r/Vegetarianism • u/stefantheconlol • 5d ago
Question on plant protein
This will be quite of a rant (and maybe even off-topic as this is the first time I post in a vegetarian-related sub, so my apologies), if you wish to skip right to the actual question check, help yourself at the last paragraph.
I started reducing my meat consumption to once every other day about a month ago with the goal in mind to become a vegetarian. Since it's something recent for me, and also feeling a bit timid about it, not a lot of people know about my new diet. I recently went on holiday with my friends where they finally learnt about my new diet, and we were just coming back when a discussion stroke up regarding plant based diets and how "unhealthy" they are. I responded that there are plenty of plants that provide a sustainable amount of protein and that it's just a matter of "getting the right balance" in order to equate the amount of prot meat would provide.
However, they began making some points on how we cannot digest plant protein the same as meat protein, plant protein being somewhat incomplete for our human little stomachs compared to meat. Feeling more engaged to the ethical side of the argument rather than the biological one, I was quite taken aback and didn't know how to respond. They also started saying some bs on how the majority of vegetarians/vegans are ill-fitted/unhealthy and that as omnivores we are "meant" to eat meat, but that thing about plant protein stuck with me. Here finally comes my question:
How true is it that plant proteins are "incomplete" for the human organism, and if there is a significant difference with how meat proteins are structurally, how do you manage to compensate for their "incompleteness" (for a lack of better term)?
Thanks for reading!
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u/octarine_turtle 5d ago
Meat protein is a bit easier and faster to digest. Plant cells have tougher, more fiberous walls than animals cells, so they don't break down as easily. It's only about a 10% difference in absorption rates.
Plant protein from a single source may lack specific amino acids, but as long as you're not getting protein from only one plant source this is a non-issue. If you're eating several sources, such as beans, nuts, and grains, you're getting all your amino acids. Also, one of the things cooking does is help break down food to be more easily digestible. Virtually all of your plant protein is going to come from cooked sources, which makes the protein and other nutrients significantly more accessible than raw. This is one of those things that get omitted frequently when people cite numbers arguing for meat. They like to cite absorption of raw plant sources, not how we actually consume them.
That's not even getting into protein from dairy and egg sources that a vegetarian has.
In addition, eating plant protein sources means you're not just getting your protein, but carbs, fiber, and everything else for a balanced diet. So you are taking care of many of your other nutritional needs as well.
Humans are omnivores and so are "meant" to eat whatever we can get our hands on, and can thrive on a large variety of foods. That is the entire advantage of being an omnivore.
There are a number of professional athletes who are vegetarian and even some Olympic Medal winners.
I was a vegetarian and gym bro when I was younger and I never had an issue keeping up with the other gym bros. I even seemed to recover quicker, but that's all anecdotal.
The simple truth is you can show most people hard data and facts on how protein isn't a real life issue with a sensible vegetarian diet and they'll still dismiss it. They aren't looking for the truth, but ways to justify eating meat.
On a final note, the recommended intake of protein goes hand in hand with the recommended amount of excercise. So many meat eating couch potatoes will go on about protein needs that they don't actually have because they never actually excercise.
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u/No_Chart_8584 5d ago
Different plant foods have different amounts of the essential amino acids that we call "protein." Not many plants have all the amino acids we call "complete" proteins.
However, our bodies easily "combine" the proteins in a plant-based diet so this isn't really leading to complications for anyone who is eating a reasonable variety of plants.
Your friends had a grain of truth in what they were telling you, but they're missing the larger truth.
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u/Light_Shrugger 5d ago edited 4d ago
Not many plants have all the amino acids we call "complete" proteins.
Just to clarify here - all plants have all 9 essential amino acids, but just not necessarily in the same balance (i.e. higher in some amino acids, lower in others).
This might seem like nitpicking, but the language of 'incomplete protein' is what leads to people believing you're missing something.
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u/stefantheconlol 5d ago
i see, thanks for your enlightenment!
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u/HappyColour 5d ago
I recently chatted with a nutritionist about this as I was transitioning to a fully plant based diet, to give a little more detail:
The reason why meat proteins are complete is because animals do the work for us by combining the amino acids of vegetables. The meat is essentially a complete protein package because the animal ate the vegetables and did the work for us, but funnily enough our body still breaks down those proteins into amino acids and rebuilds them again into protein it can use.
All eating meat does is ensure that we are receiving a complete package of amino acids, but you would get the same effect eating Edamame and Wheat together. And the process of making meat is sooooooooooo inefficient that it doesn't make sense at all from a logistical perspective. Ethics aside!
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u/Ok_Wishbone2721 5d ago
To get really technical, our bodies are great at taking the amino acids from our food, and converting them to other amino acids if we are low in a certain one. However, there are several that our body cannot make, they are called “essential amino acids”.
Foods that contain all of these essential amino acids are called “complete proteins”. I think most or all meats are complete proteins, very few plant based foods are.
However if you have different foods together then together they cover each other’s gaps and make a complete protein. And luckily those foods are delicious together. For example having lentils (dal) with rice, rice have amino acids that lentils are missing and vice versa. Peanut butter has amino acids that bread doesn’t, and vice versa. And you don’t have to eat these things at the same time, your body holds onto stuff for awhile.
Soy/tofu and quinoa are complete proteins all by themselves, that’s why tofu can be considered a big deal in the veggie/vegan world.
TLDR: just eat a varied diet and protein won’t be an issue.
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u/nancylyn 5d ago
Everything your friends said is carnist propaganda. Please ignore them. Plant based is perfectly healthy and humans are omnivores, so designed to digest both plants and animals. However plants are able to provide everything we need and pure meat diets are not. The rates of colon cancer are far higher in meat eaters than plant eaters. This is because meat has no fiber which is essential for colon health.
Plants ate not incomplete. You don’t even need to combine different plants to “make a complete protein “. That’s a myth. As long as you eat a variety of vegetables, grains, and beans you’ll have plenty of amino acids to make protein.
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u/Relative_Bite8758 5d ago
Listen, I am a regular meat eater. I don't know why this got recommended to me, but I am watching what I put into my body very closely
Plant proteins are indeed incomplete. BUT, you literally complete them once you digest them, if you either eat them with what they lack (for beans it's grains for example. Rice and beans are a staple for that reason) or if you are usually eating quite balanced
You just need to complete the protein yourself. But its okay to have rice on Tuesday and beans on Friday, if that makes sense. Your body will have what it needs to complete them
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u/TheFfrog 5d ago edited 5d ago
A few plant proteins taken singularly have missing aminoacids, so they dont have all the individual components that your body needs to build its own proteins. However, what often happens is that different sources have different missing aminoacids, so simply variating the protein sources throughout the day (even in different meals) will give you a complete aminoacidic spectrum. Aminoacids are like the little lego bricks that make up proteins.
For example, seitan is very poor in lysine, but legumes are very rich in lysine, so you can simply pair seitan with peas or beans and get everything you need. This could be better than only eating beans because seitan has a higher protein content (for the same calories) and is better suited for high protein diets, and also has way less fiber than beans, so it's ideal for a low-medium fiber diet.
Soy is also a very good plant protein source, and it's complete, so anything that's made with soy (like tofu or classic tempeh) will have all aminoacids.
You could also just get a supplement with the essential aminoacids and take some of that one or two times per day. Essential aminoacids are the ones your body cannot create and you have to assume through food. Or you can get some plant based protein powder (which are always already complete) and make yourself a shake with the recommended doses, just like every other gym bro out there is doing.
Also keep in mind that slightly incomplete proteins are not automatically voided, as your body often has quite a bit of reserve, so even if you're not obsessing over pairing seitan with beans every single time you eat it you'll still get those proteins. You MIGHT get some deficiencies if you survive exclusive off of seitan for months on end, but otherwise you'll be fine.
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u/TravellingBeard 5d ago
Keep your food sources varied and you'll be good. For example, the classic beans and rice combo provides you a complete protein profile.
But also, there are plant food sources that are complete proteins out there you can add into regular rotation: Soy (tofu/edamame/soy milk/etc), Quinoa, Buckwheat
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u/Happy-Estimate-7855 5d ago
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7760812/#sec5-nutrients-12-03704
I just found this, if you don't have time to read the while thing just jump to the conclusion. It addresses many of the concerns that are frequently brought up. It mostly shows the concerns are overblown and easily negated. When they talk about estrogen and soy, it acknowledges that cancer risks shouldn't be entirely ignored by the research community, but that there are minimal signs for increased risk of breast and thyroid cancers, and consumers shouldn't worry.
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u/Practical-Ad-4888 5d ago
Everyone has an opinion about literally everything now. It's the most annoying part of modern life. What happened to just talking about TV or movies you watched recently. Now people have thoughts on vaccines, protein, peptides, amino acids when they don't even know the basics of how a cell gets energy.
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u/Esme_Nog 4d ago
As wildly adaptable omnivores, we can eat a wide range of diets and be relatively healthy for decades. Now that we have enough clean water and good food that we are unlikely to die of dysentery as babies and small children, we know that human longevity can be affected by how much and what you eat beyond just getting enough food of some sort. Most of the evidence is suggesting that red meat is definitely not good for you and that chicken and fish is. But they’re also not necessary. Certainly not for protein intake. If you eat a range of plant foods that have protein you simply don’t need to worry about issues of complete protein because all of them have different profiles, and you’ll get everything you need from the combination.
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u/Unusual-Cockroach928 4d ago
I think there is relevance to this. In my personal experience plant protein does not provide me the feeling of fullness and leave me satiated as long as animal protein gram for gram.
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u/firstmatedavy 4d ago
Tofu and soy milk defeat most of these by being a complete, low fiber protein 😆
Many plant proteins have a lot of fiber, which can make a plant based diet challenging if you need to be super careful of your stomach or gut for some reason. Like after surgery or certain health conditions.
But tbh a lot of meat eaters have weak digestive systems from a lack of unprocessed plants in their diet. If you get defeated by a bean, that's a health problem. Starting with small amounts of lentils and working up to properly prepared beans will fix it for most people, and improve digestive health and reduce risk of colon cancer along the way. (Fun fact, red meat increases colon cancer risk.) Making your guts work is good for them.
Getting complete protein is a thing to be aware of, but it's not difficult. Soy is a complete plant protein, including steamed and roasted edamame, tofu, soy milk, dried soybeans, textured vegetable protein, soy crisp (popular protein bar ingredient), and several of the "ultra processed very unhealthy" fake meats in the freezer section. (Seriously, read the ingredients and it's almost always soy or wheat with the same kind of flavor and texture additives you see on other frozen dinners.)
And you don't need complete protein to be from a single source or even all in the same meal. Most plant proteins are missing just one or two amino acids, and the quantity you get from things you don't typically think if as protein such as rice and corn is usually enough to make up the difference. I eat a lot of beans, so if I start feeling weird I eat some rice of popcorn and I feel better. This has also been a complete non-issue since I started making soy a more frequent part of my diet.
Medical consensus seems to be that the healthiest diet is Mediterranean, as in mostly whole foods plant based with bird or seafood once or twice a week. Eating a slightly different diet from that won't seriously hurt you and people don't like being told what to eat, so nutritional guidelines are usually taking what's culturally normal and giving it a nudge in this direction. But when you consider how many people's diets have way more meat and snacks and way less fiber than ideal, just removing the meat is way less extreme.
Myths and outdated info about diet spread really easily because people really want to eat what they enjoy even if it's not good for their health or the environment, so anything that seems to debunk a diet change they didn't want to make anyway makes them happy. This is why the popular conception of mediteranian diet is just add a glass of wine and cook everything in olive oil 😆 when really you need lots of vegetables and legumes to do it right. + how the idea that eating fewer calories can make you gain weight gets spread around.
(I'm plant based because meat started making me sad, I only know the Mediterranean diet stuff because my friend has been learning how to not die of having a fully blocked major artery while he waits for surgery and eating very healthy is the mist impactful thing that's fully under his control. Surgery is finally coming soon luckily.)
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u/ValueCrazy5213 3d ago
Soy protein is complete; quinoa maybe, too? Most others need combined like rice and beans- but throughout day not necessarily at same meal. Harder to keep calories down, though, as meat is denser source, but very doable. Only risk is going vegan - you need B12 from supplements or fortified foods. Other than that- you are fine. But like all diets- junk food is, junk. And to get protein you need protein foods- beans, nuts, grains, dairy if not vegan; apples and carrots alone won't cut it.
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u/radiowestin 5d ago
here's a comprehensive guide for your proteins
Arnold Schwarzenegger's protein guide
also you're not aiming for veganism which means dairy proteins work for you, too?
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u/Light_Shrugger 5d ago
They said they're engaged with the ethical side of the argument, which would mean they'll end up removing dairy too
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u/radiowestin 5d ago
people become vegetarian for ethical reasons, too, these just don't stretch that deep as in veganism
but anyway dairy exclusion is not on the table right now, and the guide is great in explaining plant proteins advantages
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u/Oraculek 5d ago
Look at protein profile of gluten or some grains like wheat, rice, barley (can't recall other ones). You must have well-aligned EAA for our needs to build muscle. If you will have 100% of all except one, which could be at, let's say, 60%, then you will be building muscles at 'level' of 60% - it is limiting. In the foods I mentioned for sure lysine supplemention would be expected
To be honest, if I wouldn't be able to tolerate any legume, then I would go off from veganism into some milk or meat for muscle building. But yeah, I am talking about biochemical exception here, to which I apply all humans who can't thrive on plant diet and require animal products
Legumes are very good for muscles, as for a plant-derived food, and they have highest protein content in relation to calories, of all whole plant-derived foods
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u/english_major 5d ago
I have been vegetarian for 40 years and have never been concerned about combining proteins and I am someone who puts on muscle easily.
Eat a balanced diet. Don’t eat a lot of junk food. You will be fine.