The Truth About Animal vs. Plant Protein Quality | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | I think of protein quality in terms of quality of protein, meaning the type and ratios of

00:00:09.200 | amino acids, the availability of those amino acids relative to the amount of calories one

00:00:15.440 | has to ingest to get them.

00:00:16.740 | Because frankly, I've grown tired and slightly irritated at the, oh, you know, these plant

00:00:22.360 | based foods have a ton of quality protein in them.

00:00:25.080 | And I go, really, you have to consume 2000 calories of that plant or grain in order to

00:00:32.500 | get the equivalent amino acid profile from, you know, a four ounce piece of steak, for

00:00:39.400 | instance.

00:00:39.760 | And this is not an argument that animal proteins are better ethically.

00:00:43.880 | I'm just saying at a quality as a function of calories ingested, I feel like animal proteins

00:00:52.740 | are superior.

00:00:53.340 | But tell me, tell me what the data say.

00:00:55.140 | Sure, sure.

00:00:55.880 | Man, this is a lightning rod of a, of a topic here.

00:01:00.300 | This, uh, um, we have a strong audience.

00:01:02.760 | They can handle it.

00:01:03.560 | They can handle it.

00:01:04.100 | All right, you guys, guys, buckle up, brace yourselves, please.

00:01:06.800 | So gram for gram, as a group, animal proteins are higher quality.

00:01:13.900 | They're more anabolic.

00:01:14.740 | They have a higher proportion of essential amino acids.

00:01:17.780 | They have a higher amount and proportion of the anabolic driving, the most anabolic driving

00:01:23.280 | amino acids, the branch chain amino acids, leucine specifically.

00:01:27.240 | And, uh, in, in the majority of the literature, when you compare animal versus plant proteins head

00:01:35.200 | to head, you see greater muscle protein synthesis.

00:01:37.700 | Um, now with muscle protein synthesis being sort of the short term indicator of what might indicate

00:01:43.820 | a growth trajectory over time, we have to see if we can corroborate that with these longitudinal trials

00:01:51.620 | where you drag the experiment out for weeks and months to see if there's any superiority with the animal

00:01:57.500 | versus the plant protein for kind of where the rubber meets the road, which is increasing muscle mass

00:02:01.940 | and or strength.

00:02:03.120 | So there have been a lot of studies comparing animal versus plant proteins and

00:02:09.120 | interestingly, uh, okay, so the animal proteins do have the edge in that department.

00:02:15.320 | And that's been reported in a couple meta-analyses now.

00:02:20.440 | Um, uh, one of them compared whey and soy and didn't find a staggering difference between the two

00:02:27.500 | anabolic leap, so we can call soy actually a high quality protein, but when you look at the individual

00:02:33.860 | studies there, it way still has an edge in terms of because meta-analyses just like take the data

00:02:39.380 | and cram it all together into a single conclusion.

00:02:41.700 | And so, um, it's also important to look at the individual studies too.

00:02:45.940 | So here's where the story gets interesting.

00:02:50.240 | There, there are two studies now that compared a, and this is what, what's been

00:02:57.480 | missing from the literature.

00:02:58.560 | Usually we take two groups of omnivores and we supplement them with, let's say, whey protein.

00:03:04.760 | And then we supplement the other group with, uh, some sort of a plant protein.

00:03:08.960 | Like pea protein.

00:03:09.760 | Yeah, pea protein.

00:03:10.720 | And interesting thing about pea protein, it actually outperformed whey in one study.

00:03:15.840 | So in this 2015 study where pea protein supplementation outperformed whey for increasing muscle thickness.

00:03:22.440 | It was really sad.

00:03:24.080 | It was, I was really sad to see that because I was weighing it up and I was like, oh God,

00:03:27.460 | God, yeah.

00:03:28.540 | Well, what are we doing here?

00:03:29.540 | It is what it is.

00:03:30.100 | That study has not been replicated, but okay, so the interesting part, we finally have studies

00:03:34.740 | where we're looking at completely vegan regimen, a group who's totally vegan, no, no animal products

00:03:40.620 | at all in, in the diet versus an omnivore group and, uh, put them on a resistance training regimen, 12 weeks.

00:03:49.900 | This was, uh, done by Lorraine and colleagues.

00:03:52.700 | And this was like a few years back.

00:03:54.700 | And so they optimized protein, or at least made it at the bottom of optimal at 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day in both groups.

00:04:06.980 | And so, but the unique thing about this study, it was the first time ever we're comparing vegans with omnivores.

00:04:14.260 | So there were no significant differences between groups in muscle size and strength gains by the end of 12 weeks where they were put on a progressive resistance training program.

00:04:24.060 | It was isocaloric, so isocaloric meaning, uh, for those that don't know what that means is total number of calories ingested per day.

00:04:31.420 | Same in the vegan versus omnivore group.

00:04:33.260 | Yes, that's right.

00:04:34.300 | Isocaloric, isomacronutritional, you know, isoproteic, everything, everything is equated between the groups new macronutrition wise.

00:04:43.180 | No significant differences in the size and strength gains.

00:04:47.460 | And, um, they're suspecting, oh, and by the way, the vegan group, their protein intake was boosted.

00:04:54.020 | It was boosted up to 1.6 grams per kilo or 0.7 grams per pound.

00:04:58.100 | It was boosted up by a soy protein supplementation.

00:05:01.700 | So, apparently, I mean, we're beginning to see that at a dose, a total daily protein at 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight,

00:05:12.580 | the totally vegan group was able to hang in there against the omnivore group for muscle size and strength gains,

00:05:20.660 | at least within the conditions of the study and at least for those 12 weeks,

00:05:25.140 | and at least for the, uh, the subjects that, that were used who weren't necessarily, you know, these high level athletes or, or, yeah.

00:05:32.980 | So you can, if you construct it properly, you can follow a vegan diet as long as you get 0.7 grams per pound of body weight.

00:05:40.820 | And the weird thing, man, is the vegan diet overall had significantly less essential amino acid content.

00:05:48.340 | Hmm.

00:05:48.660 | And significantly less branched chain amino acid content.

00:05:52.340 | But, apparently, the resistance training stimulus is robust enough to make protein effects, ah, almost secondary.

00:06:02.420 | Interesting, um, getting right back to exercise probably being the major lever in, in everything.

00:06:08.900 | Oh, well, sleep, I would argue, is the major lever, uh, over time.

00:06:12.020 | I, I would agree, man.

00:06:12.900 | Yeah.

00:06:13.380 | But, I will say this, because then people think if they get one bad night's sleep to not train.

00:06:17.380 | I don't know if you're familiar with these recent studies showing that you can offset the inflammation that arrives from getting five or fewer hours of sleep the previous night.

00:06:26.740 | With training.

00:06:27.140 | With exercise.

00:06:27.860 | Yeah, yeah.

00:06:28.260 | You just don't want to get into a habit of it.

00:06:29.860 | Yeah.

00:06:30.420 | So, um, but if you're-

00:06:32.180 | Easier said than done.

00:06:33.220 | I know.

00:06:33.540 | If you're on the fence about whether or not to train because you're sleep deprived, train.

00:06:37.060 | But don't do that more than one to two days per week, ideally.

00:06:41.300 | And even better would be to get great sleep and train, but-

00:06:44.340 | I know you're, you're gearing up to, to hit, hit the next thing.

00:06:47.540 | I, I want to mention that this study I just talked about was not a one-off.

00:06:53.380 | A couple years later, Monteen and colleagues did the same thing, but they used mycoprotein for the vegan group.

00:07:02.180 | Mycoprotein.

00:07:03.140 | It's a fungus-based protein.

00:07:05.860 | So you've seen that, that, um, that, that I think it's on, is it on Netflix or HBO, The Last of Us, where that fungus makes people anabolic?

00:07:14.660 | I haven't seen that.

00:07:16.420 | That's what this is.

00:07:17.380 | It's based on this.

00:07:18.100 | I'm doing a joke about a fictional show.

00:07:20.740 | Some, some of the audience will, will chuckle or just think I just busted the most terrible dad joke ever.

00:07:25.620 | But, um, it's a fungus-based protein.

00:07:29.460 | Uh, commercially it's called corn.

00:07:32.020 | So Q-U-O-R-N.

00:07:33.940 | Okay.

00:07:34.420 | It's one of these weird, uh, types of products that is unfortunately expensive.

00:07:41.380 | And, um, so the plant-based or the animal-free group, their protein intake was boosted with this mycoprotein.

00:07:53.300 | And then they were compared against omnivores with mixed, mixed protein sources.

00:07:57.860 | And by the end of the study, I believe it was a 12-week study, no differences, no significant differences in increases in muscle size and strength.

00:08:08.340 | And they, you know, progressive resistance training regimen.

00:08:10.980 | Once again, not necessarily highly trained people, but we basically saw the same thing.

00:08:17.780 | As long as total daily protein is where it needs to be, then apparently the, the animal-free group can hang with the omnivores, at least for the conditions of that study.

00:08:28.820 | So I, I always look at these things skeptically.

00:08:31.940 | Um, but the mycoprotein also outperformed milk protein for muscle protein synthesis in this acute study that preceded this longitudinal study.

00:08:44.260 | And so there's some weird stuff that we can look at aside from animal protein that could be just as anabolic.

00:08:50.020 | Um, so yeah, that, that's the story with animal versus plant and/or fungus-based protein.

00:08:58.100 | And so, so yeah, I just, I just had to throw in the, the montine.

00:09:03.220 | That's very interesting.

00:09:04.420 | You know, I think when people hear soy, you know, there's been this, you know, kind of assault on soy for years.

00:09:10.580 | And, um, and I've, I've avoided it, not for any specific reason, but because I prefer other sources of calories.

00:09:17.460 | Um, I like meat and berries and eggs and this kind of thing.

00:09:20.100 | Um, but it's interesting that some of these engineered proteins and soy protein and pea protein, when you really put them to the test under the right conditions,

00:09:30.740 | you know, they seem to gram for gram, they seem to, uh, to perform just as well as the animal proteins.

00:09:37.300 | You did mention, however, that satiation, uh, satiety rather is a key factor.

00:09:43.940 | So I'd be curious in this study, I don't know if they measured this, whether the people in the vegan group

00:09:49.220 | felt that they were, um, happy with what they were eating as compared to the animal protein group.

00:09:54.900 | You know, at the end of the day, are they still craving more food?

00:09:59.140 | Do they feel, um, like they desperately want a ribeye steak?

00:10:02.660 | In order to follow a fairly strict diet of any kind, but in particular, plant-based,

00:10:07.140 | one has to have a good reason.

00:10:09.380 | You know, I, I think that otherwise you, you just kind of fall into the, the availability issue.

00:10:15.780 | You know, it's a lot easier to fight to eat an omnivore diet.

00:10:18.180 | Yeah.

00:10:19.220 | Yeah.

00:10:19.620 | Um, that wasn't measured in either of the studies.

00:10:23.380 | And I always look at these things skeptically when you used essentially untrained subjects,

00:10:29.860 | because untrained subjects are always going to kind of incur this newbie gains effect

00:10:36.100 | for the training regimen where the, the gains that you get from the resistance training alone

00:10:43.060 | are going to just mask any potential advantage of either protein type.

00:10:48.420 | And so, um, you know, people would, well, Stu Phillips will argue with me on that all day long.

00:10:55.540 | We did a two day long, uh, Twitter argument about that.

00:10:59.780 | You spend two days on an argument on, on X?

00:11:03.220 | Like Stu is a, is a fricking legend, man.

00:11:06.340 | He is, he is a legend in the protein research area, but he will argue with two to three days on,

00:11:12.100 | on Twitter.

00:11:12.660 | And so, you know, we always end up at the same spot where, um, look, we need more research

00:11:18.580 | to see whether, um, and, and this wasn't about, this wasn't about vegan, uh, versus, uh, animal

00:11:25.940 | proteins, plant versus animal, this was about just total daily protein intake period.

00:11:30.260 | Um, we, we just need more research on, uh, highly trained, highly resistance trained subjects

00:11:38.420 | to see whether, uh, in fact, a completely plant-based protein regimen that's optimized calorically and

00:11:47.460 | total daily protein amount wise can really run with, um, the animal based stuff like the,

00:11:52.500 | the high quality animal based proteins.

00:11:55.380 | And so, uh, it, it almost depends on where you want to place your bets and, and where you,

00:12:01.700 | where you want to, uh, take your risks.

00:12:04.260 | So if you're, if, if gold is on the line at first place at a professional or national level is on the line,

00:12:09.940 | yeah, I don't know.

00:12:11.380 | I don't know if I would, but, uh, everybody's ideology is what it is.

00:12:16.500 | And some people are just kind of governed by what they want to stick to.

00:12:20.100 | So it really depends on the population and what the goal is.

The Truth About Animal vs. Plant Protein Quality | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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