Feature request: Track animal and plant-based protein consumption separately

pscheyen

**NOTE** I am not a vegetarian but am interested in more flexible eating. Given the wealth of studies that show positive, statistically significant correlations between higher protein consumption from animal sources and rates of significant disease especially heart disease and cancer I am very interested in tracking protein consumption from animal and plant sources separately. Are there any others who would desire this feature as well?

amusedmonkey

I don't think this is possible. MFP goes by food labels, and no label I know of lists plant protein and animal protein separately. You could make a note in your diary by manually adding up grams of plant protein and subtracting them from the total to get grams of the animal protein.

ETA: The correlation in all the studies I've seen does not really track as closely as you'd think if you remove some confounding factors (vegans tend to be more health conscious, eat more vegetables, and generally have a lower BMI). If you still want to track out of curiosity, the method above works. If this is causing you distress, you need to stop worrying. It's not as cut and dry as you think.

claireychn074

Nope. It’s not as straightforward as “animal = bad and plants = good”. Lots of the studies appear to infer that it’s either the fat in meat or the way it’s processed (nitrates in bacon for instance) which cause problems. I’m not a scientist but I am a geek who reads medical journals (sorry) and I haven’t read any studies about the link between protein as a food source and cancer.

psuLemon

claireychn074 wrote: »

Nope. It’s not as straightforward as “animal = bad and plants = good”. Lots of the studies appear to infer that it’s either the fat in meat or the way it’s processed (nitrates in bacon for instance) which cause problems. I’m not a scientist but I am a geek who reads medical journals (sorry) and I haven’t read any studies about the link between protein as a food source and cancer.

The only studies i have seen that "increase" the risk of cancer (colorectal specifically) is highly processed meats. And the absolute increase in risk is a meager 1-1.5% (relative increase is 20-30%) with a standard risk of 5%. Once they separated unprocessed red meats from processed, there was zero correlation for unprocessed red meats. The only other animal based foods that shows correlation is full fat dairy.

And of course, none of these compare to obesity, smoking, drinking, family history or lack of exercise. So generally the best way to improve metabolic health is lose 10% body weight, focus on whole foods and exercise.


OP, there would really be no way to separate or identify the difference. If you want, you can create subcategories in your diary.

Also side note, from a muscle building or sustainment standpoint, plant based proteins are inferior. They lack higher levels of L-Luecine and require higher loads to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

AnnPT77

Even speaking as a long term (45+ years) vegetarian, I don't see the point of preferring plant protein (unless from an ethical/ecological standpoint). I don't find it terribly plausible that staple foods that humans have eaten routinely for millennia are bad for us. (Processing method or modern production methods could be a different matter, but it's a topic on which I don't consider myself adequately informed to comment.)

Others have mentioned confounding issues for the kinds of studies you mention, and I'd add that there are so-called documentaries recently that are howlingly biased IMO, plus various advocacy blogs and such likewise. (I think they make "Team Veg" look bad, they're so ascientific - sometimes even anti-scientific - which ticks me off.)

Nutritionally, I think a much bigger problem with typical modern eating styles is a woeful dearth of veggies & fruits alongside the animal protein, not so much the animal protein itself; and I think many of the benefits attributed to plant-based diets are more from eating more veggies/fruits, less from eliminating meat/fish. Statistics suggest that most people are getting substantially less than the mainstream recommendation of 5 veggie/fruit servings daily, and there are starting to be indications that more servings than that might be better for health.

It's slightly more difficult to get adequate protein (total, and in terms of essential amino acid profile) from a plant-based diet. It's not prohibitively difficult, and I think it's fine to take that on for ethical/ecological reasons, for those who chose to do so. But if there's not ethical/ecological reason, I wouldn't bother. Personally, I think the health justification is weak or nonexistent. I think Psu's advice above is good.

I do eat some animal protein (dairy, eggs) as a vegetarian, but (1) I'd have no interest in separate totals, and (2) because of the issue of food labeling not making that distinction, I don't think it can be accurate in a crowd-sourced database anyway.

Did you realize that, if you like, you can change the meal designations in your diary, and (even in free MFP) have up to 6 "meal" subdivisions? If you wish, perhaps you could use that functionality to split out your animal protein separately in some way, to accomplish what you're looking for.

Best wishes!