Be Very Picky About Your Protein Sources with Brenda Davis R.D.

be very picky about your protein sources meat poultry fish eggs and dairy products are very rich sources of high-quality protein we know that but they’re not the only sources nor are they the preferred sources for human health I love this cartoon this little rodent is saying to the gorillas no meat at all are you sure you’re getting enough protein and the point being that the largest strongest land animals on the planet are all vegetarian so that should tell us something you know and if you go to there’s a website called vegan bodybuilding calm these all three of these people here are 100% vegan bodybuilders and/or athletes and if they can do it we probably can too

you know there are major advantages to getting protein from plant foods over animal products you know plant foods are tremendous sources of phytochemicals and antioxidants animal products don’t offer that they’re high in iron and zinc like meat is but they also provide calcium and potassium and magnesium and folate other nutrients that we don’t get a lot of from meat they provide fiber they’re low in fat their cholesterol free they’re free of neu5gc which is a very pro-inflammatory molecule and meat they’re there they’re free of carnitine and carnitine as we mentioned earlier is responsible for the production of TMA by gut bacteria which goes to the liver to form TMAO which is very a thorough genic they provide a safer form of iron for the body for example in legumes ferritin is absorbed very slowly into the gut and there are literally thousands of iron atoms in one molecule of ferritin and then the iron is released slowly as our body needs it whereas iron from animal products the heme iron particularly is a strong Pro oxidant increases oxidative stress so and of course the plant foods are free of hormones and antibiotics that are used in animal products

so how much protein do we actually need well the World Health Organization’s suggest 10 to 15% of calories from protein the RDA is pointed eight grams per kilogram of body weight many dietitians such as myself suggest an added 10 to 20 percent for vegans simply not because the protein is lower quality but simply because it’s less digestible so to make up for the lower digestibility of plant protein and needs are a little higher for children learn higher for seniors and they’re higher for some athletes so how much protein do we get in food well animal products you see somewhere 25 to 90% of calories from protein depending on the fat content and for a plant foods veggie meats are mostly protein 55 to 80 percent but whole plant foods legumes non starchy vegetables are 20 to 40% of calories from protein even mushrooms are 30 percent of calories from protein so really important dark leafy greens are 35 to 40 percent of calories from protein of course you need to eat 30 or 40 cups to get a reasonable amount because they’re so low in calories but but a lot of the calories are coming from protein grains nuts and seeds about 8 to 17 percent the only foods that fall below that sort of 10 to 15% are root vegetables and fruits so if you’re eating a variety of plant foods and you’re eating enough calories is actually hard not to get enough protein it’s just not an issue

so a lot of people say well isn’t plant protein inferior and the answer is absolutely not in fact most people don’t know this but animals do not make essential or indispensable amino acids that are made by plants and all plants contain all 9 indispensable amino acids they come from either directly by eating plants or indirectly by eating animals that ate plants or very indirectly by eating animals that ate other animals that ate plants but they were all made by plants so it makes no sense to think we can’t get them from plants that’s where they’re made

okay so do we need to complement proteins do we need to combine you know our grains with legumes and only in order to get complete protein and no we’ve known for 25 or 30 years that this is not necessary we can get sufficient of all the indispensable amino acids from plants by eating a variety of plants over the course of a day and by making sure we get enough calories there’s really only two ways of blowing it one is to get insufficient calories and the other is to eat mostly junk food or mostly fruit or mostly oil okay otherwise it’s not a big issue and to put it into some perspective to meet your daily needs for total protein say you needed 65 grams of protein a day and all of the indispensable amino acids you need from just one food and nobody eats just one food but this is what you would need you would need about 1.6 cups of tofu you would need about 3 beef burger patties you would need about three and a quarter to four and a half cups of beans you would need 1.8 cups of pumpkin seeds you would need 12 eggs or you would need about 8 cups of milk okay so you can see it can come from plants as well as animals

so I want to touch on the soy question because I know that there there are a large number of vegetarians who now specifically avoid soy and are scared of soy and most of the negative comments about soy that we see on the internet come from the Weston a price foundation and the Weston a price foundation is a very anti vegetarian organ they actually say you won’t believe this but they say that the only people that should never breastfeed their children is vegans because their milk will be inadequate so they’re just very very anti vegetarian and in fact it’s just the opposite you know vegans actually have lower levels of environmental contaminants in their breast milk and their breast milk is very very good that it may have a little lower levels of omega-3s but that can be corrected very very easily

so on to the soy question is soy safe well this is to me the acid test let’s look at the Blue Zones Okinawans are that among the healthiest longest live people on the planet they average two servings of soy a day the Adventists another one of the Blue Zones averaged around two servings a day as well so to me if the healthiest longest live people on the planet are eating soy it can’t be poisoned you know they probably wouldn’t be the healthiest longest live people on the planet if it was poison so you know the evidence actually suggests protective effects prostate cancer men who drink soy or use soy milk instead of cow’s milk have a 30 to 50 percent reduce risk of prostate cancer women who consume soy in childhood and adolescents have a significantly reduced lifetime risk of breast cancer women who consume soy as adults especially Asian women have a significantly lower risk of breast cancer women who have the bracha one or two gene for cancer who consumed the greatest amount of soy this was a study in Korea had a 60% lower risk of cancer women who were consuming the highest amounts of meat had a 200% increase in risk of cancer and people who have breast cancer and consume soy when they have breast cancer whether or not they’re on tamoxifen have three currents have a greater longevity than people who don’t consume soy it reduces risk of cardiovascular disease it also risks reduces risk of kidney disease when it’s replaced with when meat is replaced with soy soy has also been found to help reduce menopause symptoms by about 25 percent and it even reduces male the risk of male pattern baldness believe it or not

so the thing about soy to me that we need to understand is if you eat soy and you don’t have to it’s not a necessary food you can eat other legumes if you prefer some people are even allergic to soy but you want to stick to organic soy and you want to select mostly first-generation soy products things like edamame and tempeh and tofu it doesn’t have to be fermented soybeans and a soy milk that’s made with or whole organic soybeans these foods are reasonable soy foods in my view we want to limit our intake of the more highly processed soy foods especially those to me made from soy protein isolates and concentrates which increased levels of igf-1 about the same amount as meat would so what are considered safe intakes most of the experts are saying two to four servings a day and that’s what most of the studies that show protection from soy are showing this is in the range of two to four servings a day but for children probably not more than one to two a day because of the phytoestrogens in soy you don’t want to overdo the phytoestrogens for children and it’s interesting the studies on men showing feminizing effects on men with soy two studies in one study the guy was eating 14 servings of soya diene and the other study the guy these are just case studies the guy was eating 18 to 20 servings a day so if all you eat is soy yeah it could cause some problems in at moderate levels there’s no evidence that it kinds it causes those kinds of problems

so step 5 is to choose healthy fats this is our last macro new Trant we want to replace unhealthy fats with healthy fats from Whole Foods quality Trump’s quantity remember the Blue Zones the Okinawans eat about 11 percent of calories from fat the people in Sardinia and Greece eat about 36 or 37 percent of calories from fat they’re both you know doing really well to me it’s again not so much the percentage of macronutrients it’s the source of the macronutrients that matters so you know when it comes to how we should deal with that we need to number one avoid trans fatty acids completely we need to limit saturated fat moderate our use of concentrated fats and oils minimize fried foods and oxidized fats and include sufficient sources of essential fatty acids in the diet so we want to make whole foods our primary sources of fats because they’re rich in fiber and antioxidants and phytochemicals and sterols and stanols and all of the things that are protective but concentrated fats and oils should be used more sparingly as I said I would equate them you know to these whole plant foods as I would sugar to car with high carbohydrate Whole Foods oils are pure fat they have a little bit of vitamin E and not much else so we’ve lost the fiber we’ve lost the phytochemicals so they not that they should never be used but they should be used fairly sparingly in my view for most people there are some people that can afford to use more

what about coconut oil is it really a miracle or a menace and I would say it’s neither coconut oil is about 87 to 90 percent of calories from saturated fat so a lot of experts caution against heavy use because it’s so high in saturated fat however other types you know the saturated fat in coconut oil seems to be a lot less atherogenic then the fad in animal products and why because about 60% of the fat in coconut oil is medium chain triglycerides about 45 percent of it is lauric acid which is a 12 carbon saturated fat about 17% is myristic acid which is a 14 carbon fat about 8% palmitic acid and about 3% stearic acid which is an 18 carbon saturated fatty acid and the saturated fatty acids that raise LDL cholesterol are lauric acid myristic acid and palmitic acid and so you think case-closed it must raise cholesterol levels but actually lauric acid is well-known for increasing HDL even more than LDL so it actually improves the ratio of LDL to HDL a little bit medium chain triglycerides are not stored as fat nearly as red readily as the bigger saturated fatty acids like myristic or palmitic acid so there’s an advantage that way too and also lauric acid is converted in the body to something called mono lauren which is antifungal antiviral antiseptic and it has some reasonable properties so does that mean we should eat coconut oil with abandon I don’t think so I would treat coconut oil as I would any other oil I would enjoy mature coconuts in moderation like you would other high plant whole foods like nuts seeds and avocados but I would use coconut oil more sparingly as you would other concentrated fats and oils they all contain a hundred and twenty calories per tablespoon and very few nutrients most North Americans can’t afford that many empty calories we want every calorie tucán we consume to provide the most it can provide for our bodies so I think this is really important and you know what I do with coconut oil I buy a lot of coconut uh but you know what I use it for I use it for my skin it’s a wonderful natural moisturizer and so it’s that’s a great you see I add a little bit of vitamin E sometimes a little shy about or sometimes a little cocoa butter and I make you know cream out of it it’s a great it’s a great thing for that

the other thing with that is we need to really be really conscious about exposing our bodies to damaged fats do not allow oils to smoke if you’re using oils and cooking you need to keep the temperature moderate better still start with water and if you need to flavor with a bit of sesame oil or something add it after the temperature has come down never cook with omega-3 rich oils like flaxseed oil they are very unstable fats they get oxidized very quickly and do not burn high fat foods or allow them to blacken you want to minimize processed foods and finally you want to be very careful about storing all high-fat foods so when I buy nuts and seeds for example if they’re shelled they go in the freezer immediately okay and I mean you can put them in the refrigerator but do not leave them at room temperature if walnuts taste bitter they are rancid okay and so store your nuts and seeds to take care of the first thing I shouldn’t say the first thing I do is put them in the freezer because actually the first thing I do with nuts and seeds is soak and dehydrate because I want to reduce the anti-nutrients I want to improve the digestibility of the nuts and seeds and then I freeze them to preserve the fragile fats that are there so that’s just automatic as soon as they’re brought home unless they’re in their shell obviously all right depends the bigger they are the longer you have to soak them so for example small seeds like you know pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds you can soak for four hours 6 hours something like that but the larger nuts I would soak for longer and what I do with almonds is I soak them for at least a day or two even sometimes 2 days and all I’ll rinse them after the first day I love when they get really big they start to taste a bit like coconut actually and then I dehydrate them they’re wonderful that way

so what about getting enough of these long-chain omega-3 fatty acids without fish we absolutely can fish again do not make DHA and EPA EPA and DHA are actually made by microalgae these are tiny plants in the ocean and at some point along the food chain the fish get them from the microalgae even you know a little fish eat the microalgae bigger fish eat the little or fish and so on but we can get EPA and DHA directly from microalgae we can also get it by making it in our own bodies from alpha-linolenic acid which is the plant omega-3 so how do we optimize our omega-3 fatty acid status number one eat a balanced healthy diet it’s really important to know that nutritional and adequacies like protein deficiencies zinc magnesium niacin a lot of nutrients if we don’t have enough of them we won’t be able to convert the plant omega-3 to the bigger Longer docosahexaenoic acid and i cosas pentanoic acid what we call the fish fats so that’s very important dietary components like trans fatty acids excessive intakes of alcohol and caffeine can also impair conversion very high fat diets diets that are 40% calories plus from fat also impair the conversion of plant Omega threes into long-chain omega-3s

so how do we make sure we get enough well if you’re taking direct sources of epa and DHA you just need to meet the RDA which is 1.1 grams of ala for women and 1.6 for men and that you would need to take two or three times a week two to three hundred milligrams of EPA and DHA now for vegetarians and who are not taking direct sources you need to double your ala require we double the ala requirements so then you would be looking at two point two for women and three point two for men grams of ala per day and all of this information is in much much greater detail in becoming vegan comprehensive Edition and Express Edition in slightly lesser detail but but still in much greater detail than in the presentation you want to choose foods that are rich in alpha linolenic acid so things like ground flax seeds chia seeds hemp seeds walnuts and it’s not that you can’t eat whole flax seeds but they’re slippery little seeds they go right through you they add beautifully to your stool bulk they’re really good for people who are constipated but you can’t extract a lot of omega-3s unless you’re chewing them well so you know in a flax crackers you’ll chew more than say what you might sprinkle on a bowl of cereal so when you’re putting it on a bowl of cereal you definitely want to grind your seed first and if you grind them you want to store the ground seed in the freezer to preserve those omega-3s walnuts are good source hemp seeds are a reasonable source as well and and just to give you an example about about a tablespoon a heaping tablespoon of ground flax will give you enough as will an ounce of walnut as will a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds or about three table two or three tablespoons of hemp seeds and you know a lot of people don’t realize this but about half the fat in greens is omega-3 so but you would have to eat 30 cups to get 3 grams because there’s if they’re so low in fat but they still are sources

some people eat too much omega-6 and and why would that be a problem because omega-6 fats can reduce conversion by about 40 to 50 percent if you eat too many they compete for the same conversion enzymes and so you don’t want to if you’re using oil use the omega-6 rich oils like sunflower and safflower and soy and cottonseed so forth and you want to limit foods that are made with those fats as well also it’s reasonable to consider a direct source of epa and DHA there are all kinds of supplements especially for those with increased needs so pregnant and lactating women or those who may not be good at converting so people with diabetes metabolic syndrome hypertension for example or populations who have traditionally eaten a lot of fish they may not produce the enzymes as efficiently so this just gives you an example of some of the supplements that are available that are you know completely vegan epa and DHA supplements and what you would want is maybe two or three hundred milligrams two or three times a week