Can We Get Enough Protein And All The Essential Amino Acids From Plants? Do Vegans Need More Iron?

then just finishing up with protein the other big issue that often comes up as well what about the quality of plant protein can you really get all of those essential amino acids sometimes we call them indispensable amino acids from plants aren’t they don’t we have to complement proteins don’t you know aren’t they lacking and and the truth is we can absolutely get all the amino acids we need from from plants animals do not make essential amino acids it’s why they’re essential because we can’t make them animals can’t make them they’re made by plants it makes no sense to think we can’t get them from plants it’s where they come from of course we can get them from plants so all plants contain all 90 sexual amino acids we can all of those essential amino acids from plants either directly or indirectly directly by eating the plants or indirectly by eating animals that ate the plants are very indirectly by eating animals that ate other animals at ate plants they come from plants so we certainly can get them from plants now the thing to know is yes some plants are low relative to human requirements in one of the amino acids but it’s not a big concern because you know this old myth that we needed to complement proteins is really not true we can get sufficient of all of the essential or indispensable amino acids if we eat a variety of plant foods over the course of 24 hours so otherwise we really don’t have to worry about it so we need a variety of plants and we need to get enough calories if we do those two things we don’t have to worry so much about the quality of protein the only people that would really have to worry are very young children who are barely meeting their protein requirements then we’ll need to think about making sure they have some of the higher quality protein so we’ll want them to make sure they have enough legumes and usually providing enough legumes in the diet will solve that problem because the amino acid that’s most commonly lacking in children’s diets would be lysine and the most concentrated source of lysine in the plant world of course is legumes so that solves that the next nutrient I want to talk about is iron and how much do we need well women need about 18 milligrams men and older women about 8 and the upper tolerable intake level is 45 milligrams now sometimes you’ll see vegetarians need 1.8 times more than this I think that’s been that that recommendation has been discredited because it was based on one study that minimized the enhancers of iron absorption maximized the inhibitors of iron absorption and so it’s very questionable whether or not vegetarian vegetarians might need a tiny bit more but not not much more than that and the reason that women need so much more iron than men is simply because they’re they’re losing iron in their in their menstrual period every month that’s all so postmenopausal women who have stopped menstruating I have the same requirement as men so what are the actual intakes while surprise surprise here’s the Adventist Health Study two non vegetarians 20 milligrams lacto-ovo 22 point one and vegans twenty two point two vegans are at the top of the pile look at epic Oxford again vegans are at the top of the pile look at the diet quality study from Belgium again 17 for non-veg 20 for lacto-ovo 23 for vegans vegans consistently consumed the most iron of any of the dietary groups now we know that they’re not consuming heme iron which is super absorbable and so what are their what what is their iron status like that’s what really matters not as much how much they’re eating but are they absorbing the iron they’re eating so vegetarians and vegans do not have a higher incidence of iron deficiency iron stores however which is serum ferritin are typically lower in those on plant-based diets so the lower iron stores if they’re at the lower end of the range don’t affect how a person feels they’re not at a disadvantage when the iron in the blood is replenished so hemoglobin hematocrit our okay serum ferritin a little on the low side not an issue however it may actually turn out to be an advantage which is kind of interesting both high ferritin and high heme iron which is the iron in blood meat of course are associated with insulin resistance metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes there they’re associated with cardiovascular disease risk some cancers and oxidate and oxidative stress so having high stored serum ferritin or high heme iron can actually work against you so heme iron is found in animal tissue meat poultry and fish about 40 to 45 percent of the iron and meat is heme traces and other foods it’s very rapidly absorbed regardless of how much the body needs it can act as a pro-oxidant and that was actually quantified in a number of studies so very interesting for every one milligram of iron consumed per day the disease risk increases an estimated 27 to 57 % for heart disease depending on this study you look at 16% for diabetes and 12% for colon or lung cancer that’s for every one milligram of heme iron it’s shocking absolutely shocking now non heme iron in plant foods on the other hand is absorbed and released in a controlled manner as the body needs it so a lot of different forms of iron but there’s you know some of the plant iron is actually absorbed in a huge molecule with that with a thousand or more atoms of iron and those atoms are released as the body needs it in a controlled manner so they don’t act as Pro oxidants this protects us from iron overload and from oxidative stress and non heme iron is not associated with increased disease risk so how do we maximize iron status we want to select iron rich foods within each food group we want to be aware of absorption inhibitors of absorption enhancers and we want to replace meat and with legumes rather than with dairy so let’s look at these things so selecting iron rich foods from each food group so legumes that most iron rich legumes are soy beans tofu lentils black beans lima beans and chickpeas I had a friend who found that her iron was a little on the low side she added lentils to her breakfast bowl so instead of just the whole grains she added lentils and cooked them together and that was enough for her she got her iron back up without any problem a whole grains amaranth quinoa mostly the the pseudo grains are little higher in iron but wheat camel’s belt iron fortified cereals of course are all iron rich not since these all seeds are rich in iron almonds Brazil nuts cashews pine nuts vegetables the green leafy vegetables peas string beans olives are all pretty rich in iron and in the fruit family prune juice and dried fruits are are richer than other fruits and then other foods of course the fortified foods like fortified meat analogues but also blackstrap molasses blackstrap molasses is interesting if you’d want to buy organic for sure but a couple tablespoons of blackstrap molasses has about the same amount of iron as an 8-ounce steak it’s quite shocking so you want to be aware of absorption inhibitors and the biggest things are phytates polyphenolic compounds zinc and calcium so the the two that that are probably most problematic are the phytates and the polyphenolic compounds which can reduce your absorption of iron by about 50 to 90 percent and phytates the most concentrated sources wheat bran and a lot of seniors especially sprinkle wheat bran on their food and that can really impair the absorption of minerals so we have to be careful of that polyphenolic compounds mainly in tea like tannins and tea can really reduce your iron absorption so you would want to keep your tea separate from your meals to enhance your iron absorption and then zinc can interfere and calcium especially in dairy products can interfere with calcium absorption so you want to boost calcium or I’m sorry boost iron absorption so foods rich in vitamin C and organic acids allium vegetables like onions and garlic beta-carotene rich foods such as carrot spices like pepper tumeric and ginger can all actually enhance iron absorption to some degree the most potent being vitamin C rich rich fruits and vegetables and then of course replacing meat with legumes rather than dairy you see meat is iron rich legumes are iron rich dering is iron Porton what we often see in people becoming vegetarian is instead of eating potatoes they have lasagne they have passed it without Fredo sauce they’ve grilled cheese sandwiches they have all of these pizza and so on they’re familiar foods their comfort foods and they end up iron deficient quite often when they do that so we need to be aware of that