I think of protein quality in terms of quality of protein, meaning the type and ratios of amino acids, the availability of those amino acids relative to the amount of calories one has to ingest to get them. Because frankly, I've grown tired and slightly irritated at the, oh, you know, these plant based foods have a ton of quality protein in them.

And I go, really, you have to consume 2000 calories of that plant or grain in order to get the equivalent amino acid profile from, you know, a four ounce piece of steak, for instance. And this is not an argument that animal proteins are better ethically. I'm just saying at a quality as a function of calories ingested, I feel like animal proteins are superior.

But tell me, tell me what the data say. Sure, sure. Man, this is a lightning rod of a, of a topic here. This, uh, um, we have a strong audience. They can handle it. They can handle it. All right, you guys, guys, buckle up, brace yourselves, please. So gram for gram, as a group, animal proteins are higher quality.

They're more anabolic. They have a higher proportion of essential amino acids. They have a higher amount and proportion of the anabolic driving, the most anabolic driving amino acids, the branch chain amino acids, leucine specifically. And, uh, in, in the majority of the literature, when you compare animal versus plant proteins head to head, you see greater muscle protein synthesis.

Um, now with muscle protein synthesis being sort of the short term indicator of what might indicate a growth trajectory over time, we have to see if we can corroborate that with these longitudinal trials where you drag the experiment out for weeks and months to see if there's any superiority with the animal versus the plant protein for kind of where the rubber meets the road, which is increasing muscle mass and or strength.

So there have been a lot of studies comparing animal versus plant proteins and interestingly, uh, okay, so the animal proteins do have the edge in that department. And that's been reported in a couple meta-analyses now. Um, uh, one of them compared whey and soy and didn't find a staggering difference between the two anabolic leap, so we can call soy actually a high quality protein, but when you look at the individual studies there, it way still has an edge in terms of because meta-analyses just like take the data and cram it all together into a single conclusion.

And so, um, it's also important to look at the individual studies too. So here's where the story gets interesting. There, there are two studies now that compared a, and this is what, what's been missing from the literature. Usually we take two groups of omnivores and we supplement them with, let's say, whey protein.

And then we supplement the other group with, uh, some sort of a plant protein. Like pea protein. Yeah, pea protein. And interesting thing about pea protein, it actually outperformed whey in one study. So in this 2015 study where pea protein supplementation outperformed whey for increasing muscle thickness. It was really sad.

It was, I was really sad to see that because I was weighing it up and I was like, oh God, God, yeah. Well, what are we doing here? It is what it is. That study has not been replicated, but okay, so the interesting part, we finally have studies where we're looking at completely vegan regimen, a group who's totally vegan, no, no animal products at all in, in the diet versus an omnivore group and, uh, put them on a resistance training regimen, 12 weeks.

This was, uh, done by Lorraine and colleagues. And this was like a few years back. 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. And so, but the unique thing about this study, it was the first time ever we're comparing vegans with omnivores.

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

Same in the vegan versus omnivore group. Yes, that's right. Isocaloric, isomacronutritional, you know, isoproteic, everything, everything is equated between the groups new macronutrition wise. No significant differences in the size and strength gains. And, um, they're suspecting, oh, and by the way, the vegan group, their protein intake was boosted.

It was boosted up to 1.6 grams per kilo or 0.7 grams per pound. It was boosted up by a soy protein supplementation. 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, the totally vegan group was able to hang in there against the omnivore group for muscle size and strength gains, at least within the conditions of the study and at least for those 12 weeks, 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.

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. And the weird thing, man, is the vegan diet overall had significantly less essential amino acid content. Hmm. And significantly less branched chain amino acid content.

But, apparently, the resistance training stimulus is robust enough to make protein effects, ah, almost secondary. Interesting, um, getting right back to exercise probably being the major lever in, in everything. Oh, well, sleep, I would argue, is the major lever, uh, over time. I, I would agree, man. Yeah. But, I will say this, because then people think if they get one bad night's sleep to not train.

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. With training. With exercise. Yeah, yeah. You just don't want to get into a habit of it. Yeah. So, um, but if you're- Easier said than done.

I know. If you're on the fence about whether or not to train because you're sleep deprived, train. But don't do that more than one to two days per week, ideally. And even better would be to get great sleep and train, but- I know you're, you're gearing up to, to hit, hit the next thing.

I, I want to mention that this study I just talked about was not a one-off. A couple years later, Monteen and colleagues did the same thing, but they used mycoprotein for the vegan group. Mycoprotein. It's a fungus-based protein. 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?

I haven't seen that. That's what this is. It's based on this. I'm doing a joke about a fictional show. Some, some of the audience will, will chuckle or just think I just busted the most terrible dad joke ever. But, um, it's a fungus-based protein. Uh, commercially it's called corn.

So Q-U-O-R-N. Okay. It's one of these weird, uh, types of products that is unfortunately expensive. And, um, so the plant-based or the animal-free group, their protein intake was boosted with this mycoprotein. And then they were compared against omnivores with mixed, mixed protein sources. 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.

And they, you know, progressive resistance training regimen. Once again, not necessarily highly trained people, but we basically saw the same thing. 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.

So I, I always look at these things skeptically. Um, but the mycoprotein also outperformed milk protein for muscle protein synthesis in this acute study that preceded this longitudinal study. And so there's some weird stuff that we can look at aside from animal protein that could be just as anabolic.

Um, so yeah, that, that's the story with animal versus plant and/or fungus-based protein. And so, so yeah, I just, I just had to throw in the, the montine. That's very interesting. You know, I think when people hear soy, you know, there's been this, you know, kind of assault on soy for years.

And, um, and I've, I've avoided it, not for any specific reason, but because I prefer other sources of calories. Um, I like meat and berries and eggs and this kind of thing. 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, you know, they seem to gram for gram, they seem to, uh, to perform just as well as the animal proteins.

You did mention, however, that satiation, uh, satiety rather is a key factor. So I'd be curious in this study, I don't know if they measured this, whether the people in the vegan group felt that they were, um, happy with what they were eating as compared to the animal protein group.

You know, at the end of the day, are they still craving more food? Do they feel, um, like they desperately want a ribeye steak? In order to follow a fairly strict diet of any kind, but in particular, plant-based, one has to have a good reason. You know, I, I think that otherwise you, you just kind of fall into the, the availability issue.

You know, it's a lot easier to fight to eat an omnivore diet. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that wasn't measured in either of the studies. And I always look at these things skeptically when you used essentially untrained subjects, because untrained subjects are always going to kind of incur this newbie gains effect for the training regimen where the, the gains that you get from the resistance training alone are going to just mask any potential advantage of either protein type.

And so, um, you know, people would, well, Stu Phillips will argue with me on that all day long. We did a two day long, uh, Twitter argument about that. You spend two days on an argument on, on X? Like Stu is a, is a fricking legend, man. He is, he is a legend in the protein research area, but he will argue with two to three days on, on Twitter.

And so, you know, we always end up at the same spot where, um, look, we need more research to see whether, um, and, and this wasn't about, this wasn't about vegan, uh, versus, uh, animal proteins, plant versus animal, this was about just total daily protein intake period. Um, we, we just need more research on, uh, highly trained, highly resistance trained subjects to see whether, uh, in fact, a completely plant-based protein regimen that's optimized calorically and total daily protein amount wise can really run with, um, the animal based stuff like the, the high quality animal based proteins.

And so, uh, it, it almost depends on where you want to place your bets and, and where you, where you want to, uh, take your risks. So if you're, if, if gold is on the line at first place at a professional or national level is on the line, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if I would, but, uh, everybody's ideology is what it is. And some people are just kind of governed by what they want to stick to. So it really depends on the population and what the goal is.