Meatless The Better

AnnPT77

jwoolman5 wrote: »

judyvalentine512 wrote: »

All the fast food places are pushing these 'beyond meat' burgers and such. Looking at the ingredients, there is some thing called soy isolates. Not a good thing.

Actually, I do better with soy protein isolates than with the whole soybean (no problem with tofu or tempeh). Likewise, I have no trouble with wheat protein isolate or wheat gluten but something else in wheat is problematic if I eat too much of it and too often. So I'm happy when the proteins of such foods are isolated from the rest because that makes it much easier on my body.

By the way, the first thing the body does with any protein molecule from any source is to break it down into component amino acids. Those amino acids are then used to synthesize our own protein molecules used for various purposes. Proteins from meat are not better than proteins from plants for human purposes, and all essential amino acids on our list (the ones we must get in food) are plentiful in all plants.

The body keeps the amino acids for a while (even up to a few days) and picks out the right ratios for our proteins from the general pool. So although certain animal foods are called "complete protein" because, as from animals related to humans, they have similar amino acid ratios in their proteins -- we really don't have to worry about that. We get plenty of amino acids for our use from eating a variety of plant-based foods. Some vegan protein powders will blend different plant protein sources to come up with an amino acid profile the same as for egg, for example, so they can put "complete protein" on the label, but we really don't need to do that in a single meal or even in a single day.


But for some people like me - processing that isolates the protein from other parts of both sources may be beneficial because of problems with the non-protein parts.

Any natural food is going to be a complicated mixture of chemicals. Just look at the actual chemical composition of any natural fat or oil. This isn't due to processing but is the way they are in the plant or animal.

So additives are not automatically bad. As a chemist, I am not really worried about artificial flavors since they are likely to be closely related to flavor-carrying molecules in the natural product or even identical. So the body already knows how to handle them. The natural product's flavor is just much more complex because the flavor comes from many chemicals in its composition rather than just the one used in a flavoring agent. I prefer the natural flavors if I can get them simply because they often taste better as a result.

I am much more dubious about artificial colors because they are typically quite different from color-carrying molecules in natural food. So I have a strong preference for coloring agents that are natural colors from plants.

Processing aids and other additives that show up in processed foods need to be evaluated on a case by case basis. I personally really hate the taste of natural stevia... Fine with sugar alcohols like xylitol, which are extracted from plants anyway, but not fine with the various artificial sweeteners common today because I don't like the taste.

With general support for everything you're saying, I want to quibble a bit with the bolded - not with respect to you personally, but because of current context (MFP forums) where there can be people newly coming to a given way of eating, and simultaneously limiting food intake in some ways.

100% agree we don't need to slavishly balance essential amino acids (EAA) meal by meal, like Frances Moore Lappe told us back in the early 1970s. (Yeah, I've been veg that long. ).

However, I do think it's helpful for new vegetarians to develop a general understanding of amino acid balance, and how that should influence food variety; and/or to think in terms of food combinations from cultures with a significant vegetarian tradition (or low meat intake generally).

Especially in a context with novice veggies and potential food intake limitations, this is a useful strategy. It's possible, kind of easy, actually, to adopt an eating style that remains limited in protein-containing food choices (quantity or variety) at first. That can be suboptimal for best nutrition.

I often see threads here where someone vegetarian/vegan is saying they struggle to get enough protein, or new veggies asking how to get protein, or (another pet peeve) advocates saying "we really don't need as much protein on a plant based diet". If one is getting protein grams on the low end, and simultaneously not getting a good range of EAAs through dietary variety, that can definitely be less than ideal nutrition . . . and protein is a form of nutrition that's especially important during weight loss, for muscle retention as well as the potential for better satiation and a possible very small TEF bump.

You go on to say "We get plenty of amino acids for our use from eating a variety of plant-based foods." which I also 100% agree we can do, and it isn't all that hard.

What I'm saying is that I think being rhetorically super-sanguine about that (perhaps implying that it's automatic), in an enviroment where intake restriction and new plant-based eaters are common, might not be the best possible general advice.

It's not rocket surgery to get adequate protein on a plant-based diet, not even close. But a little knowledge and thought about variety (and quantitative adequacy) is a useful thing, I think.

This is not a personal critique; your post was insightful and helpful IMO. :flowerforyou: It's just a quibble from a long-term vegetarian.

P.S. I definitely also agree that soy is over-demonized now. I tracked the research for years, as a survivor of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. Many of people's concerns about it were things that popped up in previous decades as potentials, but have been pretty thoroughly debunked at this point. Add the fact that it's a food with a long tradition of human consumption, and I'm pretty comfortable eating it.