REPLAY: Going Vegan 101

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. This is episode 61. I'm the muscle-deficient vegan here with the protein-deficient vegan. Do you want to say hi? Hi! Hi, everybody. So this week, we're going to have a replay of one of our favorite episodes, which was Going Vegan 101. That'll be the main segment. It might be slightly different, some different editing. We've learned a little bit about how to edit things since then, so it probably sounds a little better. Overall, it will be a good episode to maybe share with somebody who's thinking about going vegan, or if you're a new vegan, maybe some reinforcement, pick up a few new things. It's kind of overwhelming at first, so you probably don't remember everything right off the bat. Some tips and tricks for the things you might need to know as a new vegan. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:35

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:37

So our first story here is about methane.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:39

Methane.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:40

That's the cow fart thing, right? It is, yeah. That's all I remember ever hearing about it in the news was cow farts.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:46

That makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:46

Yeah. So an organization called the Robertson Foundation has invested $19 million in six different organizations that are working to reduce methane emissions from the food system by moving towards plant-based foods and reducing food waste overall. The six organizations they're working with are the Tilt Collective, the American Heart Association, the World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund, Full Circle Future, and Zero Food Waste Coalition.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09

Wait, isn't the World Wildlife Fund the one where you can buy, like, really cute stuffed animals?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15

Yeah, I think that's been their main way to get money forever.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18

Well, they've gotten some money from me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21

I don't know if that's actually true, but yeah, they do sell the stuffed animal. it's pretty cool I've seen them for a long time they've always got like the pandas in their pictures and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:28

Yeah I think I got you some of the monkeys

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:30

Once yeah I think that's right yeah they're just so cute, Yeah, so the World Wildlife Foundation, Zero Food Waste Coalition, and the Full Circle Future are reducing food waste overall. Like we talked about in our last episode, one-third of all food in the U.S. is never eaten. Which is a crazy statistic. Yeah, so any reduction on that is a good goal. Yeah. Tilt Collective and the World Resources Institute are working to increase access to plant-based proteins at universities, hospitals, stadiums, and restaurants.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:59

That seems like a good thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:00

Definitely. stadium is a big one i know anytime you go to a sports event there's like very few.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:05

Options oh yeah or like going to a concert there's virtually none apparently billie eilish offered a bunch during her last concert round oh

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:12

That's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:12

Maybe i think maybe it was all plant-based i read something about that

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:15

I remember seeing like she basically was a requirement of her venue or something like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:19

That yeah very cool i remember uh i had my appendix out and there was like nothing i could eat at the hospital oh yeah that was like several years ago maybe like a decade ago yeah but yeah i think like the only thing i could eat was yogurt and i was vegetarian at the time so i'm not sure what they would have fed me as a vegan maybe a banana yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:37

Yeah i've read people on reddit talking about they're at the hospital and it's a little contentious because they want to make sure you're getting the right nutrients yeah you're like requesting a quote unquote restrictive diet right we talked about how it's not really.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:46

Restrictive right

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:47

But yeah so they're just interested in getting you the food you need and you're like oh i can only eat this and this and this that you have on your menu so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:54

Which is like i mean there's so many health benefits from going vegan and going plant-based rather it's like it's a little ironic to me that hospitals wouldn't have a very large selection of plant-based options since it's like one of the most healthy diets

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:08

Yeah it is surprising.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:09

It's just odd to me and then i think you know i'm sure universities are doing better than when i went but like the university i went to it was mostly for some reason they'd had a bunch of chain restaurants in in our food area yeah and the only like i was vegetarian at the time the only place i could eat was like subway a little veggie sub yeah i just ate a veggie sub every day every day all of freshman year it was actually pretty awful that

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:34

Explains why you never want subway now because actually i don't really hate their um like their bread with just a bunch of vegetables and mustard on it yeah yeah but you're always like no i'm not yeah eating that again a.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:43

Little bit of ptsd it was like okay um we also had papa john's yeah there was like a mini papa john's inside of our little food court area but you could also use your like money your food money because you had to have a certain amount of money in your whatever like food allowance thing just to live on campus right um so i was allowed using it at the nearby papa john's to get the actual menu and i was vegetarian so like that worked out pretty well yeah but so it was like basically subway every single day that was all i ate every single day. And then on Fridays, I would be able to get Papa John's.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:22

Yeah, that would have been much harder as a vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:24

Yeah, I don't think I would have been able to eat any of the shit I ate as a vegan. I don't know what I would have eaten as a vegan. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:30

So hopefully these organizations can help with that kind of thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:32

Yeah, that would be nice.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:34

Yeah. And then last up, the American Heart Association is going to help consumers add plant-based meals to their diets through easy recipes, tools, and guidance, which obviously their goal is heart health.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:42

So that's very cool. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:44

So yeah, methane in general is bad. It's bad, bad, bad, bad. What makes it bad?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:49

Well, I don't know if you know this, but as a greenhouse gas, methane is actually 28 times more powerful than CO2 on a 100-year timeline and 80 times more powerful than CO2 on a 20-year timeline.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:03

Yeah, it's surprising we don't hear more about methane. I mean, like I said, we used to hear about it kind of a lot. And we hear about CO2, carbon capture kind of stuff all the time. I know like we had the thing when I was growing up was like the hole in the ozone layer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:15

Yeah, stop doing hairspray. Right. It was like the thing I remember.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:18

But yeah, so Hairspray, getting rid of like the aerosol cans and stuff was apparently seen as like one of the biggest victories of like the world coming together on an environmental cause. And we can't just ever seem to do that again. Yeah. But it like, you know, really repaired a lot of the hole in the ozone issue just by getting rid of the aerosols and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:34

We just need to get rid of the cow farts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:36

Yeah. That was before, like, every environmental thing was a government conspiracy or whatever the current line of thinking is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:42

Right, yeah, back when people believed science and scientists. Yeah. Yeah, those were nice times when people believed scientists. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:51

So the EPA says that researchers have found that 37% of methane emissions from human activity are the direct result of our livestock and agriculture practices.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:59

Yeah, so it seems like this is what we should be targeting, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:01

Yeah, room for improvement. The next piece of news we have is about a mushroom farm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:04

Ooh, I am always excited to hear any news about any kind of mushrooms.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:08

Yeah, you do like mushrooms.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:10

I love mushrooms.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:12

I also like mushrooms. I know you do. Most of them. I got the weird thing with lion's mane where if I take it more than a couple days in a row, I start getting a little dizzy. I'm not exactly sure what that's about, but luckily I don't come across that much.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:22

Not amazing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:24

So a family has transferred their former animal factory.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:27

Which, okay, yeah, animal factory, maybe you haven't heard this new term, But I stalk the shit out of Faunalytics and keep up to date on everything they post. Yeah. And so I guess they did some kind of research on like which terms are most effective. And industrial farming was like the least effective as far as a very strong reaction from omnivores that heard the word.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:51

Okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:52

So, yeah, industrial farming doesn't seem to have the reaction, right? Okay. Yeah. Factory farming gets a pretty good reaction, like, oh, that seems bad. But apparently animal factory is actually worse, and people still know what the hell that means. So, yeah, maybe we should be switching towards animal factory.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:10

Maybe, yeah. I can see why industrial farming, that kind of just makes you think, oh, they use, like, big tractors and commodities and stuff like that. But, yeah, animal factory, I mean, kind of sounds like somewhere where you're building animals a little bit. Which, you know, not far off. Yeah, that's interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:24

I actually think it's a pretty good term for it, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:26

Yeah. And I think it also focuses on the animals because factory farming is also like the factory agriculture.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:33

Exactly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:33

Yeah, it's interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:34

Yeah. So we are probably going to try saying animal factory more.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:38

And you should too. Let's try it out. But yeah, so this former animal factory was specifically a concentrated animal feeding operation that farmed 8,000 pigs per year. And now they've turned it into a specialty mushroom growing operation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:52

Very, very cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:54

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:55

The 1100 farm is located in Radcliffe, Iowa, which I guess is like one of the biggest, Iowa is one of the biggest states for factory farms in the country.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:05

Pig farms specifically, we were talking about that, our pig farm. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:08

Anyways, the mushroom farm is currently thriving. They worked with an organization called Transfarmation Project, which I knew you would. But the Transfarmation Project partners with farmers to support their transition from livestock to plant-based agriculture. And it's run by the nonprofit Mercy for Animals. Okay. So very cool. If that's something interested to you, you should go support them. I thought it was cool. It reminded me of, I don't remember which documentary it was. there was a documentary we watched for like a vegan documentary where the guy was like a partner with

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:45

One of the.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:45

Chicken one of the major chicken farmers yeah and he was like they basically subcontract out people like smaller farms to like and but then they have to basically do whatever the large company says which is what i was reading about this pig farm too is like they were having to report up to like yeah the the major pig farm organization right so they have to basically do everything they say and do it every way they want and i guess it's pretty stressful in general the article

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:11

Was saying like there was a big mental toll yeah and like having to be basically driven by the way they want you to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:17

Do yeah you have an evil overlord right telling you to do things their way extra evil so but that was the same with the the chicken farmer in the documentary and basically he transformed um his like big ass chicken barn into a mushroom growing place so

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:35

And this is kind of the same thing yeah i said they i think it said they had two big barns that they used for um pigs and i guess 1100 farms was originally named because there were like 1100 pigs per barn or whatever yeah but anyway now they don't do the pigs anymore and they turned one of the barns completely into like a mushroom growing operation they've got lion's mane mushrooms some like rare oyster mushrooms and some other things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:56

All the cool shit yeah yeah so um i think it was a quote from the sun maybe but he was basically saying like You know, our families, like, we're not a bunch of hippies, man. We're just, like, my dad was a welder, and, like, his, and then we've owned this farm for, like, 40 years. And we're just, like, regular people. So if we can transform our pig farm to a mushroom farm, anyone can do it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:20

Yeah. They had an article, actually, in The Guardian about this farm a while back. And he was saying something like, our family is not the likely kind of family that would have done something like this.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:30

Yeah, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:30

So it's like, and that's what you were saying. We're not hippies. Yeah. We didn't do this because we want to grow mushrooms. It's like this just made sense for us and running the pig farm really sucked.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:37

Yeah. And it seems like it's pretty economical as far as like it's thriving. So love to see it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:43

Yeah, for sure. We'll see more of these mushroom farm conversions.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:46

Fingers crossed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:47

Mushrooms aren't cheap either. I would imagine you could make some money growing mushrooms.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:50

I bet you could too. Yeah. I think this could be really neat because like all the places we shop, they only have like the same two or three mushrooms. And I want to try all the cool mushrooms, but my stores never sell the cool mushrooms. I know. It's just portobellos, baby bellas, white button mushrooms, maybe some dried shiitake. maybe

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:12

They occasionally have lion's mane.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:13

Yeah well no i've never seen

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:15

They had the big puffy packages of lion's mane yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:18

Do they oh whole foods does

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:20

Yeah whole foods sometimes has lion's yeah but it's really.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:23

Expensive yeah but like yeah outside of whole foods like if you're just like shopping at Meijer or something it's like there's like really limited selection yeah so it'd be cool for that just to be able to get some cool shit that's

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:33

Why sometimes i like going to like the vegan Asian restaurants because they'll have like some fancy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:38

Mushrooms. Yeah, like enoki. I used to buy enoki all the time and now I can never find it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:43

Or the king trumpet stuff. Yes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:45

Even oyster mushrooms are kind of hard to find. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:47

So anyway, mushroom farms. That's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:49

Very cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:50

And then the last news story we have here is about melon leather. Say that three times.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:54

Melon leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:55

South Korea's Chilgok County has began upcycling melon waste into vegan leather.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:00

That's really cool. I'm loving anything out of Korea lately. We've been watching so many K-dramas. No, I know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:07

But they partnered with a vegan fashion brand called HLK to produce prototype card wallets, business card holders, and bags. Currently, it's about 10% melon waste as part of their vegan leather product. I think they said they're hoping to ramp that up to like 22% melon waste. So, yeah, that's pretty cool. And apparently, so, melon waste, you're thinking like, oh, well, how much melon waste do we have? But apparently, this county in South Korea produces a certain type of melon that produces a lot of waste.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:32

Like huge rind situation. Right. Yeah, it sounds like they're basically just using the rind from the melons.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:39

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:40

And combining it with some kind of a vegan fabric.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:42

They are a major producer of chamoe melons, which is a Korean specialty crop.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:48

If it's a non-English word, we will butcher the shit out of it, and we apologize.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:54

Hopefully, we'll see more fruit waste turned into bags or something. Upcycling is always interesting to me, because it's like, we were literally just going to throw this thing away, but actually, we can make useful stuff out of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:03

No, it's awesome.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:04

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:05

If you have any K-drama recommendations, let us know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:08

Oh, yeah. We've gone through all of them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:10

Yeah. We watched Bon Appetit, Your Majesty. What was the one we just watched? oh oh my royal nemesis that one was good and we watched mr king and then i watched this other one that i can't remember the name of that did not have an english dub but it did have a spanish dub so i watched it in spanish because i understand spanish well like a lot better than korean right because i don't know korean at all

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:40

Yeah i looked over i walked in the room one time when you were watching it and i was like this is a Korean show and they're speaking Spanish, I don't really know what's happening.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:49

Trust me, it was better.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:50

Yeah. It's easier to follow than Korean, for sure, if you don't know Korean.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:53

Yeah. I can look away and still kind of know what's going on.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:56

So now we're going to get into the replay of the main topic, Going Vegan 101. So first off, maybe we should define the difference between plant-based and vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:07

Yeah. They get used interchangeably a lot, which I guess is like semi-fair on the diet front, but the meanings behind these are completely different and it um you can piss a lot of people off by using the wrong one yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:21

A lot of people are touchy about this kind of thing for some reason.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:23

As they should be i'm not plant-based i'm vegan bitch so plant-based is like you adhere to a mostly plant-based diet and i think this is where it gets a little confusing because some people say plant-based but they're not like fully plant-based, they're like, mostly plant-based.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:42

Yeah, a plant-based diet is not even always technically a vegan diet. Yeah. Because it'll be predominantly plant-based. So you might still have some fish and meat and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:50

Yeah, even Morningstar doesn't know what the hell plant-based is because they write plant-based on their vegetarian products, which I'm not sure what tree eggs come from, but it pisses me off.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:00

Yeah, I can understand in the context of plant-based diet, meaning there might still be some animal products, But having a product, say, plant-based, feels like it should just be plants.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:12

Feels like it's pretty misleading, Morningstar. Maybe PETA should get up Morningstar's ass. So, anyways, so plant-based is diet-focused. And most people go plant-based for, like, health reasons. Some people do it for environmental reasons. But then vegan is for animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:31

The main tenet of veganism is reduction of animal harm and, like, the belief that animals aren't here for our use and things like that. So the scope of that is much larger than the diet. It includes things like clothing, accessories, shoes, beauty products, cosmetics, even certain little types of food you might not think about, like honey and gelatin and things that are fortified with lanolin that comes from sheep. And then also alcohol and toilet paper.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:58

Yeah, like a whole array of things that you probably need to look into if you go vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:02

Yeah, you can find a lot of lists online about things to look out for and particular products that are like vegan-friendly cosmetics and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:09

Vegan-friendly alcohol.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:10

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:11

I wouldn't know what to recommend to you other than there is a vegan bourbon company called what, the Brothers... Blood Brothers Bourbon. Blood Brothers Bourbon. We only know this because we watch Vampire Diaries and one of the guys from Vampire Diaries is vegan. And so they started a vegan bourbon company. But there's lots of good lists out there. We just don't have them for you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:34

Well, it really depends on what you're looking for. You know, there's lists for all these different areas of interest and things like that. So we do have an article we're going to list in the show notes where you do cover a lot of those types of things. So you kind of got your own list for a couple of various areas.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:49

I'm just not like a purse expert or like a fancy shoe expert. So I can't really tell you which ones are vegan approved. But there are lots of people doing good work out there. And if you Google it, you'll definitely find lists of like shoes, purses, cosmetics, all that stuff. just to let you know to look out for that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:05

Now you know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:07

The more you know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:08

All right. So now let's dig into the vegan diet itself.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:12

Yeah, which is also the plant-based diet, but...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:15

A vegan diet is plant-based. A plant-based diet, not always vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:18

Yeah, it's like those little word things that were on like the ACT, you know? Oh, yeah. Not all these are that and not all those are this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:25

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:27

Anyway.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:30

So first off, one of the things that a lot of people have the hardest time with when they go to try a vegan diet is how to deal with the things they have like cravings for hyper palatable foods which just means like really that tastes really good and you want to eat more of them and then things with sentimental ties so like family traditions holiday meals a lot of stuff or convenient stuff yeah convenient stuff you go to snacks yeah that kind of thing so um, we'll talk about a couple of the components that kind of make up a lot of those dishes typically and the first one is cheese substitutions yeah Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:01

When I went vegan, this was the one I was most concerned about because I remember trying vegan cheese at like a pretty young age. I don't know why because I was vegetarian, but I remember trying it and it was really bad. But this was like 20 years ago.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:15

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:16

But they've gotten great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:18

And cheese is very often like the last hang up. Like people are like, I would go vegan, but cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:23

Well, cheese is literally addictive. Yeah. Like actually addictive. Yeah. I don't know. I've heard the advice that once you go vegan, you should stay off of any cheese or any vegan cheese for a couple months and then come back to vegan cheese. And you'll like it better. I went straight into vegan cheese and enjoyed it fine. So I think it really depends on what you use it on. Because it does have like some of like a lot of the ones you buy in stores have more of like a like a sticky texture. Like if you're melting it on pizza, the mouth feels going to be a lot different. But if you're putting it inside of a quesadilla, like I don't notice it so much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:59

Yeah. I think the main difference is like vegan cheese doesn't really have any protein. Yeah. The texture is a little different.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:05

Yeah. They're most from our coconut oil base.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:07

So. Yeah. But there are a lot of really good ones. And you've got a couple that you like specific for like specific use cases.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:14

So I really like Follow Your Heart Parmesan. The one that's in a little tub. That's my favorite because it browns really well in the oven. Like if you put it on broil, it browns and it gets kind of crispy. So I like it on pretty much anything like casseroles. It's good. I know a lot of people use it on pizza. I don't usually use that one on pizza. But I get on casseroles. Sometimes I'll just toss broccoli in the oven with it,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:37

A little bit of that, and a little.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:39

Browned Parmesan on top, and it's excellent.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:41

And then you can get, if you like grating the block of Parmesan on your pasta or something like that, Violif makes a really good one for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:49

Yeah, that one's good. It's flavorful. That's the one I would eat if I wasn't cooking it. Like, if you're going to be cooking a parm, I think the Follow Your Heart's the one to do that with. There's also, like, a couple other really good parms. We've been having this one. Is it Madly Hadley? It's like a shaker.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:05

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:06

Parmesan. That's really good. That one's really good. It's like very flavorful. I think that one's cashew based. There's a smaller company that I think you can really only order online unless you're next to a large vegan cheesery or where her location is. But Peaceful Rebel Cheese is actually really good. They have a Parmesan block that's like kind of nice and melty. And they also have other blocks of cheese that you can melt. Yeah. And a lot of them are tofu based. So they have a little bit more protein than your average cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:35

Store cheese no that's nice and then you know shredded cheese is another big one people use on all kinds of recipes we usually go for Violife for these they have like a mexican they have a colby jack which is actually tastes a lot like yeah colby jack um, they have cheddar mozzarella pretty much everything you would find in a shredded cheese yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:51

This is like probably my favorite for shredded cheese i feel like it melts really well the thing with vegan cheese though if you're trying to get it to melt is the key to vegan cheese melting is humidity So just keep that in mind when you're trying to get it to melt. Moisture helps it melt.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:08

If you have a piece of sliced cheese and you're trying to melt it on like a vegan burger patty, you can put a lid or something over it and it'll melt around the patty.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:16

Yeah, maybe like drop a couple drops of water in the pan to up the humidity and then lock it in.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:20

We learned that trick by watching the Chef Max at Herbivore cook at a festival one time. That's true. all right um Daiya cheese is i think that's like the one of the original ones they seem to be the most popular vegan cheese or.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:35

Yeah it's gotten a lot better that one used to suck yeah Daiya also has like some other products they have like uh vegan frozen pizzas and uh cheesecakes and stuff yeah but yeah they have cheese it's usually not my first pick but a lot of people like it um Nuts for cheese is another good one that's like a little more artisan, smaller company. They mostly have blocks of cheese that you would like cracker cheese, basically. And I think they have a couple of dips, but they are really good. Yeah. They're like a little pricey, but they're delicious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:07

Yeah, and they have some like some of the more unique flavors. It's not like a standard cheese. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:13

Yeah. It's like, I actually don't think they're that expensive when you think of like the artisanal dairy cheeses.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:19

Yeah. They can get pretty pricey. Yeah. Thank you. And then since we're in Chicagoland, we have to mention Cheese and Thank You.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:26

Yes. Cheese and Thank You is awesome. And if you haven't been able to find it yet, I hope one day you do. They sell a lot of them at Whole Foods. They have this, I can't remember exactly the name of it, but there's a feta, a Cheese and Thank You feta, that you can kind of like work into a pasta sauce pretty easily, just adding it to like a plant-based milk. And it kind of melts down and makes a really nice pasta sauce. um also she has like a line of fresh mozzarellas that are perfect for pizza yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:56

Awesome and then for the cases where you might use a feta cheese follow your heart has some feta crumbles yeah i like these on salad a.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:03

Lot yes they are my favorite salad cheese i think violife also has a feta block but i always go with the follow your heart one

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:11

Yeah and then for cream cheese if you use cream cheese on like a bagel you know you know where you use cream cheese but violife has a cream cheese and then actually philadelphia now has plant-based cream cheese which is really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:24

They're yeah that one's really good especially the strawberry one but a note on the cream cheeses is that they are coconut oil based so they are like pretty melty you know like when you throw it on a bagel it's going to semi-melt but also if you're trying to use it in a recipe in which you're I don't know, a cheesecake, I probably would not use store-bought cream cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:46

And then for sliced cheese, you know, typically it's on burgers and sandwiches and stuff. You can get Follow Your Heart. They have a lot of sliced cheeses, but also Kraft now has vegan sliced cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:55

That's true. If they had like, I think American and cheddar, they might have a couple other ones. Yeah. Violife has some pretty good ones too. And then if you're looking to spend a lot of money on some really delicious cheese, Rebel cheese, expensive, but like delicious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:12

It's mostly like cracker cheese. Like if you were going to put out like a charcuterie board with like really nice options for like a dinner party or, you know, just like a Saturday night where you just want to eat a plate of cheese, which we've done. Rebel cheese is the best for that. And they also have like subscription boxes, which I think saves a little bit of money.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:30

So that's kind of the cheese landscape.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:33

And if you have any other cheeses that you really like, let us know and we'll try to find them and try them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:37

For sure. Next up might be condiments. So these are some, there's only a couple of condiments really that you rely on that have animal products.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:44

Yeah um

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:45

Because like ketchup and mustard those are typically fine those are.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:48

Always right

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:49

But stuff like mayonnaise mayonnaise has eggs uh so follow your heart has a vegan mayonnaise and then hellman's has a.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:55

Yeah i personally prefer the follow your heart one i think it tastes really good yeah there's we tried the uh just mayo and i i didn't really like that they should

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:06

Stick to the.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:06

Eggs yeah um you can also make your own mayo like i make my mayo out of silken tofu if i'm using a bunch it doesn't stay in the fridge very long so i wouldn't really recommend making your own unless you're using it all in like a coleslaw or something right quickly

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:21

Yeah yeah that's not the like jar mayonnaise you keep around for three months.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:24

Exactly yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:25

Next up ranch dressing obviously several animal ingredients typically but follow your heart has a really good ranch.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:30

Dressing yeah and i think hidden valley ranch has um a vegan ranch too and that one's pretty good i still prefer follow your Heart and I think Follow Your Heart has a couple other creamy dressings like Caesar and I think and maybe a couple others, but either way, I like the Follow Your Heart Ranch a lot. And then I guess while we're on the topic of, like, condiments, does butter fall into condiments?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:53

Sure, because there's not anywhere else on our list.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:55

That's true. Now, if you've been in the grocery store in the last two months, you may have noticed that, like, vegan butter is, I don't know what's going on with vegan butter, but I can't, I mean, we're, like, having to try out all kinds of different new vegan butter because all of the ones we used to buy are gone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:10

Yeah, hard to find.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:11

Earth Balance is pretty good for baking. What other ones have we been trying? Country Crock.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:17

Country Crock has like an avocado oil-based one, and then another one that is a different oil. I can't remember right now. They have two different kinds. I also read recently that I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is now accidentally vegan, as of fairly recently.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:29

Yeah, I think I saw that on Reddit, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:30

Yeah, so next up is meat substitution. So this is another big one. People really like the texture or taste of meat a lot of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:38

Yeah, some people are actually disgusted by the texture of meat. So the ones that I think are really gross because I don't like the texture of meats might work really well for you if you're really trying to get that texture.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:47

The more you dislike it, the closer it is to real meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:50

Holy shit. What was the Beyond Ground Beef actually made me cry while I was trying to cook it. I had an actual panic attack. It was just not good for me. So if you really want ground beef.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:03

That's a recommendation. We got to get the Beyond Cow in on it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:10

Yeah. so good it makes me cry

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:17

Yeah some other ones are Gardein they do a lot of the like frozen nugget shaped type.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:21

Things they have a lot of good stuff fish

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:23

Sticks like chicken tender think that kind of thing they do.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:27

Crab cakes oh I think they also have some and I don't know if they still have these but the ones that you can just kind of like throw in the microwave in a bag and like end up with like orange chicken or I think they had like an Alfredo one at some point I don't know they've got Gardein is like pretty high on my list of like frozen ones i really enjoy they actually usually

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:47

Have pretty solid protein in them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:48

So yeah the macros are not bad i think they also have their own burgers and stuff too yeah i don't think we've really used that too much and

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:55

Then also for uh burgers specifically beyond and impossible i'm sure everybody has heard of these by now but they're kind of the go-to burger patties and ground ground uh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:05

Meat meat stuff yeah um Boca also makes a veggie burger that has really good macros. And then, let's see. There are a couple other ones all around the same macros. Pretty burger-y, you know? Yeah. It will meet your burger needs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:23

And then, if you're thinking more in terms of sandwiches, Tofurky is a brand that has a lot of tofu-based kind of deli meat type things. Yeah. They have a smoked turkey is like their main one, I think, but they have a couple other.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:34

And they have a ham, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:36

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:36

They also sell Tofurky's around Thanksgiving, like a big roast. Yeah. But yeah, the macros on those are always really, they're like pretty comparable to like actual lunch meat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:45

So, um, and then in the jerky realm, um, the most popular brand is Louisville vegan jerky and it's also our favorite. Um, they have a smoky Carolina barbecue flavor that's really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:54

Then there's seitan. So Blackbird is like my personal favorite, but they're not at very many stores. For some reason, they put their pizzas in stores and I don't like their pizzas. Yeah. And I'm like, can you please put your wings and stuff in stores?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:07

Yeah, their wings are great. You just have to, you know, order them a case at a time and keep them frozen. So it's a little...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:12

Then you need to buy an extra freezer. It's like a whole ordeal. So, hey, Blackbird, go put your wings places. We don't want your pizza.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:19

Yeah. If you're in Texas, last time we were there anyway, they did have the seitan, the barbecue seitan and the Korean seitan at HEB. So you might check that out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:28

Yeah. That was actually where we found it. Upton also has good seitan. Yeah. They've got like crumbles. And then there are a couple other brands. Daring.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:38

Yeah. I really like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:39

We should try that. They have pretty good chicken.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:41

Yeah. Daring has a really good Cajun chicken, specifically if you like spicy stuff. I like that a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:45

I personally haven't tried it because I can't do spicy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:48

Really good macros too. Kind of expensive.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:49

Yeah, the macros are really good. And then Just, the makers of Just Egg put out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:56

Yeah, they're Just Meat chicken alternatives.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:58

We haven't had a chance to try that because it's not near us. We haven't found any,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:01

But. Somebody online told us it was really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:03

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:04

Next up, moving away from meat are some egg substitutes. So eggs are another one that are kind of in everything, especially if you're doing baking, things like that. So it's good to know some substitute options there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:14

Yeah. So if you're just wanting scrambled eggs, Just Egg is pretty good. Like the liquid Just Egg works pretty well. Also, I would recommend a tofu scramble. It is not really super egg-like, but it kind of like fills the void of scrambled eggs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:30

A tofu scramble with a bunch of nutritional yeast is pretty close.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:33

It's pretty close. The macros are really good. Just Egg also makes frozen patties that work really well in like breakfast sandwiches. If you're looking for an egg substitute for baking, I don't, I personally don't use just egg for baking. Yeah. Um, I really like a flax egg.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:48

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:49

Basically a tablespoon of ground flax combined with like three tablespoons of water and let that sit for five minutes. And that, that gives you like about an egg.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:58

If you don't want to do that, Bob's Red Mill will sell something just called Egg Replacer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:02

That one's okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:03

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:04

I feel like I always go back to the flax egg, but I also like pumpkin puree works well as an egg substitute. So, just applesauce or like mashed up bananas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:14

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:15

Some of those will add some extra flavor, but I actually find that pumpkin puree works really well. Yeah. It doesn't have too much flavor on its own. And blended silken tofu is also a good egg substitute.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:24

Silken tofu is good for pretty much everything. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:26

Oh, and then if you're looking for an egg white substitute, most people go with aquafaba, which is like the bean water that you would normally drain from a can of chickpeas. So also here is like a really fun fact is that the plant is here on Instagram. We talked about her last podcast. She has a lot of good ideas, guys. But she apparently she told me that she freezes them into like ice cubes so she can use them later.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:53

Oh, the aquafaba? Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:54

Yeah, which is like genius. If you're making hummus, you're probably not also making something that would need egg whites. So, yeah, she'll just like drain the can of chickpeas and put it into ice cube molds and have them for later.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:07

That's a super good idea.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:08

She bakes a lot, so it makes sense. But I was like, holy shit, that's genius. It could be life changing for you if you are someone who bakes and also messes around with chickpeas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:18

So kind of the next phase that you might be looking for food alternatives in is when you go out to a restaurant.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:23

Yeah. So the first recommendation we'll give you is downloaded Happy Cow.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:27

Yeah, definitely. Happy Cow is an app where you can find vegan and vegetarian restaurants pretty much anywhere in the world. So if you just go in there, say, show me restaurants near me, everything in there is at least vegetarian. You can look for fully vegan restaurants or you can just find restaurants with vegan options. Yeah. There'll be probably a couple near you that you've never even heard of.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:47

Mm-hmm. And there will be a couple in there that literally they don't have anything on the menu, but someone decided to put it in Happy Cow and give it a four-star rating because they have breadsticks.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:56

Yeah. You got to avoid those. It's not as bad on Happy Cow as it is on like, the delivery apps, though.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:02

Oh, that's true. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:04

Some of the big restaurant options, though, that we have seen that are good are Taco Bell. Taco Bell, if you put stuff Fresco style and pick beans, there's a lot of vegan options there, actually.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:14

Yeah, so Fresco Style removes the sour cream and the cheese and any other dairy products they have, and it replaces it with...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:22

Pico de gallo.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:23

Pico de gallo.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:24

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:25

Yeah. So that's a really good option. And, you know, since it's so bean-focused, there's a lot of, like, protein. Yeah. I wouldn't call it high protein, but, like, it's filling, for sure.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:34

And it's, like, mostly whole food, so...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:35

Yeah, it's actually... People make fun of Taco Bell, but it's a really healthy option, as long as you're pulling off the dairy products.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:41

Yeah. Next is Chipotle. Kind of the same thing, like a bigger Taco Bell. But they have a flavored marinated tofu called sofritas. Yeah. So you can basically get a very high protein double tofu bowl with a bunch of fresh vegetables and beans and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:55

Yeah. And it's very customizable. So you can add on whatever you want.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:58

Yep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:59

The next up is like a noodle bowl, poke bowl, rice bowl restaurant. There's a lot of those around now, which is great because they have great options. Yeah. You can customize your own bowl. You can add on a lot of veggies. usually like a rice base or maybe a noodle base and then the best part is they almost always have tofu At least one kind of tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:20

We found one near us that uses really good sweet potato noodles.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:23

Yeah. What is it called?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:25

Bee-bee-bop?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:26

Bee-bom-bop?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:26

Bee-bee-bop? Yeah, bee-bee-bop.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:28

It's super good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:30

And then Asian restaurants. A lot of the Asian restaurants have vegan options. A lot of them have tofu as an option, so another protein option.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:36

Like Chinese, Thai, Japanese. Thank you for having tofu. You guys make great tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:42

Indian restaurants, very vegetarian friendly, but a lot of them do have a couple of vegan options as well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:46

Yeah. And a lot of those will have tofu too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:48

Yeah, Burger King, surprisingly, they have the Impossible Burger still. I know a lot of places are pulling stuff like that off their menu, but Burger King has still got theirs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:56

Holding strong so far.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:57

Yeah, it does come with, I think, like a mayonnaise you have to take off, but it doesn't come with cheese anyway.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:02

Yeah, it doesn't come with cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:03

Make sure you don't order it with cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:04

Yeah, take it home and put on a slice of your own cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:08

But yeah, so it's an Impossible Burger patty, so a little bit of protein there too. Mediterranean restaurants, not a great protein option, but they do have falafel, hummus. If they have vegan pita bread, sometimes you can get that, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:20

Yeah, sometimes they have wraps, too, like falafel wraps.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:22

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:23

Pretty decent option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:24

I love a good falafel. And then smoothie places. A lot of those have plant protein add-ons nowadays. So you can go get a smoothie bowl with a bunch of fruits and add in some plant protein to it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:32

Yeah, they usually will let you add in plant protein powder to the actual smoothie part. And then, like, you can get add-ons like nut butters and nuts and seeds. And then, like, while we're talking about restaurants, we should probably mention, like, social outings or, like, eating out can be. i think one of the trickier things with going vegan like as far as you know things that like directly impact the way you've been

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:54

Living yeah definitely i know that's one of the big hang-ups for people and i think that's one of the main things that makes people go back to not yeah vegan diet is just like i can't go out with my friends anymore i have a lot of trouble like trying to coordinate social events with this vegan diet thing so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:09

Yeah so i think you know I'm an introvert, so my advice is, woohoo, no more social outings. Or like, you know, find some vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:19

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:19

Some new vegan friends. But also, I think my real advice would be maybe look on Happy Cow. Try to find some, first off, like if you have really cool friends, they might want to go check out vegan restaurants with you. Like, we have friends that will go out to vegan restaurants with us.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:34

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:34

Which is awesome.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:35

Because, you know, everybody can eat vegan food because it's just all the other food that's not the animal product part.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:40

Yeah, everyone. Vegan food is for everybody. But, you know, if your friends are like less inclined to eat vegan food, you could always find maybe some omnivore restaurants that have a good vegan option. Maybe that would work. Suggest things. Yeah. I will say like on the work front, this comes up a lot. But my recommendation there would be as soon as you decide you're going vegan, I would like as soon as the first work event comes up, you just got to like rip the bandaid off and tell them so that you don't have to keep like if you let it slide once, they'll just kind of take advantage of, oh, this person doesn't really care if there's an option for them. They'll just bring their lunch. So I think my recommendation is to like talk to your supervisor or manager, whoever's coordinating a lunch and learn or whatever, or like a work outing after work.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:23

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:23

Try to get some vegan options in there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:25

Yeah, just slowly, you know, over time, I'm vegan. Oh, I can't go to that. I'm vegan. And then maybe some will eventually show up.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:31

That's true. The next thing up will be cooking because depending on where you live, you might not have very many vegan options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:37

Yeah, I will say if you're going to go vegan, you're going to want to learn to cook at least as much as you can.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:44

Yeah, and maybe you can find some really easy meals, but you should, I think for me, that is like my number one piece of advice, period, is like have a couple recipes that you can make and that you enjoy eating Because I don't know. I mean, we're like about an hour from Chicago and Chicago has so many options. But where we live, I wouldn't call it a vegan desert, but it's not real great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:05

Yeah, we've only got a few options here that are really reliable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:08

Yeah. And you'll get burned out of those really fast. So I think learning how to cook a couple of meals that you really like is like the best advice anyone can give you. And I think vegan cooking can be kind of intimidating because, you know, you're not using all of those things that you were using with vegan meats, vegan dairy substitutions.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:25

If you're trying to figure out what to cook, you can go to the Protein Deficient Vegan website and get a bunch of high-protein vegan recipes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:31

Yes. And there are also other really amazing recipe sites out there that aren't just mine. Sure. You know, but yeah, you should go check mine out. But honestly, there are so many vegan food blogs and vegan baking blogs out there. Like, you're going to find something that resonates with you. Yeah. And, like, just try some easy stuff. I know when I first went vegan, I actually only made my recipes and Nora's recipes. Yeah. But like Nora was a huge lifeline for me when I went vegan because I just didn't know what to do with anything. So find someone whose recipes that you like and try like some easy stuff, even if it's just eating like a quesadilla or like a burger. Like just, you know, you can rely on substitutes early on. Since I have a vegan food blog, I thought I would just throw out some of my tips that may or may not be useful to you. Or like ideas that may or may not be useful to you. Let's hear them. Okay. So my first one is important to know that most vegan cheeses are pretty much just coconut oil. So they're not really going to work the same way as their dairy counterparts. For instance, if you're making, if you're trying to make a creamy mac and cheese, just having shredded vegan cheese is probably not going to make it creamy. It's going to be oily. um so you might need to end it add in like blended cashews or silken tofu um just because vegan cheese is a lot more oily than dairy cheese yeah so it's something to understand same with like the cream cheese right also if you have been eating a lot of cheese and if you're someone who tracks your protein and calories and stuff you've probably been getting protein from your cheese and so it's just important to know that you're not getting protein from vegan cheese anymore no

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:14

And i think that's actually one of i've read before like that's one of the reasons, um that sometimes you can run into protein issues it's just a normal if you're not thinking about protein or thinking about fitness or anything is because you're getting protein from dairy, that you weren't even really thinking about dairy and eggs and stuff like that you hadn't really considered that so you switch and you have these options that aren't really protein centric anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:35

Yeah i think that's true because a lot of times when you're an omnivore you think of like meat and your milk and your eggs as protein sources. But like if you've been eating cheese or like if you're a vegetarian and a lot of your protein might have been coming from cheese or... something like that a lot of these are not they're not made with protein they're made they're oil-based so like they just don't have anywhere near the same macros so it's just important to know if that's something you care about and then we already talked about the egg replacer you know think um for baking maybe like blended silken tofu or pumpkin puree applesauce a flax egg next tip would be that a lot of our plant-based protein options like tofu TVP homemade seitan stuff like that tempeh they don't have much flavor on their own so it's really important that you're very liberal with your spices. I'm liberal and also liberal with my spices. Because that's really where you're getting a lot of your flavor from.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:29

Yeah, it's funny because I'll watch you make your own recipes and you're like, I'm just going to add a little more.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:36

Yeah, it's like a tablespoon of vanilla, but what if I should have more? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:42

Yeah. The key difference is if it goes wrong, you can only blame yourself.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:46

Yeah, and usually what I wrote down is right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:48

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:50

I'm just so used to adding more to other people's. To add flavor, you're usually going to focus on spices and herbs, like fresh herbs really add a lot of flavor. But you can also use things like soy sauce or nutritional yeast or miso to add like an umami flavor and like some additional depth.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:07

Yeah, nutritional yeast comes in clutch in a whole lot of different ways.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:11

We use it all the time. And it's also very high in protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:14

Yeah, good tip.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:15

It's a good one. And blended silken tofu is also a great way to add protein to like your salad dressings, pasta sauces, smoothies, cheese sauces, soups, and like any other condiments you have like sour cream and mayo. But if you don't really care too much about protein, blended cashews are also a good way to add creaminess to sauces and stuff. just make sure you have a good blender because we made like a cashew mac and cheese before we got a Vitamix and it was like very gritty and it was like a good blender and I soaked the shit out of those cashews and it was still gritty.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:46

Yeah, this is one of the things that actually, you know, convinced us that Vitamix is worth the hype.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:50

Yeah, cashews. Anything with cashews are going to be better in a Vitamix. So if you don't have the money to spend on a Vitamix and you don't want a gritty texture, just use silken tofu. That's my opinion.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:01

If you are working with tofu a lot, You might need a tofu press to get some of the water out and some of the different types of tofu. And if you don't want to get a tofu press, you can also just stack a bunch of heavy books on top of your tofu to squeeze the water out.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:12

That's true. Our textbooks have to be good for something, right? We have like a whole shelf of old college textbooks that we don't look at.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:19

Yeah, and if you try to sell it, you'll get $20 for your $300 textbook.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:22

I know. That's why I held on to them. I was like, you're not making money off this $200 textbook I bought last semester. And so now I have like 50 college textbooks about random chemistry shit. that I probably, especially won't be reading now that I'm doing food blogging. Yeah, but so for the tofus that you would want to press, it would be like anything that's not super firm tofu or silken tofu. Right. So your firm tofu, your extra firm tofu, you want to press those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:52

Yeah, I don't think pressing silken tofu would work out for a while.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:56

Oh, if you do want to press silken tofu, though, you can freeze it first.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:00

Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:00

And then when you thaw it, it, I don't know, it's crazy. Like it unlocks a lot of the water from it and then you can press it. Yeah. And it makes it look like it's so weird. It adds like these weird like layers. Yeah. It's very meaty. And also, oh, also you can do that with normal tofu too. Freezing and unfreezing and then pressing it actually gives it a meatier texture.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:24

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:24

So just keep that in your back pocket. But I can't even remember to press my tofu beforehand. So I definitely rarely remember to freeze and unfreeze and then press my tofu. So that's why we buy super firm tofu. So speaking of tofu, a lot of people cube it, which... I don't mind. Cubing's fine. But I would also recommend you try shredding it with like a vegetable grater.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:50

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:50

Crumbling it by hand or like thinly slicing it, which you could do with a knife if you're good at cutting things. Or you could buy like a wide vegetable peeler. But the reason these work so well is because you're adding surface area to the tofu, which means that like more water can be released, which will give it a meatier texture. but also you can get like spices to stick better.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:13

Yeah. Yeah. A big part of making tofu taste good is getting the spices to actually like it here and soak into the tofu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:21

And getting the water to release. Like if you don't want like a soggy, mushy texture. So like more surface area is your friend. And if you're hell bent on the cubes, maybe try tearing it because if you tear it, you end up with all those like little ridges and stuff and things are going to stick better to that than like very very smooth lines that you get from cutting with a knife yeah all right now that we covered tofu like some just high level tips on seitan kneading it is going to make it more chewy and over kneading it will make it rubbery so

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:51

Don't do that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:52

So you don't you don't want that um i've heard people use a food processor to knead their seitan i've seen a lot of people talk about this like just chuck it in the food processor to knead your seitan i did this and broke a food processor oh that's right and so i don't know i wouldn't recommend that i think you could um if you have like a stand mixer that would probably work because it's used to needing like doughs and stuff but i personally i personally would not recommend you use it in a food processor because there's a chance it's gonna break your food processor it like burned the motor out completely yeah i didn't even have it in there that long so That's a thing I wouldn't recommend. Wrapping your seitan dough in parchment paper and then aluminum foil keeps it from expanding. And that will prevent your seitan from going bready. Now, I make a lot of bready things with seitan. But this is specifically advice if you're making like meaty seitan. Because it's like a dough, you know, and it's wheat gluten. it has the propensity to like expand and get like airy and doughy so you really need to think of ways that you can keep it from expanding to keep it like dense you know that's like the main thing is like keep it constricted um so double wrapping it is a good method you can also so sometimes i'll make like i have a barbecue seitan recipe on my site yeah but if you saute like the dough first on both sides it kind of keeps it from expanding as well so that'll keep it from getting light and airy too and then on that note vital wheat gluten isn't just for meat replacements which you already know if you've ever looked at any of my recipes i use it for like bready stuff yeah desserts and also like bready desserts yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:40

We just finished a loaf of um pumpkin bread like high protein pumpkin bread made from.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:44

Vital wheat gluten yeah so the key is like okay so if you're going to use it for like bready stuff. You don't really want to go more than like maybe a one to two ratio of vital wheat gluten to flour. So like one part vital wheat gluten to two parts flour. Anything more than that's going to lead it more towards like the seitan. So that's for like breads, pizza doughs, pretzels, bagels, blah, blah, blah. But if you're going to do, like, desserts, I like to go full vital wheat gluten. And the way that I keep it from being, like, meaty seitan is to add ingredients that will, like, disrupt the gluten formation. So things like sugar are really good about that, syrup, mashed bananas, stuff like that. Kind of disrupts the gluten structure from forming all the way. And I also make sure I use leavening agents.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:31

Yeah. What does that do?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:32

It, like, adds airy springiness to it. So that's why the bread, like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:37

So it's not stodgy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:38

Yeah, it's not stodgy. It doesn't remind you of meat. It's nice and airy and it looks like bread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:45

And it's still like a little chewier than not vital weak gluten stuff, but like taste wise, it tastes about the same. Yeah. And I would say like as long as you're disrupting the gluten formation and making sure you're adding leavening agents, it's also actually not that chewy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:59

I agree. I really like the bready type stuff that you've been doing with it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:03

And then just a couple of tips on TVP. So I know there are like different methods for rehydrating TVP, but me personally, I like to put dry TVP in a pan with my water and all my spices and mix that up really well before I ever add heat to make sure the spices are all distributed well. And then if you've ever done that, you'll notice that like it sticks to your pan, no matter how nonstick your pan is. So I definitely recommend like a wooden spatula for like, I don't know, scraping your pan without destroying your pan. And then TVP is also great for like baked goods or if you want to replace half of your oats with TVP and oatmeal. It's also good for like high-protein breadcrumbs or making your own high-protein granola. Yeah. What's your favorite way to eat, TBP?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:53

Muffins. Muffins? My favorite way is muffins.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:55

That's mine too. A perfect, easy, high-protein breakfast. And then on the protein realm, like just swapping pasta for protein pasta. Anytime you eat pasta is like a great way to add extra protein without really changing much. You know, like if you are just going vegan and you have a lot of favorite meals, but you're not really like super focused on protein, but you want to make sure you're getting enough protein. Right. I think the protein pasta swaps, a really easy one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:21

Yeah. Stuff like that, the protein, this is a little slightly off topic, but the stuff like that with the protein pasta swaps is also good for people who are taking those new weight loss drugs. Because you're not really like doing the fitness thing necessarily, but you're getting a little less calories. So just swap in something that you're going to normally eat anyway. Like if you're, when you can eat food, when you're hungry on that drug, you can do something like protein pasta to just get a little extra protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:43

Yeah, that's a good point.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:44

So a lot of products, you've seen a lot of products come out now that's like the same thing, but protein. And a lot of that is because of those drugs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:51

A lot of those are pretty bullshit, though. Like the protein Pop-Tarts. It's got like, okay, come on.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:56

Yeah, you go from one gram to three grams and now you have protein Pop-Tarts.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:58

Like you have the same percentage of protein as a potato. You're not a protein Pop-Tart. Yeah, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:03

No, definitely. That's definitely happening.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:05

But like I think protein pasta is a good one because it's usually like 30 to 40 percent protein. Yeah. Or like low-carb wraps are another good one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:13

Oh, those are so good for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:15

And then, you know, some other like little whole food kind of high protein snack options would be like dry roasted edamame are really good. And so are those bada beans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:25

Oh, yeah. The bada beans are really good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:27

Another ingredient you maybe haven't heard of too much is edamame puffs. So I like to use.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:32

Don't tell anybody else about them. We won't be able to order them anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:35

I make sure we have stock before I ever mention them. Yeah. But edamame puffs are great. They're made from basically like soy protein and a little bit of rice starch and they puff up. And I use them in the same way I use puffed rice.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:50

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:50

So basically rice krispies or like homemade granola bars or homemade protein powder, homemade protein bars, that kind of thing. Yeah. I don't know. They're like my favorite ingredient. They're so good. Homemade puppy chow that you can eat for cereal.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:04

Yeah, man, the puppy chow is so good. And then obviously the rice krispie treats are like outstanding. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:09

Yeah. So we like edamame puffs. You should like edamame puffs. Also, money wise, they're pretty cheap on a dollar per gram of protein basis. If you're in the US, I don't really know about outside the US. But anyways, those are like some of my cooking pieces of advice, I guess. Random thoughts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:27

Stream of consciousness on vegan cooking.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:32

Take it or leave it. I don't know if it's useful.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:34

Definitely good tips.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:36

And then for like just some more helpful kitchen type stuff, having a good blender, I think, was the biggest thing for me when I went vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:45

Yeah. Again, we were looking at Vitamix and we're like, oh, really? How much better is this?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:49

They're so expensive.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:50

I don't know. But, yeah, I mean, unfortunately, they're much better than other blenders.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:55

I know. It's really annoying when like the expensive thing is actually worth the hype. I know. It's very irritating. They have pretty good sales on Black Friday, though. So like put it on your wish list. If you don't have one, I do think it's the best blender and it does what it says it does and it is better. And I'm sorry for that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:13

Um, also, uh, you can use a steaming basket, um, for the, you mainly use it for seitan, I think. But you can also steam vegetables and stuff with it. That's true. It's good to have around.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:24

Yeah. I have those, uh, I think they're bamboo based. Yeah. But they, they're like, they stack on top of a pot that I have. Yeah. But they also have collapsible metal ones that kind of fit in whatever pot. Yeah. And so I would recommend that as like a cheap option.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:38

You just put some water in the bottom. You set the thing on top. It sits a couple inches above the water, and then all the steam cooks what you have in the basket. Really simple. And very cheap.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:47

Very cheap. And then the next one is you hear a lot about air fryers. And I like my air fryer, but I rarely use it, to be honest. And I know a lot of people use it more. And I also think a lot of people use it just because they don't want to turn on the oven because it's a lot faster. And that makes sense to me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:02

Yeah, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:03

But if you don't really mind turning on your oven and you want the same kind of performance of an air fryer, I really like a copper crisping tray. It's got like a lot of holes in it. So you get like kind of the same airflow situation as you would inside of an air fryer.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:18

Yeah, I've never tried these even before I saw yours, but they would have been nice to have my whole life. They just like cook stuff really evenly. It kind of gives it that little bit of fried texture on the outside, even if you don't use oil and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:30

Yeah, you don't really have to like flip stuff over in it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:33

I don't know. My grandma always had one because she really liked frozen junk food. She really liked French fries, right? They're so good for French fries. But yeah, she just chucked French fries in them and then she got me one for Christmas one year and I was like, holy shit, now we have three because... I cook a lot, so. Yeah. But they're a lot cheaper than an air fryer.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:53

Yeah. Oh, for sure. And it'll probably last a lot longer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:56

Probably.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:57

Yeah. Probably outlive you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:58

They probably will.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:59

I don't know about the coating on the outside. We have a couple that are kind of chipping. Yeah. But the actual basket itself.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:03

But just be gentle. I'm not very gentle with things.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:07

Next, a kitchen scale can be good for both preparing food and tracking your calories. So. Yeah. There are a lot of powders and stuff when you're baking where you can't really use the measuring cups. can't really use the spoons because you're not going to get a very accurate measurement. Yeah. So you just, you know, put your bowl on the scale, measure out 200 grams of flour or whatever you have going on and you're off to the races.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:28

I think this is especially important if you're cooking with vital wheat gluten specifically because it's so dense. But I think protein powders, protein powders are like kind of crazy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:36

You know what? Actually, I just had so, okay, this is also a little off topic, but I just had, the Veganuary giveaway for personal training and I had a client that I was just talking to a couple days ago and he told me that he's been using protein powder for a while the same one, and he thought that he was getting like 40 or 60 grams out of his scoops because he was doing a couple servings but it actually turns out he went and measured it one time and it was so far off that what he thought was like 50 to 60 grams was actually only 20 grams that's crazy the scoop itself was so inaccurate.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:08

Yeah, the scoops they give you are garbage. Like, so if you're really, really tracking specifically protein powder, you should definitely be weighing that shit because their scoops are, they're just not good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:19

I know. I did a little short video on it like a year or two ago, and the one I looked at was off by like 50%. It was pretty significant.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:25

Yeah, you looked at a few of them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:27

Yeah. And they were all off. Every one I looked at was all off. The worst offender was like 50% off.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:31

Yeah, some of them will be off in the direction of like, oh no, you ate 50% more calories. And someone will be off of like, actually, you hardly eat anything.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:40

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:41

And you never know what it's going to be.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:42

Kitchen scale is a very helpful tool. So now that we know a little more about cooking in general, what to keep in the kitchen, some alternatives, things like that, maybe the next thing you'll be asked and the next thing you might ask yourself when you try to switch to a vegan diet is, okay, where do you get your protein? Where do I get my protein? Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:57

So this is a hard one to figure out if you're like new to vegan food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:01

For sure. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:01

It took me a while.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:02

Mainly because a lot of the things we end up using for primary protein sources are things you don't use at all if you're not a vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:08

Oh, and like if you're just like mainstream looking, like this is really for if you're focused on protein, right? Right. Because if you're just looking at mainstream recipe blogs, a lot of this stuff isn't even in there. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you're not going to really know a lot of this stuff. They're not really focused on protein, which is fine. Like and if you're not focused on protein, maybe you don't need this section. But, like, these are, like, basically we've tried every protein thing on the internet. Yeah. And these are the ones that we keep in our house.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:35

Yeah. So the big one is going to be soy proteins.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:38

Yeah, which makes up a lot of, like, the proteins that we use.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:42

So soy is actually the highest quality protein we have available to us as a vegan. You know, it's a complete protein. It's very similar to, like, the animal source proteins as far as quality, digestibility, all that stuff. So I would recommend if you're interested in protein, try to focus on the soy protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:58

Yeah. And it has a very neutral flavor. So it works really well in a lot of recipes because you can just kind of make it taste like whatever you want.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:05

Yeah. Do you have some examples of soy protein?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:08

I have many examples. Let's go. So my first one, silken tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:12

Yeah. I knew you were going to say that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:13

Yeah, I knew you knew.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:14

And not just because it's on the note in front of me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:16

I think I am the biggest pusher of silken tofu on the internet. I don't know. And I make no money off of it, which please, silken tofu, give me money. But it's great, like, blended for high-protein sauces or dressings or literally anything that you want to be creamy. Silken tofu. Yeah, it's great to add to smoothies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:34

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:36

Next up would be just regular tofu, which comes in super firm, extra firm, firm. All have their own use cases, but really good. I think it's like a pretty good like meat substitute as far as like a whole food plant-based meat substitute. Yeah. And we kind of already talked about the ways you might use that. Next would be textured vegetable protein or a TVP, which is one of my personal favorites. It's good for savory stuff and also baking. Soy curls is one we, I've heard a lot about it, but I only, like, recently started using it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:05

Oh, yeah, the soy curls are, they're pretty good.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:07

So they're kind of, like, really big TVP chunks, more or less. Yeah. Basically, you just soak them in water for 10 minutes and then squeeze out the water, add spices, and you can eat it in, like, tacos or, like, on top of a pizza or, I don't know, however else you would want to eat, something like that. Yeah. Like, the size of, like, I don't know, like, chicken strips, basically. Yeah. I don't have like a good comparison in the meat world, but yeah, eat it in the way you would eat meat chunks. It's really good. And it's high in fiber too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:35

Right. Also, there is Say Grace, which is a brand name. And you have to describe it by the brand name because it's the only thing that exists that is like it. And they just call it like Say Grace chunks. But what it effectively is, is like super concentrated soy protein in the shape of like meat chunks, basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:52

Yeah. They have a couple of different shapes. Like they have bits, shreds, filets, nuggets, and I think maybe one or two others. Yeah. But it's like. And it's basically just a super concentrated form of TVP chunks. Yeah. You do need to boil this one. So it does add a little bit of time to it. So keep that in mind if you're like looking into it. But it's 90% protein, which is insane.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:17

Extremely high protein for a food. Yeah. A dry roasted edamame is one of my favorites. They're good to keep around for snacks. You can get them in basically little single serving bags.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:26

Yeah. Or like a big tub. Yeah. Or you can make your own.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:28

Yeah. Or you can make your own. Yeah. Very high protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:30

They're good on top of like salads to add a little crunch. I like when it's a snack.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:35

If you're somebody who likes snacking on like nuts and seeds and stuff, maybe swap that out a couple of times for the dry roasted edamame. Very similar like crunchy snack, but high protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:44

And they have different flavors. I'm like obsessed with the dill flavored one right now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:47

Yeah. Oh, the dill, the ranch. There's a couple of dill.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:49

Yeah, there's a lot of really good ones. So next up is tempeh, which we haven't done much with. But I think the whole food plant-based crowd really likes this one, I think a little bit more. So I don't really have any recommendations on how to use tempeh. There's lots of recipes out there for tempeh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:03

There are people who really like it. I've tried a couple different ones. I just, I don't like it yet. I'm sure I'll find one eventually that I like, but I'm not there yet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:11

We just always choose tofu over it. I don't know. For no reason. Yeah. Anyways, the next one's edamame puffs, which we kind of talked about already. It's like, yeah, soy protein in puff form. Great for homemade protein bars, rice crispy treats, blah, blah, blah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:25

Yeah, they're really good. Soy milk also. You know, there are a couple of different types of plant-based milk. Soy milk is the one with the highest protein content.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:34

Yeah, it's 35% to 40% protein, which is, I think, pretty similar to dairy milk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:39

Yeah, we went back and forth. We started out using like an almond milk, and then we kind of went to oat milk to get a little more creaminess. And now we've kind of settled on soy milk being our go-to.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:46

Yeah, soy milk's my favorite. It was like the original, you know, like plant-based milk option. And I think it should have stayed the only one. I don't know. I mean, if you can eat soy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:56

Right. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:58

And then lastly, this one doesn't get talked about much, but soy flour. This is like defatted soy flour and I use it in some baking. Like it works really well as like, I don't use it fully, but I'll do like half and half flour to soy flour for something that's going to be kind of dense anyways, like brownies. It's a good way to add protein to a baked good recipe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:18

Yeah. So those are a lot of your soy-based options. Again, if you can, if you don't have an issue, I would try to focus mostly on that. But there are a lot of people who have a soy allergy. So let's talk about some of these soy-free substitutions or alternatives. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:32

So soy-free tofu is a big one. They make fava bean tofu, which is about, I think, 90% protein. The macros are insane. Yeah. They also make a pumpkin seed tofu and a chickpea tofu. Those, the last two don't have great macros and they're also kind of pricey.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:47

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:48

So I think if you're soy free and you can eat fava beans, I would probably stick with the fava tofu if you're worried about protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:55

If you can find it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:55

If you can find it, yeah. Yeah. Uh, the next one would be like TPP, textured pea protein, which is basically a direct substitute for textured vegetable protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:03

Yeah. I think that's a really good option.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:05

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:06

Um, and then pea protein puffs, kind of similar to the edamame puffs. Yep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:10

You can use them pretty much the same way. Yep. And yeah, they kind of have like, they have similar macros. They, the, the pea options are a little bit more expensive.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:18

Yeah. And then some of the items you might keep around in the pantry, uh, PBfit is a big one. It's so think of it as like a higher protein replacement for peanut butter. They have both a powder version and a spread version.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:30

And if you can't find PBFit, PB2 also makes those as well. I think the macros are slightly less good. But if you don't want a name brand option and you want something cheaper, they do just make peanut powder. Make sure it's defatted, which it kind of has to be defatted. Otherwise, it would turn into peanut butter. I think Anthony's makes one that's like cheaper. There are a couple other brands as well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:50

And then protein powder. Obviously, if you're kind of hit a protein target, you keep protein powder in the pantry. A lot of the protein powders are going to be a blend. And so they're all going to be high quality as far as like complete protein. And you can do brown rice protein. There are a couple that are soy specific, soy protein. So, yeah, a lot of options out there for a protein powder.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:09

Yeah. And I know a lot of people right now are asking about the lead thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:12

Yeah. So there was that consumer reports thing that came out that said basically plant protein powders have a higher level of lead. And they used kind of a very low threshold for lead. kind of comes out of California, Prop 65 guidelines. You know, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lead expert. But from what I've seen from the people who are experts in this, it seems like that threshold that they used was significantly lower than something like the FDA would normally use. And it doesn't seem like they are really going up to a problematic level. And, you know, it'd be better if all of our food had no lead.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:47

Wouldn't that be nice?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:48

But that's not really an option. I mean, there's a small amount of lead in a lot of food. Yeah. So, what I can say is that based on what I've read and what I've heard from, you know, experts that I trust on this, I'm not really changing any of the protein powders that I use. So, you make your own decisions on that kind of thing, read a little more about it. But it does seem like they used a really conservative number for that study.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:10

And which ones, like, which ones do you usually use?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:12

I use mostly Ghost now. They have a vegan line. They have a vegan cinnabon flavor that I really like. Orgain, if you are concerned about the lead levels, orgain is a really popular one that was also pretty low in the lead levels on that test. So you can still stick with orgain.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:26

Orgain's my favorite, and I hate protein powders, so... Okay. Next up would be Vital Wheat Gluten is a great pantry item because you can make your own meat replacements or you can just add protein to like baked goods and stuff like we talked about before.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:40

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:41

But yeah, it's actually a really cheap option, at least in the US. Protein pasta, which we've also mentioned before, but that's a really good pantry item to keep. They make lentil pasta, which is our favorite. They make chickpea, black bean, edamame, lupini. They make blends of different bean pastas.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:01

Yeah, and I don't find that they taste much different at all than a normal pasta. No. Especially when you get into an actual recipe. Like maybe if I was sitting there eating pieces of pasta next to each other, I would notice. But inside an actual dish, I can't tell the difference.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:12

Yeah, you kind of notice the bites a little bit different if you have leftovers, I feel like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:17

Yeah, I can see that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:17

But I don't know. I like them. They don't bother me, so I eat them. Next is nutritional yeast. That's also like a shelf-stable item. It adds cheesiness, but it also adds protein. So I recommend having that on hand.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:30

Lots of it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:31

Lots of it. So much of it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:33

A big favorite of mine is beans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:35

We've been eating so many beans lately.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:37

Yeah. You can get dried beans extremely cheap. You do have to do a little bit of prep with them by soaking them and things like that. But you can also get canned beans pretty cheap. And you can, you know, use them in all kinds of stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:49

Yeah. So basically, I somehow got onto BeanTok, which is like this bean propaganda part of TikTok, where like hot girls eat beans right so like yeah i'm gonna eat beans then so then we've been making bean bowls which i don't know even really what to call them and it probably will never go on the recipe website but basically it's a half a can of black beans with a little bit of black bean juice this is part important and then you do two tablespoons of nutritional yeast And a half of a teaspoon of taco seasoning. You mix that really, really good. And then you sprinkle some like vegan shredded cheese on top. And you throw in the microwave for a minute to a minute and a half. And then it comes out as like, I don't know, cheesy beans. It's really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:37

Now, if you've been a loyal listener, I might ask you to recall earlier episodes where I've been made fun of for eating bowls of beans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:45

Because he didn't do any. He didn't season them, guys. It's not the same.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:50

Anyway i would just like to say i won the battle or.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:52

My bean bowls better than your bowls of naked

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:55

Beans well yeah definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:57

Oh okay so it looks like i won but they're good

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:00

Right they're great yeah we.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:01

Had them we just had them an hour ago

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:03

It's really simple it keeps you full like whenever we do a bean this bean bowl thing in the morning i feel like i just forget food exists until late in the afternoon at least it's great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:12

Yeah we've been eating them for breakfast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:15

Lentils also kind of closely related to beans. You can use those in soups is kind of the most popular way to use them, but there are a lot of other ways to use lentils. And those you can also get dried or canned.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:24

And dried is going to be significantly cheaper. Yeah. Then another one to keep in the pantry, protein bars, protein cookies, that kind of thing, protein snacks.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:32

Also some veggies. Now, I mean, you're not going to get all your protein from vegetables. Yes. But there are vegetables that are slightly higher in protein. So as you're going throughout the day, kind of making your food and your meals, and you pick maybe the slightly higher protein vegetables, that stuff adds up.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:46

This is for, like, if you have a protein goal, you're having trouble getting your protein, maybe this will move the dial a bit, like swapping out some veggies that are higher protein. Yeah. So these are, like, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, kale, bok choy, cauliflower, green peas, and artichokes are kind of, like... The high performers. And that's on a protein percentage. Yeah. Not on like a gram per gram.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:09

Protein per calorie. Yeah. And then some miscellaneous stuff that doesn't really fit into other categories, which is what miscellaneous means.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:17

Thank you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:19

Vegan ground beef and burgers we've talked about a little bit already. Might want to keep those around for protein. Just egg. We talked about the egg specifically and also now the just meat, chicken alternatives and stuff like that. Seitan we talked about. a really good vegan protein staple. Vegan chicken nuggets. So, yes, like a fried food. But also, a lot of the vegan chicken nugget brands are like 40% protein. So, it's pretty close to what you would look for in a protein bar. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:46

You got to check each brand because they all vary quite a bit. But there are a lot of them that are pretty decent protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:51

Yeah. And then the low-carb keto tortillas we were talking about earlier. Yeah, love those. Those are because of the nature of the fiber in them. They're actually really high in protein a lot.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:58

They also make, like, high-protein bagels and high-protein breads. Yeah. But I would just, those are really expensive, so you just make your own.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:06

Yeah, and the tortillas, so you kind of get the double whammy, high-protein and high-fiber. That's true. Good choice. And then the Tofurky Deli slices we mentioned before, and vegan Greek yogurt is a big one. Greek yogurt is big in, like, fitness and in baking and stuff like that. Try to get some extra protein in. So there are vegan versions of that as well.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:23

Yeah, and I think that one's, like, a little over 50% protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:26

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:27

I don't really like the flavor on its own, but that's just my opinion. I am picky.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:32

Yeah, and if you want to see more vegan protein options, we'll have a link in the show notes. So you have a protein database on your website that's basically a big table you can sort and filter and a bunch of different products that show like how much protein they have per calorie, how much protein they have per dollar. So you can see kind of the most cost effective, the highest density protein, a lot of stuff like that all in one spot. It's like over 200 different things on this table. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:52

Quite large. I like spreadsheets. And then I guess we'll move on to like additional resources. We had a big podcast last week on different documentaries. So we're not going to really dig into these here. But these are kind of the ones that we watched and would recommend. Cowspiracy is good for like an environmental perspective. And it also does a little bit on the factory farming and animal stuff. Forks Over Knives, mostly a health based documentary. punk rock vegan movie was really cool if you are into the punk or rock scene or you just want to hear about how it influenced veganism and animal advocacy. The next one is Game Changers, which kind of follows around, like, world-renowned athletes. So, it's more of a health-focused documentary.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:37

What the Health? This was about the kind of the food system in the United States. So, another health-focused one. Seaspiracy was about industrial fishing and kind of its impact on the environment and veganism. And then The Invisible Vegan, which was a look into kind of veganism and black culture.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:56

Yeah, kind of hit all the bases. Yeah. I could never go vegan, also hit all the bases, kind of went through any myths or excuses you might have for not going vegan one by one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:06

And Food Inc., another one kind of about the food industry and how it, you know, it'd be better off if we went vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:14

Eating animals was pretty good. This one kind of dispelled the myth of like the meat you get in the grocery stores is from humane farms.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:22

Yeah. And then Plant Pure Nation was one that kind of touched on the government aspect and followed like a small town group of people trying out vegan diet, watching their blood work, things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:34

Next up was Vegucated, which followed around three meat and cheese loving New Yorkers who agreed to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks. So that was pretty fun to watch.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:42

And then Earthlings and Dominion are both really like graphic undercover looks at the actual farms themselves. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:50

And we actually didn't watch those, so we don't want to lie. But these are more for if the other ones didn't turn you vegan These probably will

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:57

Also, a couple of books we really like. One is a book that was also one of the movies we just mentioned, but eating animals.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:13:04

Yeah, this is from Jonathan Safran. Basically, it's part memoir, part investigative reporting, but it examines the morals around veganism, farming, and then the food we eat every day. This is actually the book I read that made me go vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:13:17

Another one I really like is How Not to Die by Dr. Greger and Gene Stone. This talks about the most common causes of death from disease and how a plant-based diet can basically help with every one of those in various ways.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:13:31

Yeah, this one was really interesting. The third one we'll recommend is The Impactful Vegan by Robert Cheeke. This one's more for like if you're already vegan and you're looking to do more advocacy slash activism work. He discusses how vegans can maximize their impact by using our time, money and energy so that it goes further. And I thought this one was really insightful on like if you're already vegan, like what can you be doing to move the dial?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:13:57

Yeah, I really appreciated that book. um then we have some websites that might be cool to look at to try to you know especially i find that if i'm trying something new it helps me to go and find some like sites to talk about it kind of keep them on my bookmarks and look at them once in a while so a couple that are really cool for veganism one i really like is great vegan athletes so this is basically a site that just keeps you know profiles of a whole bunch of elite vegan athletes and various sports so you can go see oh who are all the rugby players that are vegan who are the olympians that are vegan so you can just see you know what people can do and then.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14:28

Veg news and veganuary i would say are both really good vegan resources uh veg news focuses more on kind of news but they also have a lot of recipes and then obviously we had stew from veganuary on and um their website is great it has a ton of resources and recipes yeah

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:44

They do um next is Veggl uh it's a good reference for how to order vegan at various chain restaurants so a lot of times you really uh does arby's have vegan food or whatever you find the Veggl article. Not to be confused with Veggly, which is apparently like a vegan dating app, which you could use too, I guess. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:01

If you're looking for a vegan partner, you have that as an option. Happy Cow is like, we've already talked about it, but really excellent for finding vegan options near you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:12

Also, if you use Reddit or if you Google for anything vegan, you'll probably end up on Reddit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:17

Yeah, but I personally think if you're going vegan, Reddit, you should get Reddit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:22

Oh, there's so much good information on there. Yeah. So a couple of the subreddits, which are basically communities on Reddit for vegans, are, well, there's one called Vegan. Yeah. So that's the main kind of hub for all things vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:33

A lot of news. You can also come here with questions as long as they're in good faith. Vegan fitness is probably the one we're on the most.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:41

Yeah, that one's really nice for anybody interested in fitness who is a vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:44

Yeah, it's like high protein, vegan recipes, fitness health discussions, progress pictures. But like if you have questions around like if you're starting a fitness journey or you're having trouble hitting your protein, I think this one's a really, really good place to go ask questions. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16:00

It's also the protein deficient vegan subreddit, which is kind of similar to vegan fitness, but no selfies, mostly about recipes and asking questions.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:16:07

And anyone can post there. Yeah. People don't post very often other than me, but you can. and you should yeah um next up is vegan recipes and like uh as the name implies lots of vegan recipes there these

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16:18

Are all pretty well named yeah plant-based diet is more about the diet focus and less about veganism so if you're just specifically interested in food you can go there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:16:28

Eat cheap and vegan is one of my favorites this one's like good if you're on a budget and you need recipes they've got a lot and it's a good place to ask questions yeah and then i will say like being a vegan can feel very lonely so finding a place where you can find other vegans to talk with or find like you know what i mean or like socialize with i think is really helpful to make you feel like i don't know i i actually heard a lot of people stop being vegan because they feel like so alone in it and they just want to feel like normal and back like part of society again so i think um i don't know places like these reddit communities are really helpful because it makes you feel like you're not like the only vegan in the world out there there's a lot of people that can relate to you um I don't know, even like if you're on social media and you want to like start a vegan social media account, I think there's a lot of like really good vegan communities on like Instagram. Like you can find people to talk to. You know what I mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:22

It's also really helpful because as you're going vegan, you probably have a lot of questions and there's nobody in your real life that can probably answer. Right. So you can go read blogs and stuff like that, but it's helpful sometimes just to have a discussion with a person.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17:34

Start a social media account that's vegan and like make some friends. Or you can join our Deficient Vegans Discord where it's vegans. You can ask vegan questions. Find a place to find vegans. That's my, like, I would say big advice, though, so you don't feel alone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:47

So in conclusion, some of the actionable takeaways you might have here after listening. Make sure you find alternatives for the food you love if you're trying to go vegan. That's going to be really important to making sure that you can stick to it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17:58

Yep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:59

Also, learn to find restaurants with vegan options. The main way we do that is Happy Cow, and I consider that to be the best way. But if you join some of these vegan communities, especially local communities, those can also highlight some restaurants you might not know about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:11

Yeah, and Reddit has a couple different, like, location-based vegan communities. I know we're on, like, Chicago Vegan a lot, so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:18

Yeah. Also, make sure you plan ahead for any social situations. You want to make sure, like, you're going to a restaurant that's going to have something you can eat. If you're going to a family gathering, they're going to have some options for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:28

Or, like, oh, work, lunch, and learn. Just make sure that you're having these discussions with people so that they know you're vegan. Yeah. I'd say improving your cooking skills is probably one of the biggest takeaways.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:38

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:38

Learn how to cook at least a couple things that you enjoy and that's, like, fun for you or, like, at least pretty simple and easy for you to do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:46

Yeah, definitely. Focus on your protein. Even if you're not necessarily, like, lifting and have a protein goal, you just be aware that you had a lot of kind of hidden protein before that you weren't paying much attention to. And some of that's probably not going to be there naturally, no. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:01

I don't think it's a bad idea if you first go vegan to like track your food for a couple weeks just to make sure you're hitting your protein.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:06

Yeah. And your micronutrients. Yeah. And then be aware that a lot of things use animal-derived ingredients that you might not think do.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:14

Yeah. If you're going vegan, it's not just about food. Like, make sure you're looking at your clothing and your makeup and your, like, home goods and stuff like that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:21

Yeah. One of the big surprises for me was toilet paper. Most toilet paper has gelatin. So if you're vegan, you can't really ethically use gelatin. So you might have to make some decisions there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:32

We use who gives a crap. It comes in a big box, which is really nice if another pandemic hits.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:36

So that's pretty much it for the how to go vegan one on one crash course.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:42

Sorry, it was long. We had a lot to say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:44

OK, so let's do our bite size coaching for this week. If you don't know, I'm a personal trainer. I did a couple of ask me anything on Reddit and had a couple of interesting. I had a lot of interesting questions there. So I wanted to share one of those with you today. Um, I remember you get to ask the questions.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:00

I do. I do get to ask the questions. Okay. For some reason, this one got deleted by the moderator.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:05

In Reddit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:06

On Reddit, yeah. Yeah. Um, but this, this was the question. How do you deal with protein farts when you're in a confined space with other humans after eating 50 grams of protein?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:20

This seemed like a very specific question to me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:23

Also, what do they mean by confined space? Because I only know that from, like, industry term of confined space, which I'm sure is not what they mean.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:30

I think they just meant, like, you're working in an office with somebody or you're, like, hanging out in the house, like, on the couch with somebody.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:35

That is not a confined space.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:36

I guess not, technically. I don't really know what they mean. My guess would be they were in an office.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:40

The colloquial use of confined space. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:42

Got it. Yeah, not, like, whatever you're thinking.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:47

Okay, so how do you do it?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:48

Yeah, so, first of all, I'd recommend not downing 50 grams of protein in 30 seconds right before you're going to be in a confined space with somebody. Yeah. But if you do, you have to follow the golden rule in society of whoever smelt it, dealt it, and you don't smell anything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:01

Oh, you just act stupid about it. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:04

Obviously.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:04

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:06

On a more serious note, the protein farts can often be from additives in the protein powders or the protein bars. So you might try different types. One of the big triggers is kind of like a sugar alcohol. Sometimes you're maybe a little more sensitive to one or the other sugar alcohols or artificial sweeteners or something. So you can kind of try a couple of different ones. Maybe try, if you can find one with natural sugar, it's actually kind of hard. But maybe that won't make you as gassy. They're not like, this causes gas. But some people, they're a little less gassy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:35

Yeah, you're a little sensitive to sugar alcohols.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:37

Also, just in general, vegan proteins are a lot less gas producing than like whey or egg proteins. Yeah. Because they don't have as much of the sulfur amino acids.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:44

And they don't smell as bad. Right. In my opinion.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:47

Same thing, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:50

Um, what about like just gassiness overall? Like a lot of people say they get gassy when they start eating more vegan protein sources. Like, I don't know, soy and beans and stuff is normally what I hear.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:01

Yeah, a lot of it is you kind of changed your diet a lot immediately. Like people who are like, oh, Taco Bell makes me have diarrhea or whatever. It's because you never eat fiber. And then you go to Taco Bell and you just had 20 grams of fiber in one meal. So I would say just in general, anytime you're going to change your diet, whether it's ramping up protein or you're starting to eat a lot more beans or something like that, just kind of ramp it up slowly instead of a drastic change. That way your gut microbiome has time to adapt to it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:25

That makes sense. Yeah. I've also heard, like, soaking your beans can help. Rinsing your beans can help. Soaking TVP, rinsing TVP.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:34

If they're dry beans, for sure you want to soak them. I think canned beans are already.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:38

Well, obviously you're going to soak your dry beans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:40

Well, some people don't. They eat them dry? Well, no, they just cook them without soaking them first. Like soak them. You have to like soak them to get them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:48

Soak these beans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:49

Yeah. So anyway. But yeah, canned beans are already pretty much, you can just eat them out of the can. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:58

I've had people say that they rinse them before they eat them out of the can because they said that helps with their gassiness.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23:03

All right. Well, there's a tip. I don't know that one, if that actually contributes or not, but hey, try it out. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff to try. A lot of weird things can make people have gas.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23:11

Oh, yeah. I mean, it could just be like digestive issues too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23:13

As far as the protein powder goes, if you do want to try to eliminate some of the fillers and stuff, there's one brand of protein powder called Naked that just does single ingredient protein powders. So they have a rice and a pea version that are vegan. So the ingredient is like literally just yellow peas or whatever. Yeah. You can try that. Also, peas on their own are something that might make you more gassy. So you might try the rice instead if you find pea protein makes you gassy or find something that's like a pea rice blend.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23:42

What about peanut powder?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23:44

Peanut powder might work, yeah. You can try that out. Yeah, so I think you just kind of have to try things until you figure out, like, what it is that makes you specifically more gassy. But in general, it's like, don't have a ton of it at once and don't, like, drastically change your diet overnight.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:00

And then the other thing I would remember is that even if you're more gassy, vegan farts don't smell as bad as omnivore farts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:06

Yeah, there you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:07

And that's just a fact.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:08

That's what you use for the argument for whoever's complaining about your farts. Yeah. But they could smell much worse.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:13

They could smell like yours.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:16

Anyway, yeah. I mean, a couple. It's a little bit of trial and error because there's nothing that like definitely causes farts. But yeah, you have to kind of figure it out for your own gut.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:24

Yeah. And don't hold in your farts, though, because apparently if you hold in farts, that can give you bad breath. If you're constantly holding in your farts. No, you're looking at me weird. This is a real thing. No, I'm serious. Okay. This is real.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:38

If I can find a link to how real that is, we'll put it in the show notes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:41

So it will be in the show notes because it's real.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:45

All right. Yeah. So that's pretty much it for the coaching. Now we have some updates for the Deficient Vegans community on Discord, specifically around the book club.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:54

Okay. So pretty exciting. Can I announce it?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:58

Of course.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:58

Yeah. So we did a poll and the results are in. The next book for the book club is, can I get the drum roll thing? The next book for the book club is The Impactful Vegan. Yay. Woo. The crowd goes mild.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:15

That's a good book. Yeah. I really like that one. We have read that one before, but I'm really excited.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25:20

Gonna read it again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:21

I'm actually excited to read it again because I'm sure I need some refreshers on some of the stuff in there. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25:25

And then there was a close second and.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:28

A very different type of book.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25:29

A very different type of book, like a horror book. And we're pretty excited about that one, too. And there was enough interest that we're going to be doing a second book club back to back.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:41

Yeah. Like a spooky book club.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25:43

Like a spooky book club for Halloween. So The Impactful Vegan will be in early September and we'll give you more dates as that approaches probably next week. And then.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:54

Tender is the flesh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25:55

Tender is the flesh. That will be in October going through Halloween.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:01

Do we know if this book is PG-13?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:03

I don't think so. I don't think it is.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:06

I don't think I've ever read a book that had the word tender flesh in the title. So we'll see how it goes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:10

I haven't either. Sounds pretty good. It sounds like my vibe. So I'm really excited about this one. We didn't vote, but I probably would have voted on that one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:22

I probably would have voted on The Impactful Vegan, but I'm happy to participate with the other book, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:27

He's going to have to read it regardless if he wants to or not. But we are doing a raffle for five impactful vegan books next week on our Instagram accounts. So keep an eye out for that if you want to enter.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:41

All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. We really appreciate it. If you are listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify, if you could rate and leave us a review, that helps the show get out there, and we appreciate it. If you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can also leave us a comment if you have maybe something you want answered in the Bite Size Coaching segment or just something you want us to talk about on the podcast or you just want to provide some feedback. Either way, we'd love to hear that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:27:02

Or you just want a private answer.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:27:03

Yeah, there you go. all right yeah so as always you can check the show notes for any links to our social media our websites or any of the the references or the things we talked about here today all right i think that's it you want to say bye bye guys bye everybody.