Why Plant Protein Reigns Supreme | Brenda Davis & Vesanto Melina | Switch4Good Ep. 237

Intro – Getting soy milk as an everyday choice

welcome to the show Alexandra Dotsy here what’s up Alexandra everything’s good I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about soy people are like oh they flipped or something um no we’re still in love with the soybean uh that’s so cool of you to to uh to to be to be excited about it hopefully our listeners will be I feel like they’ve definitely heard us talk about the journey at least of getting soy milk as an option into the public schools for the 51 million children that that go to school every day and uh 30 or so million of them are made Sick by cow’s milk via lactose intolerance or an allergy or just a just a just a general disdain for how it tastes and there is no other choice we literally have a cow’s milk mandate in our school system

and really it’s it’s a multi-faceted problem one of the problems is the enormous amount of waste that goes along with this program right this is a USDA program uh they subsidize the dairy industry that’s really why the dairy industry is still in business because uh because of these subsidies but the USDA themselves did a study in 2019 to look at the waste of the cartons of cow’s milk and what their own study found was that 29 29.8 percent it’s almost 30 percent of the cartons of cow’s milk are thrown away into the garbage by the kids completely untouched so unopened

tell me a little bit for folks who don’t know about the school program well the school lunch program was actually created uh by Truman right after World War II and the reason for it was because the United States was feeding a lot of the Allied Forces during the war so when the war ended we no longer uh needed to or were um asked to feed the the Allied Forces so the school lunch program was created really to dump Commodities dump food commodities that we had extra of and I’m talking you know thousands and thousands of gallons of cow’s milk that they had made into cheese and other products but there was still there was still a lot of raw milk and so they decided to give it to the children uh in the public school system which I’m sure at the time uh sounded like a good idea you know I I believe that back then they thought that was healthy schools were segregated at that time so they weren’t thinking about uh sadly all of the children of color who are mostly entirely lactose intolerant can’t even properly digest or even digest the lactose in cow’s milk so that’s how it got created

and really what does it do does it mandate does it mandate that kids in grade school up to what age sixth grade or something have a carton of milk with their lunch no it doesn’t mandate that they have to take it it is it in order for the school to get reimbursed they have to take it so I’ve talked to literally hundreds of teachers and they stand there at the end of the the lunch line or at the beginning of the lunch line depending on where the cow’s milk is and place them on the tray of of the children whether they really want it or not

secondly the children do not have another Choice besides calves milk that is the only offering you can get water but as far as a choice that has nutrients in it it is their only choice which is why we call it a milk mandate so these children are not saying really yes or no I mean some probably are but it’s getting placed on their tray and then 30 percent of it is going directly in the trash and given that that our school lunch program costs taxpayers about a billion dollars a year that’s 300 million of years in my tax dollars that are just being tossed in the waste basket in 2019 alone so massive waste problem massive amount of uh you know a major equity and Justice problem right that these these kids only have this one choice and it is something that that makes so many of them sick

and in 2020 as we’ve discussed on the show we spearheaded a massive public awareness and activism campaign uh pressuring the USDA and the new version of the dietary guidelines to add soy milk in is nutritionally equivalent to cow’s milk because it it is the exact replica of cow’s milk from a macronutrient perspective right so just carbohydrate proteins and fats and so that got accepted right that got put into the new version of the 2020 dietary guidelines so that is why we are calling on soy milk to be the option there’s lots of wonderful plant-based milks and options but there’s a a variety of different reasons that many of the them won’t work as an option uh the nut milks as you can imagine why it’s allergies they’re not gonna they don’t even let a peanut butter sandwich in school so they’re not going to be letting the tree nuts in

and then you have wonderful milks that we all enjoy from time to time like a coconut milk maybe which is almost 40 percent fat so with the dietary guidelines uh claiming that they are uh you know aware of and not and and not they’re as saying that saturated fat is not healthy for for us you know coconut milk would be a problem oat milk is delicious and wonderful and and it Foams great in our lattes but it has almost no protein so as you go down the the nut milks and you and you are and all the milks all the alternative milks you realize that if you are going to offer some of these kids that are part of the national school lunch program the school lunch and breakfast program who may not get dinner when they go home at night we really need to be careful that we are offering them something that does have a rich macronutrient profile it can’t just have you know maybe you know no protein or no carbohydrate so which is not the case for the books but but definitely no protein some of them are very low protein like rice milk you know the the the list is endless

so anyway so we in collaboration with Animal Wellness action in the center for human economy have a bill H.R 1619 that we introduced uh via uh representative Troy Carter and representative Nancy May so a bipartisan bill uh in Congress about a little over a month ago and so we are you know the Journey of this uh because because you got a bill passed last year in December but it is all hands on deck and full court press to get this bill passed and what does that mean it means that all of the representatives and then the Senators because it’ll obviously have to pass in the Senate as well are educated on this bill understand what it does understand the equity that it provide the fairness that it would provide the the that the that the waste would go way down right because now the kids have a choice and they would get reimbursed for both milk so then then kids would choose what they want to to drink they would still have a choice for cow’s milk this isn’t getting rid of dairy but it’s offering them a choice

and the bills would also support many Midwest Farmers right because soybeans are one of the biggest and most important AG crops in the U.S with more than uh 5000 500 000 producers way more um so if if passed the we call it the ad soy act it’s addressing digestion I’m not going to say this very well addressing digestive distress in the stomachs of our youth um it would it would it would end the federal milk mandate that’s been in uh in order since since uh World War II so what we are really needing to do now is put uh put education and and pressure uh on our representatives and and our Senators so that they understand this bill they realize exactly what it’s asking for and they then hopefully want to support it

so in the show notes of this show and many of the shows that will follow this we will have a link that you can click and it I’ve done it it’s less than a minute it’s it’s it’s about 35 seconds of your time so going to the show notes though it’ll take you a few a few moments so let’s say less than a minute and you click on the link and all you’re going to do the letter is going to pop up read it if you’d like to please do uh you’re welcome to add anything of your own choosing at the end if you have a comment and then you will just press a button send right because you’re going to fill in your name and your address because this is going to go your one representative and your two senators from your from your state in your jurisdiction so that is what we desperately need people to do we need to flood these uh the House of Representatives and and the Senators with these letters saying that you support it the people in their jurisdiction the people in their state support this and they want to see this happen go to the link in the show notes and add your name to help give kids a choice so that they don’t get sick during school for having to drink milk and only milk uh cow’s milk that is so we want to add something else that is a healthful plant-based option so Darcy thanks for all your work on this really appreciate it and I’m looking forward to our guest today because they’ve been at they’d be a huge proponent of your work here Dotsy yes yes on to the guest I hope you all enjoy and thank you so much as always for the support

if you’re a vegan or a vegetarian at some point someone somewhere has probably asked you how you get enough protein it’s a common misconception that a plant-based diet is deficient in protein however in their new book plant powered protein nutrition Essentials and dietary guidelines for all ages our guests today dietitians Brenda Davis and vasanto Molina debunk the myth that you can’t get quality protein without eating animals the book provides tons of evidence for why plant protein is in fact the superior choice this is their seventh book together and their 20th in total many of them best sellers so we’re really excited to have them both here today Brenda Davis is widely regarded as the Godmother of vegan dietitians and you might also remember Brenda from her amazing appearance on episode 92 of the switch for good podcast vicento Molina is a consultant for the government of British Columbia and a recipient of the prestigious Clint Tech award for leadership in dietetics we are excited to have these plant-based Pioneers with us today to set the record straight about the incredible power of plant protein

thank you so much for being here visanto and Brenda thank you so much for having us we’re so excited to be here I teased it a little bit in the introduction but can you explain what you see as the main advantages to choosing plant-based protein sources over animal protein sources because we hear a lot about quality that word quality protein so tell us the pros and cons of each

Why plant protein is superior to animal protein

well maybe I’ll start and then visaco you can chime in I you know I really believe the evidence is so Crystal Clear on this um plant Rich you know protein-rich plant Foods I should say provide a more healthful a more ecologically sustainable and a Kinder way of providing protein to a very rapidly growing human population to me it just makes no sense to Source protein from animals when it’s not only unnecessary but it hurts humans it’s one of the biggest contributors to climate change and environmental degradation and it causes Unthinkable suffering for billions of animals who are raised and slaughtered for food each and every year and you know I just I can’t help but thinking choosing plant protein sources is the very least we can do as thinking human beings so that you know that’ll start us out in the center so you can chime in from there

well we find there are so many components in animal products that are problematic Brenda which ones do you come to your mind at first well certainly everybody thinks of saturated fat trans fatty acids and then there are things like new 5gc and and tmao precursors and there’s you know environmental contaminants that move up the food chain and then there are all the things like a heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and all of these products of oxidation from cooking these Foods at high temperatures to get rid of the potentially harmful bacteria and then you know all of the things that are lacking there’s no fiber there’s no phytochemicals very few antioxidants and the list you know pre and probiotics and those kinds of things that are absent from animal Source protein and and of course you know what we know is that the research is really quite clear that people people that tend to get their calories from animal protein have higher rates of mortality and morbidity or death and disease than people who get their protein from plants and so when we think about the whole quality issue for so many years the Santo knows a lot about this but you know we we deter we really Define quality based on and you know the the sort of digestibility of protein the amino acid profile and so forth and and I think we need to redefine protein a quality based on other things like how it affects our risk of dying you know those are important issues we don’t want an early death um

I don’t think there’s too many people that would argue that it’s a it’s a Kinder choice to choose and Source your protein from Plants but the question that I get all the time and uh you know the naysayers go to the word quality which you just mentioned oh yeah but the quality of the protein and they go right to the amino acids and the 11 amino acids that you your body makes and the other ones you have to get from sources other than your body right you have to eat it and so and that’s where people go oh but that’s where you need it from animals because plants don’t have Essentials and you have to make all these food combinations and it’s really complicated what do you say to those people

How to get all essential amino acids

oh well that is from quite a long time ago and I’m an older yeah I started teaching University in 1965 and in that the decades before that we had been doing studies to figure out how good protein was and they were done on weanling rats four weeks old and these little rats could double their weight in four weeks if they were fed cheese or meat and those Studies have still been a foundation for some of the protein quality assessments for example in Canada we’re still using protein efficiency ratio as a standard and not that many people I know in fact I can’t think of one that I’ve met wants to double their weight in four weeks like these girls and they don’t want to grow fur all over their body they don’t so they like to have long hair but they don’t want to go for all over and and the type of protein that had high sulfur amino acids was very good for growing fur but it wasn’t exactly what we need now It’s tricky to figure out what humans need because um you have different limitations on doing human studies and we’re just inching our way up there’s protein quality assessed by pdcaas now in the U.S they’ve inch their way along and there’s some more newer studies that are done with um they put a tube at one place in the intestine to see how much was absorbed in the intestine but not that many people want to have that done so the studies are quite limited you know but we find in those newer studies the more accurate studies that plant protein is proving equal quality to animal protein it’s just as good in doing the jobs that protein needs to do

and and just to add one other thing to that Dotsy then and it it is that every single essential amino acid or indispensable amino acid is actually made by plants so it makes no sense to think we can’t get them from Plants that’s where they come from they come from plants either directly through eating plants or indirectly through eating animals that eat plants or very indirectly fighting animals that ate animals that ate you know so it you know all of those essential amino acids every single plant food contains every single essential amino acids or every single essential amino acid and maybe not in yeah absolute you know each individual food in the absolute perfect uh uh profile but when we eat a variety of these Foods we certainly get the amino acids we need if we get enough calories and actually every plant food has every one of the essential amino acids the one protein food that doesn’t have them all is gelatin which is made of animal bones that one’s lacking so the plant Foods all have them

but my understanding is and this is from the 80s by the way when food combining oh yeah was that the amino acids were limited by the lowest one so if you had very little of the 15th amino acid I’ve forgotten how many there are that means everything else was brought down to that level uh is that true and can we have a discussion about maybe where plants might not be as if there is a reason so that we can at least have some be you know not sound holy biased there there must be some disadvantages to plant protein too are there

well these little Rats from the rat study you know how many foods they were fed one one food and humans are not supposed to eat just one food so these studies were also peculiar and not really related to reality but it turns out that every one of the plant Foods has every one of the amino acids and they’re in reasonable amounts now if you just had one plant food say you were only allowed to feed potatoes um that you you would be limited in um the the protein but that’s not how people eat if you eat enough potatoes you’d actually get all the amino acids even even I do that I think I think that’s where I get the most sources of protein because it’s like a joke on this show so don’t worry just eat lots that’s okay

yeah and just to add a little bit to that you know it used to be we we thought we needed to combine you see legumes tend to be just slightly low per gram of protein slightly low in methionine and cysteine and and and Grains tend to be slightly low in lysine relative like let’s say you need 50 grams of protein and all you get is 50 grams of protein each gram of protein for a preschool child they would need to get 58 milligrams of Lysine and adults would need 38 milligrams of Lysine but if you were just you know just eating one food and and getting those 50 grams of protein and that food was low in lysine like let’s say it was you know rice or some sort of grain you would have to eat a lot more of that food than 50 grams of protein to meet your requirements for that amino acid so people used to think well hey if we eat the grains and the beans at the same time we’re all good because they fill one and you know the the shirt claws they they combine to make a a complete protein but what we didn’t realize at that time was that humans actually have protein pools so if you eat a lot of legumes and you get extra lysine they’re just stored in pools let’s say the next meal all you need is some wheat toast uh you’ll just draw on the pools for the lysine and so what we what we know now is that if you eat a mix of food you get enough calories and you’re eating it’s of a variety of plant Foods generally you’ll meet your needs for total protein and for all of the essential amino acids there’s no need to do this careful complementing we used to think we needed to do yeah and we’ve known that for what 25 years with Santa it was 19 20 years Francis of all came out with that food combining grains beans and then after 10 years this is 1970s after 10 years she said whoops that doesn’t need to happen don’t worry about it yeah

I haven’t when you guys started talking about or mentioning a one food we don’t just eat one food something that popped in my mind was uh um kiddos on the Spectrum like my nephew uh not all but some will eat seven foods six I mean right like um so if you had to say to parents now okay now not not that they have a choice right because his six foods are very specific in particular and I don’t think my sister’s gonna be able to change them to six other Foods yeah but in a perfect world if there was some change that could be made what would be those six Foods oh uh they could easily do that and people in Nepal like I’ve tracked in Nepal and the Sherpas who were carrying our bags you know we walked with our little Pack set they had all the of your stuff heavy they were eating dalbot and SOG they were eating rice lentil spinach and they were fine they were carrying everything you know and uh so people can eat very well that way and it did because we had a vegetable I actually had a senior in a nursing home who was he had kind of paranoia about what the kitchen and I had to figure out four foods for him that he was willing to eat too and I know that with with autistic kids I think our grandson he’s not autistic but he he only likes his limited thing and I I often have to figure not often but have to figure out that out for individuals and I figured it out for the senior with his four foods that was okay it worked out fine what were they they were um canned tomatoes he didn’t he did and canned bean beans and bread and peanut butter and okay I worked it out it was he had the vegetables canned tomatoes he’d have a banana once in a while but I had to work it out very carefully he was afraid that that you know of what was being served to him other than that so it’s interesting yeah it’s in fear yeah yeah it’s really it’s tough because a lot of times when your kiddo will only eat you know yeah five or six Foods that’s when the dairy comes in for parents because they’re like I just need to get the nutrients I know there’s other things in it that are not great but I just need to deliver the nutrients and it’s easy and it’s quick and he’ll eat it or drink it what what do you say to that what what can the parent maybe try that has sometimes with a toddler that is very limited I’ve suggested they continue with soy formula for a while like longer than you’d normally do it um because that is you know covering all the bases or we just work out what those foods are one little autistic child near me will only eat fruit a lot of fruit and we have to figure out things that he can eat but he’ll like like grains and peanut butter and things like that and so it can all work out it really can peanut butter is a godsend it is

well let’s we were you mentioned seniors and Dotsy mentioned kids let’s start with kids let’s start with the beginning of Life and then go through to the end of life uh the pro about protein and um what humans need can you dotsy’s right a lot of parents who might be vegan themselves partly maybe because of peer pressure and the concern that they might people might be judgmental about what they’re doing with their kids but can you talk to parents who are going to have kids or have young kids and reassure them why give them some uh well specific information on what they can tell people in terms of why a kid can grow up just fine on a vegan diet and give them some options of what they could feed their kid

yeah so I I’ll um talk about that a little bit I think the first thing to recognize is that there are many advantages and to let them know that that children who grow up eating a plant-based diet tend to be leaner tend to have um a greater consumption of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and all of these healthy foods they tend to do you know as well at least um in terms of development and and um you know productivity I guess if you will and so we actually have a couple of fairly recent uh wonderful studies from Germany called the vetchi studies and and that she actually compared the intakes of of vegan children lacto-ovo vegetarian children and omnivorous children in terms of calories nutrient intake then they looked at their blood work their growth uh and and what was interesting is all three categories actually did very well uh they were meeting needs the vegan children tended to uh consume less saturated fat more fiber you know and these are all good things they tended again to be a little bit leaner uh and lower cholesterol levels uh the differences in in sort of lab work weren’t you know anything that would concern a parent at all and in fact since we’re talking about protein it was really interesting to look at the protein intake so so one of the studies was on 430 toddlers from one to three years of age and they average so just so you know the the RDA for toddlers for protein is 1.05 grams per kilogram body weight well these kids were averaging the omnivores 2.7 grams per kilogram the lacto-ovo vegetarians 2.3 and the vegans 2.4 grams of protein per kilogram body weight so all of them were consuming over double the RDA the only nutrients that the kids were tended to fall short on were calcium and vitamin D and all the categories of you know all the kids fell short uh the vegans probably had the the lowest intakes of those two nutrients um but they had the highest intakes for a number of nutrients

and so you know those are nutrients that parents you know it just makes sense to provide some sort of a fortified non-dairy milk rather than you know the unfortified options for example and that takes care of that pretty easily they contain they provide about the same amount of calcium and b12 and vitamin D as dairy milk does but with the advantage for toddlers of having more iron and so what we see with high intakes of cow’s milk is iron deficiency anemia and with providing soy milk which is by are the most nutritious nutritious plant-based option in terms of protein and micronutrient content um it’s it’s a pretty good swap because the protein calcium vitamin D B12 are all very similar to cow’s milk but the iron’s higher which is a huge concern for toddlers is get needing iron needs uh and then it wasn’t much different for the young for the the the older children they have another study that she looking at a 6 to 18 year old children and again uh the intakes of protein were you know pretty impressive they weren’t as high as they were for the toddlers but nonetheless they were they were I think it was 1.36 or something for omnivores 1.14 for lacto oval and 1.16 for vegans and the and the RDA for that age well it’s 0.85 for teenagers and 0.95 for the for children from you know four to 13 years of age so they were all well above uh the recommended intake

so certainly uh parents I think can feel pretty confident and um you know the studies just keep coming so it it’s definitely a choice that that will reduce you know and and habits really start in childhood we we learn a lot about you know and and and develop taste for eating certain foods and so you start out with healthy foods and you’re really Paving the way for a lifetime of healthy eating and I think that’s hugely important and and so vegetarian children are or vegan children are at an advantage one thing about um starting out there’s just been some new study that when mothers breastfeed and they’re vegans and they’re eating lots of vegetables the child has more taste for that yeah and that’s really interesting I find some of these kids that won’t expand their eating Horizons were fed something like a formula right from birth the the other thing that can happen for children is when they’re feds soy Foods the little girls have a less risk of breast cancer in later life and the boys less prostate cancer that’s great you brought that up that that’s that’s that’s a powerful look in a study

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[Music] that just as important I think for parents because partly because the dairy industry has done this to us but it is an important nutrient calcium and you mentioned in the omnivores and in the plant-based kids it was the vitamin D and the calcium was low so we know that cow’s milk and plant-based milks are fortified with d so that you know that it’s it’s not naturally occurring um but calcium I feel like I get asked that question almost once a day whether it’s an email or something from the website or you know that the people are very concerned about calcium especially for their children and Darien is having have us would like to have us believe that you know cow’s milk from that very specific uh bovine mammal is the only way that you could get calcium and they think that’s but we’re seeing that the kids that even drank plenty of milk or maybe they didn’t because they didn’t like it because they didn’t they didn’t choose it because they didn’t like it which we talked about at the beginning of the show with the ad soy act um a lot of kids are just throwing away the milk cartons untouched in schools so so maybe maybe they don’t like it and then the the plant-based kids okay they’re not drinking cow’s milk and I you know I eat a ton of tahini I think it’s delicious and I love it and I know that it’s really high calcium right which is just made from sesame seeds but when and I’ll tell adults that right like oh tahini have you discovered it yet drizzle it on everything you’ve got all the calcium you need but for kiddos parents are like where am I Really Gonna actually get the calcium that the kids will eat that they’ll because and don’t tell me kale because my four-year-old is not going to start munching on Kale like it’s you know and so I kind of go you know maybe dipping the carrots or their little chips and Tahini is a good idea but it’s tahini is also kind of expensive it’s not necessarily the easiest to find so what would you guys say to those parents

Tips for parents to ensure toddlers get enough protein and calcium

well Togo’s a really good one tofu is set with calcium so it’s good to look on the label and make sure that there is some calcium in the brand that you’re buying and it can be significant amounts like more you’ll get more than from dairy in that and wow very yeah in other food groups as well um so then is it in soy milk is there get a lot of calcium in soy milk well the same amount as you get from cow’s milk but I I don’t meet people okay or do um when I have clients I don’t see people that are drinking four glasses of milk a day even when they drink milk like rice like we need it from all kinds of other foods and our ancestors got it from all kinds of different foods and I found it odd when um food guides have milk as an essential food group that seems yeah quite a racist thing to have on a food guide because 70 of the world’s population has some degree of lactase insufficiency and it’s just um unsuitable to do that so some food guides for example the Canadian one have uh stopped having that as a separate food group and I think it’s moving that way why did they I mean it was only very exciting when they took Dairy off uh of the Canadian dietary guidelines do you know any of the inner story of why they did it

foreign funny thing was that um I was doing a keynote address for dietitians of Canada and I got a standing ovation um I’d worked hard on this to do it because it was at a National Convention in a very neat producing area and I came off the off the stage and we had just published our becoming vegan comprehensive and I handed it to the director of nutrition for health Canada when it came off and he said oh this is interesting my family’s uh not quite vegan but were close and they used that book while they were developing the food guide and their food guide has ended up very similar to ours I mean they weren’t following exactly I know it was because we had it so well referenced this was the becoming vegan comprehensive Edition that Brenda and I did and and so that was an influence and when the scientists start reading the research because we had all kinds of calcium foods listed okay here’s where you can get it from this Source this Source this Source all the food groups you could get it from calcium’s fortified tortillas that’s where a lot of people got theirs you could get it from white and black beans you could get it from different grains and I have seen the son of Brenda Davis at a toddler age munching broccoli voluntarily the rest of that I mean she was a vegan that’s right and there’s more right Brenda yeah yeah well and and you know the other thing about Canada’s food guide and the development is that Health Canada made a commitment to Canadians that they would not accept uh influence from industry and the development of the guy that it would be completely evidence-based taste and and so and it’s it’s not quite fair to say that Dairy was completely ousted but there’s no longer a distinct Dairy food group Dairy is now part of the protein rich foods and so it’s not that you can’t have it as part of a healthy diet but that it’s not the focus isn’t there anymore and I think part of it was the recognition that they wanted the the guide to be suitable for all Canadians including people who come from different cultures that don’t traditionally use dairy or who may be sensitive to Dairy but it was quite a process it was a long process and we’re obviously we were we were doing cartwheels when we we saw the final rendition of the guide

um but getting back to calcium I think I think what’s important to recognize and vasanto mentioned this in paleo times people were consuming a thousand plus milligrams of calcium a day without a single drop of cow’s milk calcium is in the soil and and there are many foods that are decent sources and certainly tofu that’s made with calcium and these fortified dairy products can help us to get to the you know a four to eight year old requires a thousand or the RDA is a thousand milligrams a day that’s a lot for a small child um for for a senior who might need 1200 a 50 year old plus woman or a 70 plus men who might you know try to meet the RDA of 1200 milligrams it’s not that easy to do um without using a little bit of you know the Fortified tofu the dairy milk set it sort of gets us from from this 700 or so or 800 we might get by eating a healthy Whole Food plant-based diet and then you get 300 milligrams from you know a serving of fortified soy milk or if you have one and a half servings or you know a couple hundred from a quarter pack of tofu if you pick the right tofu and but but the other foods that are really providing a lot are you know there there are a number of legumes that are decent sources there are a number of of low oxalate leafy greens that are good sources if you look at a a list you’ll see spinach near the you know near the top in terms of of calcium content but unfortunately it contains a lot of box out of oxalates and that that doesn’t make the calcium of it it it it really hinders the absorption of the calcium so we might only get five percent of the calcium from spinach whereas we might get 40 or 50 or 60 percent from kln bok choy and the lower oxalate greens broccoli and so on and so those are sources and then if we look at um you know nuts and seeds like you mentioned tahini and almonds and chia seeds are actually quite high in calcium so if you’re eating a really healthy diet with a mix of all of those Foods you’re going to be getting a fair bit of calcium where are you all short is when you’re eating a whole lot of processed foods and added sugars and oils and so forth where there is no you know or very little calcium in many of those Foods

RDA came up and um I’m reading a book by Dr Peter T at the moment who scoffed at the RDA recommendations for protein and uh I hear a lot of people do they feel like it’s the minimum minimum can you give us an idea what is the how does the RDA figure in how we should look at our own needs especially when it comes to protein do you want to see that one Brenda I I can sure um so so the RDA for protein was was really you know what when when rdas are made you’ve gotta you’ve got these these uh you know these panels of of scientific experts from Canada and the United States who go through all of the literature the best recommendation they can based on the current evidence and for protein you know of course you’re looking at nitrogen balance and all of those things and essentially what the government of the governments are are combined governments have done is to come up with recommendations that are that are actually 25 higher than biological requirements biological requirements for an adult are thought to be about 0.66 grams per kilogram body weight now um so they’re 0.8 the RDA for adults is 0.8 grams per kilogram body weight it’s a little tiny bit higher in Europe I think it’s 0.83 or something like that but in North America it’s 0.80 and and then that also that that is meant to cover 97 to 98 of the population but there are several groups for which the recommendations are higher so uh infants and children of course and Pregnant and lactating women it’s it’s significantly higher it’s 1.1 grams during pregnancy 1.3 grams during lactation so it’s significantly higher but there are others who we don’t have a separate RDA for but have higher requirements and that includes athletes and and if you look at expert bodies you’d be very familiar with this uh they’re recommending 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram body weight and then the other group of individuals for whom there are higher requirements probably are seniors which which you know most experts now are suggesting one to one point two or three grams of of protein per kilogram body weight because of the redu that we just as we get older we have less capacity to break apart protein and absorb those amino acids and so in some countries like Australia and Europe they actually have a separate RDA for seniors

um but I I think to say that the RDA is grossly under what we require is a bit of a stretch and when you consider all of those things yes it may be higher for certain for for athletes and and seniors but I think for adults it’s it you know we’re pretty we’re pretty bang on now for people eating truly Whole Food plant-based diets very high in fiber they’re not eating lower fiber foods like tofu and peanut butter and veggie meats and those kinds of things they may want to add 10 to their intake if they eat you know whole grains and beans and and are living on nuts and seeds and fruits and vegetables the digestibility of protein from high fiber foods is a little lower than it is from foods that don’t have so much fiber of course animal products have no fiber so the digestibility is quite high but it’s very similar the digestibility is very similar to animal products in things like tofu and peanut butter and you know refined grains and you know those kinds of things the protein digestibility is quite high and now some of the newer uh you know quality spores like the true ileal digestibility suggests a lot less difference in digestibility in in cooked plant Foods kind of foods people eat versus animal products then what we used to think when our our indicators were based on you know feeding raw beans and raw grains to pigs for example so we’re we’re learning that the difference isn’t probably as big as what we had thought previously speaking sorry yeah I know that was fantastic and and really helpful and I’m I’m glad to know it’s a little bit more armed par than than you know extremely low what for seniors um why do some seniors a lot of seniors lose muscle or what it appears to maybe lose a fair amount of muscle and how might we prevent that as as we age

The importance of movement and using your muscles as you age

okay well there are a number of factors that come into this yeah one is you need to move your body move your muscles to keep them active you can’t just pile up with uh tofu or beans or meat or protein powders and expect you’re going to gain muscle mass you have to use those muscles so it’s got to be a combination of eating the foods that have protein and using your muscles which some seniors actually don’t do now they’re also challenges that come up that are part of Lifestyle like dental problems and I found for example some people who have trouble chewing meat are thrilled to get some tofu when it tastes good they’ve got a you’ve got to taste good you know but they can bite that well and it’s easy when your dentures are not that comfortable or your teeth are are not doing too well and so um those are some of the difficulties of course people I’ve had seniors have trouble at a nursing home that people that were plant-based have trouble getting the protein foods they needed and even I’ve talked to the managers or the cooks you know to help them get something on the menu of some nursing homes do quite well at that and others haven’t discovered how to do it yet there are other situations like people have trouble going shopping um or or knowing what to prepare or they get kind of discouraged because they’ve lost a partner so they’re just preparing food for one so these are some of the challenges that lead to the muscle wasting impact is important for um to grow our our our our bones especially of course of our muscle but like it’s like cycling swimming wonderful for you wonderful for your heart your cardiovascular system but you need to be pounding um for your your bones to really stay strong as you get older right so power walking or running um like literally I just always describe to people as think of pounding right so jumping rope jumping right you really have to to um think of that that high impact which I have found you know seniors just kind of a lot of them stop doing it they’re afraid of falling they’re afraid of hurting themselves they’re afraid of you know breaking an ankle and so you know it it’s good to to figure out a good surface a safe surface you know because you can still do it right you don’t have to be outside on the concrete you can you can be on carpet you know so if anyway something were to happen you’d be safe but um yeah that’s a it’s another element that um happens as we age right muscle and bone loss yeah

and then the other thing that I think is worth mentioning is you know if you think of a senior requiring um you know 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram body weight versus an athlete needing 1.2 kilograms of protein per pound of body weight let’s say they both weigh the exact same amount the big difference is in the calories they’re consuming so the athlete might be eating three or four thousand calories uh and they may only need 14 of calories from protein even though they need you know 100 grams of protein a day it’s it’s just they’re eating so many calories whereas a senior tends to eat a lot less they don’t need as many calories and so the amount of calories from protein could easily be 20 and that’s a lot more challenging on a plant-based diet and to prevent sarcopenia or muscle wasting they may need seven or eight hundred or a thousand you know milligrams of leucine per meal uh that’s not that easy to achieve so it’s definitely a bigger challenge for seniors and in my view and I think this is what basanto and I are both doing in our own diets is that is that we we’re tending to eat fewer of the of the potatoes and more of the beans um to shift our diet a little bit more in the direction of a little extra protein as we age so that can be helpful to you know in a lot of seniors well they don’t want to eat a lot of beans because they cause gas and so learning how to prepare them uh you know adding and you know adding more tofu and even sometimes and people might be surprised to hear me say this but even adding some Veggie meats can be really helpful for a senior who who doesn’t want to cook too much it’s just simple to get it out and and it tastes familiar and it’s easy and and it’s a very highly available protein it’s a high quality whatever you want to call it there there’s very little fiber there so the digestibility is high and that can really help to boost protein quickly so there are lots and of course if if someone wants to use a protein powder make a smoothie add you know I always add things like hemp seeds and peas and you know things like that Whole Foods to the smoothies to to boost protein but there are lots of things that seniors that that might be feel easier for seniors making pea soups that are familiar Foods or lentil soups um might be something that they would be quite willing to do or even if it was buying something pre-made um so yeah it’s definitely a bigger challenge booster so also um I’ve been uh reading that it’s important that people lift weights if they want to maintain their muscle mass can you share about that because I’m I’m turning 60 in a month and I am really trying this heavier weights because and I never used to I used to just be really like really light and say okay I’ve done it done what I should but I’ve been reading now that the studies show that it’s better to um lift heavier uh to maintain muscle mass

The value of spending time outdoors

it is and it’s it’s important to to have some help in how to do it properly so that your body position is right yeah but I know it’s I personally I’m 81 by the way and Brenda will be 65 in January so we’re really interested in these seniors issues along with all the rest because we’ve got grandchildren and you know watch the whole thing but it it’s important to do a mix of Fitness so we’ve talked about before about the some weight-bearing exercise where there’s a little bit of impact but we also want weights we want stretching and um I I think it’s important to somehow do about an hour of Fitness a day and for some people this is going to be inching it up you know to that not starting off at that but you know just gradually increasing and increasing the weight bearing the the weights um the stretching the a bit of endurance like trying to walk as fast as you can having your meetings based on walking around the lake or walking some in a nearby park not sitting at a coffee shop so the whole mix of um Fitness is really important as we get older and being outdoors you know the Japanese Forest bathing I think we’re finding more and more that that does a lot for our body and soul

what should we be looking for in terms of I use protein powder just because I like it um but what should we be looking for in a protein powder and make sure we avoid in a protein powder a lot of the protein powders are way and that was a byproduct of dairy and but you’ll see the shelves just packed with that but we’re finding from the research of endurance athletes different athletes that are bodybuilding that soy protein does just as well and there are good protein powders with pea protein so you can get a good vegan protein powder and that can be useful for athletes it can be useful for seniors you know the ones that really are not eating that much right now and we want to get their muscle mass back yeah and so just to add to that I would suggest some of the protein powders there are a couple of of very good quality vegan protein powders that um that have a mix of different plant proteins and you know well soy and pumpkin and hemp and pea are all really good options you’ll be shocked corn tops the list for leucine and potato protein comes in number two for losing which is shocking I mean they’re not super uh concentrated sources of protein but if you extract the protein from them that protein is actually pretty high in leucine so you know having a mix of different plant proteins is is a good idea and the other thing to be um just aware of is the ingredient list so some protein powders have a lot of you know additives and sugar and fats and thickeners and artificial colors and so you want to really look at the list of ingredients and then you know there are also some concerns that I’m sure you are very familiar with of environmental contaminants like lead and cadmium and Arsenic and mercury and BPA and pesticides and you know all of these different environmental contaminants being present in some uh and they don’t have to list those no they don’t they don’t know how do we know well and and that’s tough because in fact the there have been some tests and the plant protein powders actually seem to fare worse than the whey protein powders for those particular contaminants and so there there are a few I don’t know how um accurate the clean label uh project is but they’ve got a list of you know of of what they found in various protein powders you can some of them have a third-party certification stamp where they’ve actually been you know evaluated or screened for safety and for those kind of compounds so you can look for that um there are a few companies that I think are doing everything they can like compliment you know putting together a mix of proteins and really uh Going the Distance to make sure that their their protein powder is is very is is clean if if you will okay so the I went to the clean label project website just a couple days ago because something somebody sent me something about the fact that protein powders do have a lot of Arsenic and cadmium and things like that and plant and just like you said the plant proteins didn’t fare as well I couldn’t find the list of uh and I was worried that they were just trying to get sort of then they were looking for certification like they have their own certification so I was worried that they were just I wasn’t sure it was legit so you’re telling me yeah and no well what I’m saying is I I’m actually not sure how reliable they are um it’s just one place that I’ve heard provides a list so I haven’t looked at it extensively and I haven’t really done searches to see how reliable it is I don’t know of much else I think there are probably some consumer reports that have assessed levels um but I haven’t looked into that probably as much as I should but it’s just something to be aware of and that’s one of the reasons I choose myself to add ham seeds pink frozen peas soy milk those kinds of things and I can still get a smoothie um you know a big Vitamix smoothie up to 40 or 50 grams of protein just by doing that wow great yeah I do a lot is because I like to have a lot of protein and I also get low blood sugar so I need to have snacks that work

Delicious meal preparation tips

there’s a marinated tofu recipe in our plant powered protein book that has some um low sodium tamari ginger garlic rice vinegar a tiny bit of toasted sesame oil marinating and then I have little tofu cubes that I heat in the air fryer and I love those like I keep a little bowl of them in the fridge and just when I’m making a snack I eat them where somebody might eat potato chips which um I would love but I can’t keep them in the house but I can’t believe it tofu yeah it’s good and so I’ve always got it marinating and then I’ve always got it air fried for just instant and and that kind of protein really helps so we suggest you know people are eating the legging the beans peas lentils or some other really good source of protein at three meals a day but I add in the snacks as well right well and I have to add it just made me think of this because you’d mentioned kids and kale and I can tell you the foolproof way to get kids to eat a big bowl of kale is to turn them into kale chips kids love kale chips and you can make a really healthy dressing with you know cashews and red peppers and you know that kind of dressing and make it like a Cheesy with nutritional yeast and make this super healthy snack so they’re always ways that you can provide foods that just taste yummy I’m sure that’s in one of your many books right you know what I don’t know if we did a recipe in the Raw book oh In The Raw book okay okay how many books I can’t remember I think I 14 count and they’re in 10 languages now [Laughter]

um can you give us a couple cooking tips that someone who might just be dipping their toe into um you know cooking more from with plants that they might need to know uh you know like beans or scare people and uh vasanta you you shared with us how tofu could be made delicious because a lot of people have a preconceived notion that tofu’s so boring so can you help us with just a couple tips to you know uh Peak the interest of our audience and then they can go get one of your books including plant powered protein

okay well I like keeping things very simple I’ll tell you differences between Brenda and I she’s more Gourmet and her things always look very elegant and mine are more quick so I rely on a few things and probably only prepare food two or three times a week so I make a great big salad and keep it in tupperware and it’s only got romaine lettuce it could have um napa cabbage or um something like that but sometimes it’s only got lettuce and maybe some kale cut really thin so that’s always in the fridge I can walk in the door and I’ve got a lemon tahini dressing which is really good it could optionally have nutritional yeast in it for more B vitamins but that’s always there and so that’s more than half my plate and then beyond that I’ll have something that’s beans or legumes lentils tofu and one of my quick ones is curry in a hurry and it’s just got red lentils and a curry paste that tastes good and maybe some onions it’s got like three ingredients plus water and I like cooking things in an instant pot because I want to go off somewhere and just forget about it you know like well I do forget about it so because I’m busy writing or something so then I’m careful to use the instant pot or the air fryer which finish when they’re finished and they don’t just keep going um so those are kind of my go-to’s and then sometimes I’ll make something like a quinoa salad for grains but I keep it pretty simple and have some standard things in the fridge and just go to these favorites and by the way people usually have about 10 favorites and you just have to learn some new ones sometimes people already have some that are plant-based but they can learn a couple of new ones that they love now I’ll let Brenda say some of her things yeah and and also just going from there A lot of times you can take favorite omnivorous recipes and veganize or you know make them plant-based and that’s really super simple to do um yeah for me I think I do a lot of the same things as visanta does the big giant salad in the fridge the tahini dressing all of that um one of the things that I think makes life a lot easier is to always have always have some sort of beans or lentils in the fridge that you’ve cooked and I use an instant pot as well and some sort of grain and and then you’ve got a base for you can add those to your salad so my husband and I for lunch every day we have a giant salad but I have about four or five little bowls of a Auto and tofu cubes and beans and you know apples and whatever that we put on top and it makes a complete meal

um but but I find it also serves to make a you know a Buddha bowl or whatever for supper you know you just you can just heat up the grains you can steam a whole bunch of fresh veggies and then your beans or your tofu that’s in the fridge and all cooked and ready to go go on top you can put some nice dressings a few sprouts and and it’s a wonderful meal or something like a peanut spicy peanut dressing or whatever but always cooking in batches and having those handy they they’re they form the base of many meals so that and that way like the Santa said she cooks two or three times a week I do the same because I find that you know last night I made a kidney bean uh dish that had a white wine uh cashew sauce and and fancy you know it’s just right yeah so it’s just with fresh you know with fresh herbs I got from my Gardens and lots of fresh basil and then uh just uh it’s it just makes it easy when you’ve got that you’ve got your grain or actually last night I did a Japanese sweet potatoes to go with it but you know it it I made a big batch so we have some Japanese sweet potatoes for a few meals now so you know just batch cooking just is so helpful it just makes meals so much simpler oh I’ll see one thing here it helps first of all to make sure you got the right kind of containers like those little glass jars that can go in the microwave if you use that or can be put in hot water and they don’t break ones that have the little lid and also the Tupperware for the big salad and the big salad does not have tomatoes or red peppers in it because they don’t last for four or five days whereas the romaine and the leafy greens they do last for four or five days yeah yeah I do the same I add a lot of especially cucumbers and but you can add at the last minute I always put the grated carrots right in it’s fine um so whatever you know there are several things you can put in ahead of time and I I actually have a giant glass bowl with a tupperware lid uh so you can you can also in a whatever container it’s just to make sure your container has a lid that can last in the fridge for for quite a while that way those are some very good hot tips and the Santo I really like the tofu cubes because I I love tofu and I’ll cook it and in in marinate it and all sorts of different um you know spices and then and then but for the evening and then we eat it and it’s gone so I love that tip of juice because I would pop those in my mouth all day long that is the tip I’m loving that one and I do the same thing but I don’t have an air fryer so I just do it in my convection oven okay and it works very well but last time I made my little tofu cubes I did like three I did three packs at a time wow so that you know so that there’s plenty to put on salads and and if I’m doing a stir fry they can just get thrown on top so yeah and last time I did a barbecue and I did marinated tofu on the barbecue I did six packs so we’ve got lots for for several days so yeah it’s just such a good way to do it oh smart ladies thank you so much so everybody get plant powered protein amazing recipes it’s just a wonderful wonderful book full of information and inspiration so I recommend them highly

Outro

uh where can people find both of you if they want to learn more about what you’re up to next or want to buy any of your many many books well we don’t have what we’re up to next because we’re both going 80 miles an hour but we’ve got websites um so mine is nutraspeak.com and we also have the plant poweredprotein.com that’s got a dash between plant and powered okay we have becoming vegan um dot CA as a website as well and Brenda you can see yeah mine’s Brenda davisrd.com right and and on what about Instagram and things are you on there I’m a baby instagrammer I’m just learning Alexandra and I never learned did we I’m on Facebook 50 followers with it with him I’m I’m impressed with that that’s awesome I’m not surprised at all well thank you you’ve been delightful and we cannot wait to have you on after you write your next book okay thank you so much for having us

hey folks okay back by very popular demand is our plant powered plate fridge magnet which you are going to receive for free if you leave us a rating and a review on whatever platform you’re listening to this podcast so here are the details just write your quick review does not need to be long does not need to be a whole story just be honest and speak from the heart then take a quick screenshot of the review you wrote and email it to us at podcast switchforgood.org that’s podcast at switchforgood.org and include your mailing address so we can send you a power plate we are doing this because the more reviews we Garner the higher we go in search results which means more folks will learn about our podcast so the power is in your hands leave us a review and zoom zoom your power plate arrives at your doorstep so thank you so much for tuning in today if we helped you in any way then click the Subscribe button and let’s keep hanging out together we have so much more to share with you and if you need more information on actually making the switch for good please visit us at switchforgood.org for loads of info and you can subscribe to our mailing list where you will receive all sorts of super cool gifts discount codes to our very fave dairy free products and a lifetime of powerful health tips so join us on the journey to switch for good this is the future [Music] anyway then click the Subscribe button and let’s keep hanging out together we have so much more to share with you and if you need more information on actually making the switch for good please visit us at switchforgood.org for loads of info and you can subscribe to our mailing list where you will receive all sorts of super cool gifts discount codes to our very fave dairy free products and a lifetime of powerful health tips so join us on the journey to switch for good this is the future