

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:46

So...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:48

Next is tofu, invented in China around 200 BC.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:51

Thank you, China.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:53

It's often called processed, but you can literally make it in your kitchen. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:58

Don't even think it's very hard.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:59

Yeah. It's also known as bean curd, and it has been a staple in East Asia cuisine for centuries now. According to legend, tofu was discovered accidentally during the Han Dynasty in China. I don't think it's actually documented where it was invented, but that's the, you know, the myth around it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:13

The legend. Yeah. The legend around it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:15

They say that a cook accidentally curdled some soy milk while preparing a meal for the emperor, and the emperor was pleased with the resulting dish, and tofu was born.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:22

Okay. This kind of reminds me of that show. Yeah. So there's a show that we watched. We actually watched it twice back to back because it was so good. But it was Bon Appetit, Your Majesty. It's I don't know. I think it's a Korean show, but it's dubbed in English. So you don't have to just read subtitles. But it was really good because basically every episode, there's some, you know, very high stakes situation happening.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:48

And it requires the perfect dish.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:50

It requires the perfect dish, and the vast majority of the episode is just, like, slow cooking of this dish and explaining, like, origins of, you know, how it was used back in the day. It's actually quite fascinating, but they did a lot of stuff with tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:05

Yeah, it was a really good show.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:07

I kind of want to go watch it again. And there's a love story in it. There's also some time traveling. I mean.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:13

Yeah, who would have thought that?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:13

A lot of great selling points for Bon Appetit, Your Majesty.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:16

Yeah. Koreans really love their time travel. They do. Little time travel details in a movie that otherwise has nothing to do with time travel.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:24

Yeah. The first Korean movie I ever saw was My Sassy Girl. Yeah. And they throw it in at the end and I'm like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:29

Is that a spoiler?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:30

Oh, it's pretty old.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:33

I don't want to tell you what happens. But time travel adjacent.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:36

I don't think it's a spoiler because it actually has nothing to do with the plot. They just like have a random like maybe like it alludes to potential time travel at the very, very end.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:48

The last frame.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:49

Yeah, with like no context to the rest of the film. It also doesn't affect the plot really much at all. So that's another good one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:58

Check those both out. Um, tofu experienced a surge in the West during the late 1960s to 1980s, um, kind of the counterculture movement, growing interest in vegetarianism, all that stuff comes together. Also the rise of health conscious diets, trying to eat healthier food. Yeah. All, you know, centered or converged on, Hey, let's eat some tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:17

Yeah. Okay. Did you watch the show Doug?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:20

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:21

On Nickelodeon?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:22

Yeah, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:22

I remember the first time I ever heard about Tofu. It's the fictional band in the show Doug, The Beats. They had a song called Killer Tofu. Yeah. Oh, man. What are the lyrics? Hold, please. Okay, here are some highlights of the lyrics. Fast food feels fuzzy because it's made from stuff that's scuzzy. I always thought I was such a nerd. I refused to touch that strange bean curd. I wouldn't eat it, but it ate you. ayu killer tofu and then it also talks about some other like sugary foods and stuff but like not tofu can i actually play a little bit of it just

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:03

Just a few seconds yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:04

Okay don't yell at us we're trying to get you more views on doug you used

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:15

To touch that strange teeth I wouldn't.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:19

Get down

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:29

Or tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:30

So if you like that, it's on Spotify. And I do listen to it regularly. It's on several of my playlists.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:40

All right. Next up is seitan. This way of preparing weak gluten has been documented in China since the 6th century.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:47

Whoa. The 6th century? That's crazy. Throwback.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:51

It's widely consumed by the Chinese as a substitute for meat, especially among adherents of Chinese Buddhism.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:57

Which were mostly vegetarian, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:00

As far as I know, yeah. Wheat gluten arrived in the West by the 18th century. And by the 1850s, Western doctors were recommending wheat gluten in diets for diabetics.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:10

That's interesting. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:13

In the United States also, the Seventh-day Adventists promoted the consumption of wheat gluten from the late 19th century. It became a staple in 1970s health food stores. And then in the 1980s and 1990s, it had a big expansion. And the popularity grew and accelerated when brands like Tofurky started making commercial seitan products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:32

That's pretty cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:33

They're still around.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:34

Yeah, they are still around. I think we actually got a Tofurky... Yeah. A couple of Thanksgiving's ago.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:40

They have like, they're mainly known for lunch meat type stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:43

Yeah. Now, I think one of their original products was actually like a whole tofurkey. Yeah, I agree. And now, yeah, it's more of a lunch meat. Yeah. But I think seitan is really interesting because most people don't understand what it is at all. Oh, yeah. And they'll immediately be like, it's super processed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:59

I see this about seitan more than anything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:00

I'm like, it's literally, well, the way I make it, it's vital weak gluten plus water. Yeah. But you can also, and you could say, oh, but a wee gluten's super processed. And it's like, well, cool, but you can also make it with flour and water, and then it's the washing method. Yeah. So even less processed. Bam. Probably maybe the least processed if you just make it with flour and water.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:24

Yeah, I think out of all these, it's probably the least processed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:25

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:26

Yeah. Next is tempeh. So tempeh was invented in Indonesia about 300 to 400 years ago. This one's a little newer. Historians trace.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:35

Newer.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:36

Yeah, these foods are all ancient, is the point here. Historians trace its origins to the 1600s when it was first documented in central Java. Fermented, this is a, it's a fermented soybean cake, and it was originally created accidentally when fungal spores grew on soybeans wrapped in traditional leaves.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:54

And they were like, hey, let's eat that shit. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:56

It's funny how many of these were accidents, but I guess a lot of stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:59

Yeah. Now, we don't really eat tempeh much, but you know what? I get comments about my Rice Krispie treats looking like tempeh all the time.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:07

I guess I kind of do. In the 1960s, Western scientific research into tempeh began in the United States. And that helped to transition from an Indonesian regional staple to a globally recognized meat alternative.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:18

Yeah, and the whole food plant-based crowd really, really loves this one. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:21

I mean, I've seen a lot of people who really like it. I've tried it a couple times. I don't know if I just haven't tried it the right way or the right flavor or what.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:28

Yeah, it's like I've made it twice and then I stopped trying to figure it out. Yeah. But I know a lot of people really love it. So there's definitely a way to make it taste really good. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:37

Um next up's one of our favorites tvp which.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:39

You might think is super super new yeah is it super super new

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:43

It's not but it's kind of new it was admitted in the 1960s so it's like i.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:47

Feel like that's not that new

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:48

It was 20 years ago right i can never uh 60.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:52

Years ago 60 plus years ago

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:54

Yeah i think yeah i always get this you know i still think of it like i think i feel like i'm just perpetually in the year 2000 as far as like thinking about how far away things are i'm like Like the 60s was like 40 years ago.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:06

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:07

But it wasn't.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:08

No.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:08

So anyway, this was amended in the 1960s by the company Archer Daniels Midland in Chicago that made, it was basically a food processing company. So that's kind of cool. It was made in Chicago.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:20

Yeah, I love that for us. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:22

By 1968, it was heavily used in various food products. The popularity continued to grow in 1971 after it got approved for use in school lunch programs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:33

Actually, that's kind of cool. Yeah. Oh, and I was reading about the invention of it. And I guess originally it was going to be used in chili. That's like what their main intent was, to add volume and protein to chili.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:45

No, that makes a lot of sense. It's really good in chili. So that's how we use it. One of the hundreds of ways we use it. It is just one ingredient, by the way. It's soybeans. But it does go through a process to defat it. So to take the fat out of the soybean.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:59

But, you know, if that's too much processing for you, soy curls are actually slightly less processed because they don't go through the defatting process.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:06

Yeah. And those are invented in Oregon by Butler Foods around the year 2000. And they basically still sell the most popular soy curl product.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:13

And they're delicious, by the way.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:15

I really like soy curls.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:16

I like them too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:16

Yeah. And then, you know, we said earlier, protein powders are basically just as processed as TVP and they're used regularly by the same people who talk about how processed TVP is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:25

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:25

So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:26

Yeah. Saying TVP is like way too processed for you feels, I mean, maybe if you're like super whole foods plant-based. Yeah. TVP would be over the line for you. But for general people that I see commenting it's processed, I'm like, I'm guessing you eat a lot more highly processed stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:43

Yep. Uh, next up is veggie burgers. So people probably are pretty familiar with these more than this other stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:49

Yeah. And there's been quite an evolution around veggie burgers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:52

Yeah. I mean, that means a lot of stuff. It's not even necessarily like one type of burger.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:55

Yeah. I mean, there was like the black bean burger craze. And then there was the one I liked the most, which they're not vegan. So, which is really sad. I think they use egg. Uh, it was the Morningstar had a veggie burger that had a bunch of different like actual vegetables in it. Yeah. That was really, really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:12

Do mushroom burgers count as veggie burgers? I don't think mushroom is technically a vegetable, but.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:16

I mean, people say portobello burgers. My dad used to cook me a lot of portobello burgers. Yeah. Burger, in quotes, you know? Yeah, yeah. Because he wasn't really sure. I mean, I think my parents just didn't really know what to cook. So if he was grilling something, he would just grill me a portobello burger.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:29

Why don't they just call those portaburgers?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:32

I don't know. You could try to make that a thing if you want.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:35

I just did.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:36

Okay. All right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:38

Everybody, you know, be with me on this. Portaburgers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:41

Portaburgers. And that makes me feel like they're just portable, but I know it feels redundant. I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:50

It's Porto burger, not Port.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:53

What about Bella burgers?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:56

That's way better. Why do you have to come up with something that's way better? I don't know. Anyway. All right. Anyway, we'll let the people vote which one they like. Yeah. By 1985, the Veggie Burger was the most popular one at the stores. And the brand Garden Burger released its first vegetable-based burger commercially in 1982. Then the following year, Boca Burger was founded, which is still around.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:21

Yeah. This is the one I remember seeing a lot in, like, the 2000s. because that was before Impossible or Beyond even hit the market. Yeah. Boca Burgers. Yeah, they are still around. They're harder to find, though.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:33

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:34

The original one has crazy good macros.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:37

Yeah. No, for sure. And then, so they released in 92. And then by 2002, they were bringing in more than $70 million a year on their Boca Burgers and Kraft Foods bought the company.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:47

That's crazy. Yeah. $70 million a year? Yeah. That's pretty damn good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:51

For some veggie burgers. Not bad. Yeah. 2002 Burger King introduced their BK Veggie Burger. So it's the same year that Kraft acquired Boca Burger. So they were probably like, oh, this veggie burger thing looks pretty good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:02

Honestly, that was probably the first fast food chain to actually try to have a vegetarian or vegan option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:09

For a burger.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:09

For probably anything that's like protein related.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:13

Yeah, that's probably true, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:14

I mean, excluding, you know, Asian places which have always been serving tofu. Right. But specifically like an American fast food chain. Yeah. I think this is probably maybe the first ever protein option for vegetarians and vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:26

It wouldn't surprise me, yo. In 2013, the first lab-grown burger was produced. Beyond Meat produced also their Beyond Chicken Strip and then later launched the Beyond Burger in 2016.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:37

Wow. So they're actually pretty new. I guess for some reason I didn't realize they were that new of a company.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:44

Yeah. Also in 2016, Impossible launched their Impossible Burger.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:47

So Beyond came first.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:49

Slightly. But I think they released the burger product around the same time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:53

I feel like, okay, this is maybe a pretty niche comparison, but I feel like the Beyond versus Impossible Burger thing reminds me of, like, are you a Backstreet Boys fan or an NSYNC fan? Yeah. And it's like, I don't know. I feel like you can learn a lot about someone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:10

Yeah. You're like, I'll take whichever one pops up in front of me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:13

Well, I feel that way about the burgers, not so much the bands. I'm a Backstreet Boys girl for life. What about 98 Degrees?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:20

Those guys never get in the level.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:21

No, I know, and they don't. I think they're just a different vibe. Yeah. But I like 98 Degrees, too. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:27

Does Chumbo Wimba count as a boy band?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:28

I don't think so. But, you know, what I did hear is they get knocked down, but they always get up again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:34

That's true. Yeah. And then 2019, Burger King, coming back again, launched the Impossible Whopper nationwide to signal a massive mainstream pivot into this plant-based burger situation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:48

I really wanted to find information on, and I know this would be impossible to find, but I really wanted to know, like, what percentage of people buying the Impossible Whopper are actually vegan or vegetarian? Because most people that I know don't really buy that that are vegan, you know? Yeah. But I've heard a lot of omnivores actually get those because maybe their doctor said, oh, you got high cholesterol, maybe reduce your red meat consumption. So that's what they get.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:15

Most people get to that conversation. At least most men get to that conversation at some point.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:19

I want to know, what is the percentage of omnivores actually buying Impossible Whoppers? I bet it's high.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:24

Yeah. The next category is vegan cheeses. So in the early 1990s, the only brand of vegan cheese available in the United States was Soy Mage, which I think is the one you said you didn't like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:34

Dude, I don't know what the brand was that I tried because we only tried it once. But what I will say is I didn't try anything in the 90s, but I did try something in 2000, the year 2000, and it sucked ass. And vegan cheeses have come so far. I would say even farther than like the meat alternatives. Like, vegan cheeses have really drastically improved.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:56

Yeah, and there's a ton of varieties. Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:58

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:58

Especially when there's even, like, the little more independent type cheese shops. Yeah. Like the Peaceful Rebel, Rebel Cheese, Cheese and Thank You, all those. Like, they're not even necessarily huge companies, but they make awesome cheeses.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:12

So good that you almost can't tell they're vegan. Yeah. Like, I think you could probably trick people. Yeah, for sure. I know omnivores that buy Rebel Cheese. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:20

Yeah. um dia came out in 2008 yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:24

That was one of the first ones and it's improved a lot because i remember in 2008 it kind of sucked because i remember trying it really early

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:31

Dia seems like it's always been the one that was like on the shelf when it was like the yeah vegetarian pizzas or well i guess not the vegan pizzas and stuff it seems like most of those were dia a lot of the products that weren't like just cheese had the dia yeah it's.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:46

Gotten a lot better since 2008 though Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:49

And then there was Miyoko's in 2014. You like that one.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:52

Right? I think Miyoko's really changed the game on a lot of stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:56

It was like a, what do they call it? Like a gourmet cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:59

Right. Yeah. More artisanal.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:01

Artisanal.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:01

That's what I was looking for. It's like, yes, their slices were good and they had like good vegan butter. But honestly, like where she really changed the game was that liquid mozzarella cheese for pizzas. Yeah. And then she also had like those little gourmet cheese blocks that you could find, but you can't find those anymore. And I don't know if they're bringing those back and also... I guess F Miyoko's right now, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:23

Man, I don't know. She doesn't own it anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:27

Right? Right, yeah, they kind of screwed her. Yeah. I think a couple times. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:31

And then there's Veal Life, which was actually founded in the 90s in Greece, but it only expanded to the U.S. markets in like 2017, 2018.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:39

That blew my mind when I read that. I did not realize it wasn't an American-based company, actually. Yeah. The 1990s, Veal Life is actually, I think, my favorite shredded cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:48

Yeah, that's the one we tend to get for shredded when we need that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:51

Yeah, and they just won, like, we covered that last week. They won four Tasty Awards and some Veg News Award.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:59

Yeah, a lot of stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:59

A lot of good stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:00

There's just a couple of other companies you might recognize. Morningstar, who we've had a love-hate relationship with in the past.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:06

Yeah, it's like I love them because they kept me fed as a child when I was vegetarian, didn't know what to eat. Yeah. But now they, like, use the word plant-based, very willy-nilly. And you would think that would mean vegan, and it definitely doesn't. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:21

So 1975, they came out with their original soy-based meat alternatives. Then 1986, they launched their chicken nuggets, which I think made them really popular.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:29

Their chicken nuggets. And we still get their chicken nuggets sometimes. They're super good. That's what fueled me as a 12-year-old.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:36

They're pretty high protein. I think it's just soy isolate or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:39

They're super delicious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:41

Tofurky came out in 95. And then Gardein, who also makes a bunch of fake chicken products, came out. They were founded in 2003, started selling a lot of their products in 2009.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:51

I think Gardein is the most underrated one. Yeah. Like, you hear a lot of talk about Beyond Impossible Morningstar. I think, for the most part, I like Gardein's products more than any of those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:01

I agree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:02

And they have some, like, seafood options. They have really good... vegan fish sticks yeah or fish fillets they're both they're they're not in fish they don't have stick they don't have stick form like

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:13

They're more like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:14

Fillets yeah they're for grown-ups i think they should come out with a vegan fish stick though because i mean who doesn't like those yeah so

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:22

That's kind of a walkthrough of the history of how vegan food has changed over time and some of that is like some of that is kind of it it's become a little more processed over time than it was originally just like the scratch and stuff but at the same time that makes it more convenient a lot of the.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:36

Time it's more convenient and also i think the other takeaway is that even though all of those foods exist that doesn't necessarily mean that all vegans eat those foods yeah because you can still make your own vegan meats at home with like lesser processed ingredients like tofu or seitan or tvp and you can also make your own vegan cheeses and stuff at home with like cashews or tofu right

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:01

So now let's talk a little bit about where the stigma around the vegan processed foods come from. This didn't just come up out of nowhere. And I think a big part of it is that like growing up, most people didn't even know what a fully vegan plate of food looked like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:15

Yeah. The same way, like, I didn't grow up like eating at Jewish friends' houses. Yeah. So I wouldn't know necessarily what is kosher. Like, what can't you eat on a kosher diet? Yeah. And I think that's kind of similar. Like if you didn't have friends that you went over to eat at that had like fully vegan families and veganism is actually still such a small percentage of the population that most people aren't getting exposed to that. And I think also most vegans try to like find community with other vegans. So they might not even be sharing that kind of thing with their omnivore friends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:48

And also inside of families, even maybe only like one person is vegan. Yeah. Not even necessarily the whole family.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:53

So, yeah, I think a lot of people just don't have the context of what do vegans eat? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:57

I think there are five big things that kind of feed into the stigma in general. One of them is, like, when you go through the store, what people actually see when they're looking at, like, the vegan substitutes. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:08

So, like, the things next to regular cheeses, you're going to have your vegan cheeses. Yeah. And then if you go to the frozen food aisle, when you're looking at things, like, next to, I don't know what kind of meats they sell in the frozen food section. But, you know, those are, you're going to see, like, your vegan hamburgers and your vegan meat alternatives.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:26

Yeah, all the things that are like literally labeled as vegan or plant-based. So you see that, you see those like engineered foods, and you see those are the things that are labeled as vegan. And you're like, okay, I guess that's vegan food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:38

Right. Right. But you miss all the stuff that doesn't get labeled that way, which is obviously naturally vegan, like beans, rice, oats, apples. Yeah. They don't necessarily say vegan anywhere on them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:50

So people tend to picture what's been marketed as vegan, which is like a small process.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:55

Yeah, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:56

It's called her subsection of like the vegan food we actually eat or of the food we actually eat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:02

Right. Because like the single ingredients aren't going to be labeled as vegan because they're single ingredients and you're going to know if those are vegan or not. Right. You know, like even vital wheat gluten, I don't think necessarily says in big letters that it's vegan. Neither does TBP. It might say it on the back somewhere, but.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:16

Yeah, it doesn't really need to because it's. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:18

And it's also like not promoted as a vegan thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, it just sits there with like other foods. Right. Like flour's also vegan. It doesn't say vegan on it. Yeah. Peanut butter's vegan. Yeah. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:31

Yeah. Tons of stuff. Something else that feeds into the stigma is like your exposure at restaurants. So, if a restaurant adds, like, one vegan option, it's almost always, like, a Beyond Burger.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:41

Yeah, it is usually almost always a Beyond Burger, which is kind of funny because I don't even think that's necessarily what vegans want on the menu. Right. We'd rather have you make something with tofu or seitan or, like, you know, anything else.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:53

Yeah. Now, don't get me wrong. If that's the only thing on the menu, I'm going to order it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:56

Oh, it's definitely better than nothing. Yeah. Or a salad, a dressingless salad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:01

Or the place you tried to go to that was going to have, like, a bowl full of peppers or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:04

Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. That was crazy. And my boss was like, there's a vegan option I called and it's like literally a bowl of like peppers that you would maybe eat as an appetizer as a group. And I think they were really spicy, too. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm just I'm not going to that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:23

Another one is the marketing, you know, issues like like we were kind of talking about beans aren't advertised as vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:29

Right. I don't even think most beans are advertised.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:32

They don't get advertised at all, really.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:34

And most whole foods don't. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:36

Right. But they are advertising the products, like, beyond oat milk, vegan cheese. Yeah. But, you know, like, nobody's advertising dry beans or advertising rice, necessarily.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:46

Yeah. They might be advertising, like, one-minute rice that you can make in the microwave that is also vegan. But most rice is vegan anyways by nature, so they're not even leaning into that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:57

Yeah. So that public perception gets shaped by, like, the things that get advertised to them and not what is actually eaten.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:03

Right. The only thing they know that's vegan are all the processed vegan things that they see. And also, apparently, we eat grass and rabbit food as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:12

Yeah, rabbit food's a big one for me. Was that just carrots? I do like carrots. Maybe I do eat carrots.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:18

I like carrots. Anyway. I do like some things that rabbits eat. But that's, I wouldn't say the vegan diet. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:26

And then there's kind of the natural, quote unquote, fallacy. So the idea is like a cow makes milk. Milk just goes in a glass and that's natural.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:37

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:37

Whereas you have like soy and it has to go through some factory processed, goes into a carton. It just feels more manufactured.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:45

Yeah. I think most of us know that you can't just drink it straight from the tab if you're drinking cow's milk, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:54

It's not recommended. Yeah, I mean, like, the dairy supply chain we've talked about a couple times, extremely industrial as well, high throughput, a lot of steps in between the animal and the carton. And we're going to come back to this in a minute and kind of walk through what it actually takes to make a glass of either kind of milk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:12

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:13

Um, and then there's kind of the, they call it like what you might think it was like the Oreo gotcha. This is just kind of an example, but people are like, did you know Oreos are vegan? And so people then jump from like Oreos are vegan to all vegan food is junk food. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:28

Yeah. I've seen that before. It's pretty weird. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:31

So it's like, just because there is junk food that is vegan doesn't mean all junk food is vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:37

Yeah. It's like that logic problem on the standardized test.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:40

Yeah. Yeah. And then kind of for a bonus, this isn't necessarily like one of the big things that drives the stigma necessarily, but it definitely amplifies some of these other things is that there's a very active counter messaging environment online and social media. So there's like carnivore influencers, the raw milk advocate people, dairy industry ad campaigns in general. And then like all these lawsuits over like labeling plant based milks, stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:08

It kind of makes you feel like if they're arguing over not being able to call something a plant-based milk, are they hiding something? Yeah. Like it just gives the public a bad perception of vegan foods in general. Right. And then also I will add on to that is you also have the whole food plant-based crowd that likes to crap on vegans who don't eat a whole food plant-based diet. Yeah. And they actually do a lot more harm than even some of the carnivore people because they're out there spreading it and coming from a place of like, I know things because I eat a vegan diet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:37

That's unfortunate. I would say, like, a whole food plant-based diet is probably the healthier version, but I don't know why we have to fight about that necessarily. Like, that's a health issue. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:45

And it doesn't also, it doesn't mean that anyone that doesn't eat a whole food plant-based diet is necessarily a junk food vegan. Right, yeah. Because you can have balance.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:52

Exactly. Also, they're like the wellness grifter types. They want you to buy their book to learn all the things the government is hiding from you or trying to poison you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:00

It's like the microwaves kill all nutrient people that I keep getting on my bean bowl video.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:05

That's got a real resurgence lately.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:07

I'm going to lose my fucking mind if I have to respond to one more person that's like, you shouldn't be using a microwave. It kills everything. You're basically eating crap.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:16

Yeah. Yeah, people just really like these sensationalized soundbites or like repeatable lines or memes or whatever.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:26

Yeah, absolutely. And then if you say them enough and if enough people say them enough, they start feeling like there's truth to it. But then you can't actually find any kind of legitimate article that shows evidence of a lot of this stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:39

Well, yeah, you can't be bothered by the facts.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:41

What is it? Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:45

Yeah, exactly. That happens a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:46

Oh, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:48

Yeah. And then there's also a little bit of an element of kind of some like, maybe not intentional all the time, but some racial discrimination going on. Oh, absolutely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:57

I think especially if you're American or maybe even in Europe. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:01

Yeah. I mean, even though tofu and seitan have been around for a long time, they're still seen as like, quote unquote, unusual because like the pilgrims didn't eat them or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:10

Yeah, like the American pilgrims didn't eat those. So they obviously don't exist.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:14

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:15

Yeah. And it's just like, I think I can only speak to the U.S. experience, but it seems like the vast majority of people that live here have a very limited historical understanding of what people in other cultures eat in general. Yeah. And like so much so that, OK, this this might be like a niche experience, but I feel like I've seen people. It's like, oh, we're going to go to an Ethiopian restaurant tonight. We're so brave.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:42

Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:42

We're so brave for trying out this new food, and it's like, this food that... the Ethiopian people have been eating for centuries like yeah super brave

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:52

I think maybe next time somebody thinks about saying something like that they should think about how they might feel if they said it in a room full of people who eat that every day right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:59

Yeah yeah it's it's pretty weird in that context you know

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:02

It'd be like somebody coming here and being like I'm gonna go get some french fries I'm so brave so brave.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:08

I ate a I ate an American hamburger you actually might be brave if you're eating an american hamburger

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:13

Yeah yeah and then you know some people just i've seen this a lot growing up kind of in the country like some people will entirely dismiss quote-unquote ethnic food whatever the hell that's supposed to mean which is obviously ridiculous like is is that food weird or is it just normal everyday food for millions of people or are.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:33

You just very limited on what you know about the

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:36

World yeah and it's like it's weird because you're saying like when you say i don't like ethnic food you're talking about like food from multiple continents that aren't even the same how can you how can you say like you don't like this whole culture's food and this whole culture's food and this whole how yeah what do you mean what is the spice you don't like i don't understand honestly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:53

The way i hear when i've heard that what i am hearing is i don't like food that's not white people food yeah whether that means americanized food or like italian food seems fine you know like yeah you know what i mean it's more of like anything that doesn't feel like it would be in an american restaurant is quote-unquote ethnic

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:14

Food yeah yeah our uh our cheeseburgers are the height of culinary masterpiece i guess i don't know yeah i've always wondered when you tell somebody that you're vegan what do they assume that your fridge looks like yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:27

I i feel that most omnivores don't have a good general idea of that at

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:31

All yeah and.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:32

I think you know i've had a lot of conversations where i try to explain that because there are some people that will ask in a genuine way of like what what do you eat and how do you get protein but then there are like some people that are just fucking rude yeah and i just will not engage in conversation you know where they're just like Oh, all vegans eat is salad. All you eat is salad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:54

Yeah, not everybody's having that conversation in good faith.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:56

Yeah. Pick your battles. I mean, I think, though, if you're talking to someone who is genuinely curious as to what vegans eat, it's a good time to educate.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:04

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:05

Because maybe they're curious because they're interested in trying some of that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:08

Yeah. And I think, you know, once you think through some of these things and you start to see the picture form on why the stigma exists, it makes it a lot easier to kind of correct and reframe some of those misinterpretations. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:21

Like, where is this misinformation coming from? Yeah. And once you know that, you can kind of have a better conversation.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:28

Yeah. So I think, you know, as part of trying to change that frame, I would say, first of all, like, vegan food just describes what ingredients are not used. Yeah. And not what ingredients are added. So, like, vegan food doesn't really exist. There's no magical vegan ingredient. You're just subtracting the animal products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:47

Yeah, I think that's a really good way to look at it, too, because... I feel like what I've seen from omnivores is they act as if vegan food, you won't have, like, any options. Yeah. Like, it's incredibly limiting what you can eat, but you're really only removing a handful of things you don't eat anymore.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:06

Yeah, I mean, then those things do, you know, to their credit, I guess, those little things are in a lot of packaged foods or whatever. Like, milk finds its way into a lot of stuff. Egg finds its way into a lot of stuff. Yeah. But as far as just like food ingredients, you're only really taking away a handful and almost all those have a replacement that would even make the recipe almost exactly the same. Right. So, I mean, and, you know, an example is like you wouldn't look at a potato and say a potato is vegan food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:33

No, I wouldn't think so. Although some people will say that kind of shit. I've heard people be like, well, I pretty much eat vegan until lunch. And I'm like, so you eat cereal with oat milk for breakfast. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:47

Intermittent vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:48

All right. That's not really a thing, but all right. Yeah. Thank you for not eating animals in the morning. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:54

Yeah. So, I mean, like apples, vegan. Apples have always been vegan. You know, things like rice, beans, oats, potatoes, most of the entire produce section, most of the bulk bins you see in the grocery store, most of the bread aisle, all that stuff's just vegan. And you're like, no matter what your diet is, you're eating all that stuff throughout your life. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:12

You're already eating so much vegan food as an omnivore.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:15

Quote unquote vegan food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:16

Yeah, it just doesn't have the vegan labels left on it. Yeah, right. Because it's obvious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:20

Yeah. So some of the vegan staples, like the ingredients that are inside them, like we have oats. Oats are just oats. It's one ingredient. Yeah. Something like beans or lentils, typically just the beans or the lentils. Sometimes it's got some salt and water in a can.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:33

Right. If it's canned instead of dried.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:35

Yeah. And then even something like tofu, which some people think of as like some lab experiment sometimes for some reason. It's just typically like three ingredients. It's got soy, water, and a coagulant. Right. The same as like a cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:46

Basically. Yeah, exactly. If you can make it in your kitchen, it's probably not super processed. And you can definitely make tofu in your kitchen. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:54

And then even some of the weirder stuff that people.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:57

Quote, unquote, weird.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:58

Yeah, the weirder stuff that people raise their eyebrows at is like seitan, which is just, like you said earlier, weak gluten and water.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:04

Or even flour and water. And then use the wash method.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:07

Yeah. TBP is just defatted soy flour.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:10

Yeah, it's one ingredient. That shocks people. Oh, yeah. Like, I have a lot of people just constantly asking me what TBP is. And I'm like, it's literally defatted soy flour. And they're like, it's just soy flour. Yeah, no, it's just soy flour.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:21

That's the whole thing. They look processed because they look a little unusual to you, but it's just like one to two ingredients. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:28

Just because you don't know what something is doesn't automatically mean it's highly processed. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:33

So we have an example, like a kitchen test. What does it actually take to make milk?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:38

Right. Interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:39

So comparing what it takes to make like a dairy milk versus a plant milk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:43

I know which one I think is easier.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:47

So dairy milk starts, by the way, with you have to have a cow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:51

You have to have a female cow. And you also have to impregnate her over and over and over again because only cows that give birth all like produce milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:00

And then a pregnant cow has a calf. So you have to deal with the calf every time you get the cow pregnant.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:05

Yeah. And the calf is going to want to eat the milk. So you got to figure out something else to feed the baby calf.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:12

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:12

Because you're trying to sell the milk or you're trying to eat the milk yourself.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:16

Yeah. And so after you figure out the cow situation, you have industrial milking equipment, refrigerated transport to move the milk. You have pasteurization, which is like you have to be able to heat the milk at a high temperature. Right. Homogenization.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:29

Although there's a big resurgence of non-pasteurized cow milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:33

Yeah, I would not recommend that. You know, I've seen, this is kind of a funny side tangent. I've seen a lot of people that are like, just buy raw milk and boil it. It's like, okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:42

Casteurize it at home.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:45

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:47

Anyway, so just to go to the show, like, people don't really know what they're saying a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:51

They don't know what goes into making their own food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:53

Yeah. And then homogenization, where it's like forced milk under high pressure through a tiny valve to break up little fat pieces inside it. Standardization, which is where you skim the cream off the milk, remix it to try to get, like, 1%, 2% whole milk, depending on what kind of you want. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:07

Not full fat milk. Yeah. Like, which is what comes out of a cow. Yeah. And most people aren't buying that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:13

Yeah. Fortification, where you add vitamins to the milk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:16

Yeah, which happens for pretty much anything on the shelf.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:18

Yep. And then, like, refrigerated packaging and distribution.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:21

Yeah. So do you think you could do that in your kitchen?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:24

I don't think so. I could probably do the pasteurization part, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:28

What if you had a cow?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:30

Man, I don't know. It still seems like it'd be a lot of work.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:32

Yeah. A long process, really. Like, how long does a cow take to give birth?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:38

Oh, wow. Yeah. You have to buy the cow when it's a baby or when it's an adult.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:43

Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:44

What does your HOA think about your cow? I don't know. And then, so for oat milk, if we're trying to make it at home, we soak a cup of oats in water for like 30 minutes. Yeah. That seems pretty doable. Blend with a couple cups of water for like 30 seconds. Just a blender. So, so far we're up to oats, water, blender.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:03

Oh, man. I don't know. Oh, that seems pretty hard. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:05

And then we strain it through a nut milk bag or a cheesecloth. So we've got to get a hold of a cheesecloth.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:10

Oh, well, those are really hard to find.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:12

And then we're done. We can add some salt or sugar if we want.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:15

Wow. Okay. Well, I don't know. I feel like the oat milk seems easier.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:20

It takes about 10 minutes. I mean, yeah, you can make oat milk like right now in 10 minutes in your kitchen, basically, if you have some oats and water in a blender. You can't really do that in your kitchen for dairy milk unless you have a cow and you have a pasteurizer or boil it or whatever yeah so which one which one of those even if you think you can make the cow milk in your kitchen which one of those sounds more processed to you um.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:42

Definitely the cow

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:43

Milk yeah and.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:44

You know with oat milk it's like you can make it even easier by buying one of those uh like nut milk machines or whatever yeah the plant-based milk machines that you just like basically toss in water and whatever and it does the whole shebang for you

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:56

So yeah now i will say if you grew up on a farm you're probably thinking right now that uh i'm an idiot and people have been making milk at home for a long ass time right and that's true but the milk you make at home is very different from the milk that ends up on the shelf whereas the oat milk we can make at home is pretty much the same as the milk you get on the shelf yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:15

It might just have some like stabilizing ingredients right to make it more shelf stable for longer

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:20

Yeah which we could also add here if we want to be able to keep it in the fridge longer yeah, So, yeah. And then, again, you still need a cow and everything that comes along with having a cow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:30

Yeah. And then I also want to bring up that the raising of a cow also involves like antibiotics and food, fortified things.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:39

What's the total cost of ownership of your gallon of milk?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:42

Yeah, quite high.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:45

It's a lot easier to take care of a bag of oats.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:47

Yeah, but even like the current cow or like milk manufacturing process of like how they what they do with dairy cows is also not like supernatural, you know, because there's like antibiotics and other stuff that they're feeding the cows that wasn't normally done in nature. You know, if you're trying to say natural, definitely how we're making dairy milk right now is certainly not natural how it used to be 100 years ago.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:12

Yeah, I mean, this example was kind of just like if you wanted to make milk for yourself at home a lot, if you go to like the industrial milk industry, that's like a whole different ballgame.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:19

Right, yeah, you want to talk about processed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:21

And then, you know, as far as cheeses go, the commercial plant cheeses people complain about, like diet and veal life, those are only highly processed because they're made to mimic the properties of dairy cheese, like the melty and stretchiness. Because we can also make cheese at home very easily. Oh, yeah. Now, I know you can make dairy cheese at home fairly easily, too, but the reason that they're so processed in the store brands is because they're trying to mimic the store brand dairy cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:45

Right. Yeah, they're trying to be a one-to-one replacement.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:47

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:48

But, yeah, I mean, if you're making your own cheeses at home, you can do it with, like, soy milk or tofu or blended cashews. There's a lot of ways. You can add stretchiness with tabioca flour, like, very minimal ingredients.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:01

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, homemade cashew cheese has like five ingredients. Daya has more ingredients, but both are vegan. And neither is, quote unquote, vegan food in the magical ingredient sense of the word.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:12

Yeah. And I think the other thing is like what vegans eat in general is like a huge spectrum. Like you have, since it's not a health movement, it's an animal movement. You have people on all ends of the spectrum from like whole food plant based to junk food vegan. And so, like, just blatantly sedating that all vegan food is processed is a really weird take because not all vegans are junk food vegans. Right. Just like all Americans are not all junk food Americans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:40

Yeah. Yeah, and we can kind of back this up with a little bit of data. This isn't a deep dive, just some basic terminology. But the actual definition of levels of processed food comes from a classification system called NOVA that's been around for a few decades. Basically, it has group one, which is unprocessed or minimally processed, like apples, oats, and dry beans. It has group two, which is considered culinary ingredients, so things you add to food, like salt, sugar, oil, things like that. It has group three, which is processed food, and sometimes you'll see this is considered minimally processed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:11

This is, okay, this is kind of interesting. The oil is considered a culinary ingredient and not processed?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:16

Yeah, technically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:17

That's interesting because, so when I was looking up how TVP is made, soybean oil is made in the exact same way that TVP is made because they're one in the same. Yeah. Basically processed. So, that's interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:29

I will say there are a lot of people kind of putting out papers and stuff saying we need to rethink NOVA in general, the classification system. But this is how it is right now. Then the group three, which is processed or sometimes referred to as minimally processed, is stuff like canned beans, bread, and tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:45

Yeah, things that you could make at home, but you're buying for, like, a more convenienced option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:50

And that's kind of how they define it. There's a longer definition, but it's basically like if you could make it in your kitchen with ingredients, you can get commonly. Basically, it's like a process.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:58

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:59

And then there's group four ultra-processed food, which you'll see abbreviated as UPF online a lot. And that is, like, industrial formulations with ingredients you don't have in your kitchen. It goes through some industrial process. Yeah, so some examples of kind of the combinations here. So vegan ultra-processed foods would be like Oreos or Beyond Burger or something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:15

Or maybe vegan cheeses.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:17

Yeah, vegan cheeses.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:17

Or vegan meat alternatives. Yeah. That aren't like seitan or tofu or tempeh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:23

Yeah. And then some animal-based ultra-processed foods are like hot dogs, deli meats, processed cheese again, fast food nuggets, and breakfast sandwiches.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:31

So basically the equivalence of what you're eating over here on the plant-based side.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:36

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:37

So, like, plant-based cheeses are highly processed and so are dairy cheeses. Right. So, vegan meat alternatives are highly processed, but also so are deli meats and fast food chicken nuggets.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:50

Exactly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:51

So, same, same. Right. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:54

And then, so if we go look at vegan minimally processed stuff, that's, again, like apples, oats, lentils, tofu, stuff like that. And then animal products that are minimally processed would be, like, chicken breast, fish, plain Greek yogurt, something like that. So when somebody says vegan food is processed, they're actually confusing two entirely separate things because it could be like a food that's suitable for vegans and it can be either processed, not processed, whatever, just like all the animal waste products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:19

I also have a feeling that most people that are saying this wouldn't consider dairy cheese to be highly processed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:24

Yeah, well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:25

You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I guess what I've always found interesting is the people that are saying this don't even know how their own food is made. Yeah. But then they're like picking apart vegan food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:34

Yeah, I think it's similar to how a lot of people ask vegans how they get their protein when they don't even know how much protein they get. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a definite issue there. So, I guess the question is, are vegans eating ultra-processed food? And the answer is, yeah, the same way everybody's eating ultra-processed food because our food system is full of it. Right. Whether you're vegan or not. Vegans aren't a special case in either direction here. And in fact, the average person on the standard American diet gets a little more than half at 57.9% of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:05

Wow. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:06

So, vegans are not the only ones with a processed food problem. Yeah. So, some of the things that do kind of ring true out of this stigma or this criticism is that vegan junk food does exist. Lots of vegan junk food exists, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:20

I will say more omnivore junk food exists than vegan junk food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:24

Oh, absolutely. And there's a lot of junk food you can't have if you're trying to stick to a vegan diet. Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:28

I mean, there were so many of my favorite junk foods that I had to give up when I went vegan. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:32

And also, there seems to be a tendency to make a natural connection between veganism and health food or health in general.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:39

I think that's because of the plant-based people and then the vegan people. They get conflated a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:44

Yeah. So being vegan is not automatically related to being healthy any more than not being a vegan is. And there are a lot of, maybe even the majority of vegans go vegan and like don't really have any consideration for is this healthier or is this not healthy. That's not why they went vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:58

They're probably eating the same way they did in terms of a mix of junk food and non-processed foods as they did when they weren't a vegan. Yeah. Yeah, I do think, OK, one of my main issues in general is that there's like this separation between plant-based and vegans and like vegans will tell you we're not whole food plant-based people and whole food plant-based people will hopefully say they don't call themselves vegan but sometimes they do and i mean i'm not saying that vegans can also be whole food plant-based i'm specifically talking about vegans who are vegan for the animal versus plant-based people who are plant-based for their own health and not animal rights right

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:37

They might not even be vegan. They just eat a whole food plant-based diet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:41

Right. Not to say that vegans can't also eat a whole food plant-based diet. It's just that they're usually a little more particular when they're talking about it to not confuse people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:49

Yeah. People get pretty fast and loose with the term plant-based these days. Plant-based diet can also mean like I usually only eat plants. Yeah. But sometimes I still eat animal products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:57

I've met people who say they're plant-based that I see eating chicken at work, lunch and learn. So you know what I mean? like a very loose term. And I think it becomes incredibly confusing for an omnivore because they don't understand the difference between the two. And even like whole food plant-based people who shouldn't be calling themselves vegans because they don't care about animal rights are over there calling themselves vegans. And then, so I think what confuses a lot of omnivores is they start thinking that a vegan diet, people are choosing a vegan diet because it's healthier. And then I think then they start picking apart shit about a vegan diet that's not healthy. Exactly. And none of that would even come up if the plant-based people would stop calling themselves fucking vegans. Right. Just call yourself plant-based. It's totally cool. We like you that you don't eat animals. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:40

You know, obviously, you know, a lot of the stuff we put out is to try to be on the healthier side of the food and, you know, the lifestyle and stuff like that. But, yeah, people will post something that's like, here's my vegan food online. And people will be like, oh, that's processed junk. And they're like, okay. And? What does that have to do with anything? It's delicious.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:56

But then they're also seeing posts from plant based people who were like, look how healthy I got on a vegan diet. And it's like, and then you'll ask them, like, are you a vegan for the animals? And they'll say, no, I'm a vegan for my own health. And it's like, well, that's where the confusion lies, because veganism isn't a human health movement. It's an animal liberation movement. So, like, getting those terms right in our own communities is really helpful to not cause confusion in other communities. Yeah, I agree. I feel like a lot of these conversations could go away if people started labeling themselves appropriately. Yeah. And just explaining things better to omnivores.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:33

Yeah. Yeah, so some of the categories of vegan processed food are, like, the mock meats, like, Beyond Impossible, Tofurky. We've talked about those. The vegan cheeses, like, Daiya, Veo Life, the ones we mentioned before. Vegan ice cream and desserts, those are processed, obviously, heavily processed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:48

Sugar omnivore ones.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:50

They also often have more sugar than the dairy versions to make up for the lack of fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:54

That makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:55

Protein powders, you talked about extremely processed typically, but single ingredient protein powders do exist, like the one from Naked. So even though it's processed, it doesn't have a lot of filling ingredients or.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:04

Extra things in there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:05

And all the stuff in the snack aisle that's like vegan-y, like Oreos, some chips, vegan marshmallows, stuff like that, kind of the typical snacky junk food that everybody would eat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:14

Yeah, and that kind of stuff isn't pretending to be healthy anyways.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:17

Yeah, exactly. Nobody's saying that, like, the vegan marshmallows are healthy marshmallows.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:21

Yeah, I think that's, like, a really interesting piece is all of these things that you're listing are not pretending to be health food in the first place. Yeah. You know, it's not like they're junk food disguised as health food. They're just vegan junk food. They're just food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:36

They're just vegan food and they're ultra-processed food because people want to buy processed, convenient food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:40

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:41

That's all it is. And so a lot of them also do function as like a transition food for somebody trying to become or to go on a vegan diet. Like the mock meats are really useful because they're a bridge to a more plant-based diet. A lot of people who are like cutting back on red meat will switch to the like Briand or Impossible for a little bit. And then maybe if they make the full transition to like being a vegan diet, maybe they won't even eat those as much anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:03

Yeah. And I think they're. definitely helpful for transitioning because if you buy like beyond ground beef you're going to cook that the same way you would normal ground beef you don't have to learn how to cook something new exactly whereas tofu there's a bit of a learning curve tbp a bit of a learning curve yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:19

Yeah or even if like you like grilling out or whatever you throw the beyond burgers on the grill and right you're off to the races you know you're.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:25

Not having to learn a new way of cooking yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:27

I think that's really important i think people really underestimate like how important that friction point is for somebody trying to like go to something like a vegan diet is like I don't have to learn a lot of new stuff about it. I don't have to learn a lot of new foods. I just want a swap.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:43

Well, I think especially when I think the transition in general is kind of challenging because you're losing a lot of things that you maybe enjoyed. You know, everybody has favorite foods that they had before they went vegan. And I think the vegan market's done a really good job of replacing a lot of those, but there's still going to be a handful of things that you just can't have anymore. Restaurants you just can't eat at anymore. So that's like a mental struggle, right? And then you're also dealing with the social friction of not being able to go out to places like you used to with your family and friends that do not eat a vegan diet. So I think having something that makes at least the cooking aspect seamless is really helpful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:22

Yeah, definitely. Definitely helps lubricate the social situation because you can still have people over for a cookout. You can still, like, go out with your friends somewhere that has, like, a Beyond Burger or something like that. It just helps the whole thing. It may be a little smoother.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:35

Or maybe you don't want to cook with recipes. Yeah. You know? I mean, I just remember growing up, I don't think my parents ever used recipes. They were just, like, cooking the things that their parents cooked and that they knew how to cook. And I think a lot of people feel that way. And you probably have some foods that you just normally cook as an omnivore. And then being able to just kind of replicate those dishes with some of these like packaged items makes the transition a lot easier because you don't have to go recipe searching and buy cookbooks and stuff. Yeah. You can eventually get there. But it's a good starting point.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:05

So what is like one of the vegan junk foods that you can't seem to get away from?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:09

Okay. Well, this is going to be a sad story because some of my vegan junk foods that were my most favorite have recently just been completely discontinued. So like those lint truffles, like the chocolate truffles, those were my favorite. Like for like a sweet treat when I wanted a sweet treat, like a special sweet treat. And now they're gone. They're all gone. And also, Hit Peas had this really good flavor that was called Flavor Blast White Cheddar, and it was so good. Yeah. It was the best, like, vegan Cheeto I've ever had, but apparently that's gone, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:41

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:42

So... sad. Yeah. And then I like those lesser evil popcorns that were vegan, but now they're replacing some of the vegan ones with omnivore options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:51

Oh, that's a bummer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:52

So, yeah. A lot of my favorite vegan foods are kind of gone. What are yours?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:58

I like the vegan Abe's guy thing a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:02

Oh, yeah, the banana bread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:04

And the little muffins and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:06

The mini muffins.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:06

It seems like if I actually walk into Whole Foods, I'm probably coming out with something Abe's. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:11

They make a lot of good stuff, and they have a bunch of other allergens they look for

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:15

Yeah also uh oreo comes out with new flavors a lot so i like to try the new oreo flavor yes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:20

I'm glad that pita has finally blessed oreos for us again that's nice

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:25

Yeah so i think the real comparison is how the quality of the diet is overall and not like which team quote unquote each food belongs to like if it's a food that vegans would mostly eat or the food that non-vegans would eat um and then a vegan diet that's 80 whole food with the occasional Beyond Burger is probably still fine from like even a health perspective. Yeah. And if you don't care about the health perspective, then obviously do whatever the hell you want. But any diet that's more than 60% in ultra processed foods, you're probably in the same problematic boat regardless of whether you're a vegan or non-vegan. And there are, you know, statistically a lot of people in that boat that are both vegan and non-vegan. Right. Being vegan doesn't even make you more likely to eat ultra processed foods. In fact, it could be less likely because like I mentioned earlier, you can't eat most of the ultra processed foods anyway because they're not vegan. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:15

Yeah, that's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:16

So, you know, there might be a lot of things that you would typically eat and you're like, oh, that has milk or that has egg or whatever. And then changing your diet and lifestyle seems hard. So non-vegans will often just perpetuate some of these myths around veganism as an easy excuse to not try it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:32

Oh, absolutely. I I think the Billie Eilish quote in interview, I think, has taught me a lot just existing on social media over the last few weeks because she didn't even say anything about ethics. Right. Like she didn't assign morality to eating animals. She just simply said you can't eat meat and love animals. And like people have lost their minds and like gone excuse happy, like issues, like constant barrage of excuses. Yeah. And like, I'm not a bad person. I can't eat vegan because of X, Y, Z, you know? So like, I think people are always kind of reaching for an excuse that's easy that they can use. And this one, I think, gets perpetuated a lot because they can just simply point at the advertised vegan foods, which are mostly highly processed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:13:19

Yeah. So they might say like, I value my health, so I can't go vegan. Right. It's like, okay, well, I mean, that's just not true. Like, it's not going to make your health worse, but that's an easy throwaway excuse for you because you've seen it float around the internet so much that vegans are like this. super healthy unprocessed food so it's easier for you to just say oh i can't do that i don't want to do that yeah i can't go vegan nobody do so next time somebody hits you with like isn't vegan food all processed the actual answer is one there's no such thing as vegan food and two yeah some of what we eat is processed but the same way some of what you eat is processed but the real question is like what the overall pattern of eating looks like yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:13:54

So i feel like the way that we can kind of fix this narrative is like you said answering the question and maybe giving supporting facts and information. I mean, there are some people that are just trolls, but there are some people that you could maybe make understand a little differently. And then I think another way is kind of like we talked about earlier on is you could use social media to post pictures of your vegan food and kind of show that, yeah, it's not highly processed. Look what I'm eating.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:23

Maybe you can list the ingredients. I don't know. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14:25

Yeah. It's kind of funny. I think my pizza picture is like one of the best pictures I've ever taken. Or maybe it's just that I like pizza. Yeah. But I'll have people be like, oh, yeah, it's not healthy. It's got like super processed cheese on it. And I'm like, I made that in my kitchen.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:41

Yeah, you made the entire, like the dough, the cheese, everything is made from scratch with like 10 ingredients.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14:48

Minimal ingredients, yeah. It's like, I think that you don't understand things. And that's okay. We can explain things, I guess.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:56

Yeah. So I hope that helps clear up some of the misconceptions and maybe the talking points around like vegan food being ultra processed. Now let's get into our myth of the week this week. The myth of the week is that eating carbs at night will make you fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:10

I've heard this a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:12

Yeah, people say it a lot. Like, you shouldn't eat at night.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:13

Or just, yeah, eating at night in general will make you fat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:16

And there's always a time. It's like, you shouldn't eat after six. After eight. You shouldn't eat after eight or whatever. Or they just generally say, like, carbs at night go straight to fat. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah. So, the reality of it is the total daily calories are what matter for the weight and not the timing of those calories.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:32

You mean daytime calories aren't actually easier to get rid of than nighttime calories?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:37

Right. And what do you mean by nighttime? Does that mean, like, before you go to bed, I guess? Because somebody's third shift, like...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:42

Yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:43

If I could don't eat after 8 p.m.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:44

I think it's, like, right before you go to sleep. Yeah. Like...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:46

Your body doesn't switch into a fat storage mode at sunset. There's not, like, a thing that happens.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:51

Yeah, especially if you're on shift work, like you said. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:54

Your carbs that you eat at night digest and store as glycogen exactly the same way that carbs at any other time do. So, there's nothing special about the nighttime carbs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:16:05

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16:07

And then so something you'll you're probably thinking right now, if you think that this is a thing is like, what about insulin storing it as fat? That's typically the thing you'll see is that eating late at night does some magical thing with insulin and it makes it go straight to fat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:16:20

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16:20

So it is true that insulin sensitivity drops over the course of the day. So a meal eaten at night produces a bigger and longer blood sugar spike than if you eat a meal at lunch. That is true. But a bigger spike does not mean more long term fat storage. That's not really the same thing. So the claim in general is part of something called the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity, which is actually kind of in competition to the energy balance, which is like your calories. So basically the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity says that insulin is what drives weight change and fat storage and not calories. So, this was kind of an older theory, but it's been actually, like, directly tested in metabolic wards where they control every calorie in each of the crop big studies. And it's just, like, not supported by data at all. So, when calories and protein are matched, varying the carb intake or the carb timing does not drive different fat gain. this.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17:20

Is i think interesting because the people i say pushing some of this stuff are like those influencer type wellness grifter types that like they're trying to make money off of you by selling you some solution yeah like sign up with me and i'll tell you how you can eat even more calories

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:39

Um you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17:40

Know because what you don't know is this insulin thing is really how calories matter

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:45

Yeah if you are like if if you open threads right now and fitness is remotely in your algorithm you're gonna scroll for 10 seconds and see like three posts about uh calories aren't what counts insulin controls your weight yeah something that is based off of this model that has been completely debunked at this point but.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:02

They don't care because they still want to study their garbage ass course

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:05

Yeah and i mean it's like the way they study this is is not really up for debate anymore this is just like a defunct theory it doesn't happen now there are things around insulin resistance that you know affect appetite and affect like maybe it won't affect your weight but it might affect how much your weight you lose from fat or muscle some things like that but it doesn't change the fact that like your total calorie balance controls your actual body weight which.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:31

Makes sense because mass isn't either created or destroyed this is just like some of the first laws of science right

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:37

And And so some ways that eating carbs at night might even help you, not for weight, but some evidence that carbs at night may improve your sleep quality. So it helps you sleep a little better throughout the night if you have carbs late. It could also be useful for post-workout recovery if you train in the evenings. And then there was actually a six-month randomized controlled trial that had its subjects eat most of their carbs at dinner compared to a control group that spread their carbs kind of throughout the day. The group that ate their carbs later actually did have more weight loss and better metabolic markers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:10

That's interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:11

Yeah. And no, this is not like a contradiction to what we just talked about because these groups did not have their calories matched. So this was like a, what they call a free living study where they gave them like a general calorie target. And the only real instruction they gave them was like, eat your carbs at night.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:26

I wonder if that's because they were so full on like protein and stuff during the day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:30

Yeah. Apparently eating your carbs at night really helped regulate like hunger and satiety and things like that. So they just tended to eat fewer calories in general. Yeah. So what came out of that study is like, it might be easier to control appetite and stick to a lower calorie diet. if you kind of put the carbs later at night. But it's not because it wasn't the same calories and then eating at night made them lose less weight. It's like eating the carbs at night caused them to just naturally eat fewer calories because they weren't as hungry. The myth kind of comes from a couple of things. One is a little bit of a conflation issue. People who eat a lot late at night often overeat in general. So if you're somebody who's like snacking in front of a screen late at night, you're probably overeating in general. So it looks like eating carbs late at night is what causes the weight gain. Oh, yeah, an ice cream truck.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:20

Kona ice.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:22

So it's the calorie surplus that's causing that extra fat and not the clock. It's not because you ate the calories late. It's just because you ate the calories. You ate extra calories when you maybe a lot of other people aren't eating those extra calories because it's right before bed. Cool. So I think we can safely call that myth busted. Feel free to eat your carbs whenever you want. You just have to control your total calories if you're trying to manage your weight. So we have a couple of updates for deficient vegans in general. The first thing is we are, I think we mentioned before, but we're going to be starting the book club on the Deficient Vegans Discord server.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:54

We picked the book Eating Animals as our first book because I think it lays a lot of the context around, yeah, just eating animals and all of the bad things that come with eating animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:04

Yeah, we got five copies we're going to be giving away on an Instagram raffle for the book club. We're going to do a post about the giveaway on June 1st, so be on the lookout for that on the Deficient Vegans Instagram account. And then you'll have three days to enter the raffle. Names will be drawn Thursday morning on June the 4th. The book club itself will start on June 22nd on Discord.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:27

Yeah. We're going to create a channel and we're going to have discussions. We're probably going to break the book into either four or six parts and we'll let you guys know which chapters we're reading or to like what page we're reading for each section. Yeah. And then we'll just have discussion questions and open discussion on those parts of the book.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:44

Yeah. And that first book will probably go through the end of July, I think.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:47

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:48

And then we'll probably talk about it on a podcast episode in August.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:51

Yeah. I'm really excited about this one because this is actually the book that made me go vegan. And it's the book that made Natalie Portman go vegan, and she gives it out to family and friends.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:00

Oh, that's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:01

So it seems like an overall good book. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:04

So make sure you follow us on Instagram on the Deficient Vegans account. We'll be down in the show notes. That's where the raffle will be, and you can also get updates there. Also, for Deficient Vegans, there is a slightly new website. We get a little fancier. We're going to start adding a couple of blog posts to the Deficient Vegans site. More around, like, getting into veganism, general veganism community stuff. You know, on our own websites, we kind of do like fitness and nutrition. You do like food and recipes. Yeah. So we're making the deficient vegans more of like general vegan information and newcomers to veganism, you know, resources for that kind of thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:36

Yeah. Since the podcast is starting to head more towards the vegan front than necessarily the fitness and nutrition, which is a lot of the earlier podcasts handled.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:45

Yeah. So also, if you need another reason to join the Discord server, we have created a pet channel now so people can show off and admire everybody's little fur babies.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:55

They're really cute.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:57

All right. So we appreciate you listening. If you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, that helps us out a lot. And then if you're on YouTube or Spotify, you can leave us a comment and we'd love to hear from you. And then, yeah, don't forget to join the Deficient Vegans Discord server. We're up to 70 people now and it's been popping off lately.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23:13

Yeah, people talk in there a whole lot more now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23:15

Yeah. You can also check out our websites and social media down in the show notes if you want to get in touch or ask us some questions. So I think that's it. Do you want to say bye? Bye, guys. Bye, everybody.