Protein Powders

dewit

I have thought until recently of protein powders as synthetics. A little hypochrite, since I do not eat that clean! However, getting to understand how much protein we actually need, I have tried to find evidence that they might not be healthy and in my brief search I couldn't find anything "convincing".

Any opponents of powders here that could share their knowledge or opinion?

FitAgainBy55

I've not read any study that suggests they are harmful.

I personally prefer to increase protein with real food versus a protein powder but I know vegetarians and vegans might find it more difficult than I do.

For example, I prefer to have a big omelette instead of a protein shake.

AnnPT77

I think protein powder is fine, but think that food is tastier and more satisfying. I find I can get enough protein (IMO) from food, even as a vegetarian, so I don't bother with the protein powder. I'm in the "1g per pound of lean body mass daily is adequate protein" camp (for most people, this would be somewhere near 0.8g per pound of a healthy goal weight). If people like protein powder (or things they make with it), or struggle to get enough protein without it, it's fine.

Sometimes people have the mistaken (IMO) idea that they need 1g of protein daily per pound of current bodyweight, even if carrying quite a lot of excess bodyweight. I don't think that's necessary. It's common advice on bodybuilding sites, but I don't think they're accounting for the idea of people carrying extra fat weight.

dewit

Thank you both. Pretty much the way I am thinking, though I couldn't eat that many lentil/chickpeas (but I suppose that you're getting your protein from cheese and eggs, Ann). Btw, @AnnPT77 , I often come back to your list of protein sources for ideas.💐

AnnPT77

dewit wrote: »

Thank you both. Pretty much the way I am thinking, though I couldn't eat that many lentil/chickpeas (but I suppose that you're getting your protein from cheese and eggs, Ann). Btw, @AnnPT77 , I often come back to your list of protein sources for ideas.💐

No, not cheese and eggs, mostly.

IMO, the big deal for vegetarians (or those trying to get protein from non-meat/fish sources generally), is to think about protein differently than omnivores do. Sure, get a big protein source in each meal. (That's what omnivores usually do: "What's for dinner?" "Chicken" "Burgers" etc.) Beyond that, think in terms of getting small amounts of protein throughout the day.

When I was losing weight, at the start I was reviewing my diary frequently, and asking myself where I spent a large number of calories without getting any/much protein. Then I'd consider whether I could happily reduce or eliminate those foods in favor of others I similarly enjoy eating, but that would give me more protein. There are protein-containing foods in nearly every category. I like pasta, but have found I like chickpea or red lentil pasta just as much as wheat pasta, and the chickpea/pea versions have twice as much protein, for example. (There are lots of examples.)

To expand on my "not cheese and eggs, mostly": I rarely eat eggs, though I usually have some in the house. It probably takes me a month or more to go through a dozen, and some of those are incidental functional ingredients (to bind something together) rather than foods I eat for their own sake. I do eat a couple of servings of cheese most days, normally the more calorie-efficient ones. I love cheese!

A good bit of my protein comes from other dairy, especially nonfat Greek yogurt (112g in my daily oatmeal, some occasionally in other roles), and skim milk (6oz in each of 2 daily cups of coffee, frothed to foam).

Looking back at my most recent fully-logged day (so that I don't cherry pick), of my 106g of protein, the mainsources/amounts were:

* Skim milk 18g
* Nonfat plain Greek yogurt 12g
* Chevre 7g
* Goat feta 3g
* Lowfat cottage cheese 15g
* Lowfat string cheese 14g
* Parmesan cheese 7g

So, 76g from dairy. (That was a very high-dairy day for me, because I had extra exercise calories so cheeeeese! That's 46g from cheese, so a bit under half - unusually high. It's also weird that there were no beans or similar legumes at all, or soy foods. I eat those often.) Other sources of similar magnitude to the above dairy:

* Ezekiel pita 7g
* Peanut butter 8g
* Oats 4g
* Flax seed 3g
* Hemp hearts 3g
* Ezekiel tortilla 3g
* Mushrooms 4g
* Cabbage 5g

The rest was smaller sources (under 3g in my serving). FWIW, this was a 1977 calorie day

I looked at a few other days. 37 of 109g from cheese, 22 of 112g from cheese, 7 of 119g from cheese. No eggs any of those days. So, not mostly cheese and eggs. I'm pretty confident I could get to 100g protein daily without dairy or eggs (i.e., fully plant based), but I like dairy a lot, so I don't plan to try.

cwolfman13

dewit wrote: »

I have thought until recently of protein powders as synthetics. A little hypochrite, since I do not eat that clean! However, getting to understand how much protein we actually need, I have tried to find evidence that they might not be healthy and in my brief search I couldn't find anything "convincing".

Any opponents of powders here that could share their knowledge or opinion?

Whey protein is dried whey...I biproduct of cheese making. Little Miss Muffett ate hers all the time. "Synthetic would be man made...whey is natural...it is processed, but whey is derived from making cheese.

I do supplement at times, but I prefer eating rather than drinking my food.

dewit

cwolfman13 wrote: »

Whey protein is dried whey...I biproduct of cheese making. Little Miss Muffett ate hers all the time. "Synthetic would be man made...whey is natural...it is processed, but whey is derived from making cheese.

Wrong term, my bad. However, "processed" is also seen by some as problematic. My tone here is not argumentative, I'd be happy to hear why this should not be of concern. I, for one, would not use egg powder or garlic powder for cooking, for instance. Don't see the point.

How about plant based powders? Are they just as good? Any better than others? I assume the list of ingredients is here just as good of an indicator as with any other "processed" food 🙂.

Ann's examples are really helpfull, tbh. I remember focusing during my pregnancies on getting B12 from natural sources and skipping the farmaceutical suplements every other day. Kids came out pretty normal 😁.

Thank you both for the replies 💐

AnnPT77

As a point of clarity: I'm definitely eating some foods that are just as "processed" as some protein powders. Some of the ingredients in my legume-based pastas (not just the chickpea/lentil ones I mentioned, but soy or black bean ones with even more protein that I eat fairly often) are also ingredients in plant-based protein powders. We could quibble about whether the food (pasta vs. powder) is more processed or less, but I don't think that's all that helpful for anyone, nor important.

I admit to some skepticism about "processed" foods that involve *removing* lots of natural ingredients from a food to create a food *product*, i.e., certain refining or extracting processes.

Quite a few essential or beneficial nutrients have been discovered by science during my lifetime, and I'd bet we're not done finding things yet. Once a useful nutrient is discovered, it may be supplemented into products, but it's been in food all along. That's part of my reasoning for preferring mostly foods vs. extractive food products, for nutrition.

Just processing per se doesn't seem awful to me, especially when it's the same kind of processing I'd do to the food at home: Grinding, heating, diluting, combining, etc.; or when it's processing humans have done for centuries or millennia (grinding, fermentation, freezing, pickling, heating, etc.).

There are some people who seem to think purchased cookies or a frozen meal are less beneficial than home-made because of "processing", even if the two contain the same ingredients. That makes no sense to me at all.

dewit

I agree to that, Ann. It's more the preserves and binders that concern me. Ingredients I wouldn't use in my kitchen.

So, if powders are okay, what are the vegan variants that the knowledgeable among us would reccomend?

lemurcat2

dewit wrote: »

I agree to that, Ann. It's more the preserves and binders that concern me. Ingredients I wouldn't use in my kitchen.

So, if powders are okay, what are the vegan variants that the knowledgeable among us would reccomend?

Pea proteins powders are probably the most common. There's also hemp and soy. I've tried pea and hemp, and they are harder to mix than whey, but obviously whey doesn't work if one is vegan.

lemurcat2

dewit wrote: »

Any opponents of powders here that could share their knowledge or opinion?

To answer this question, I'm not an opponent of powders and doubt you will find any evidence that they are unhealthy in general, as they contain ingredients that one can get from dairy or peas or hempseed or whatever. How much else is in them will depend, but usually it's something like flavoring and artificial sweetener, which one may find tastes bad (that's my issue with a lot of them), but IMO artificial sweetening is not harmful -- I drink diet coke and diet ginger ale at times. Also, you can buy the kind without it if one wants to avoid those things.

I would agree that there are positives (and arguably negatives) in dairy that aren't in whey, and similarly there are positives (and negatives, if cals count as negative) in peas and hempseed that one doesn't find in the powder, but I'm assuming that one is not consuming the powder as a supposed substitute for legumes or nuts/seeds or whatever, or as their main protein source. Thus, I see it as rather like peanut powder (something I don't normally consume, but certainly would) or even lowfat dairy (my preferred cottage cheese and greek yogurts are 1-2%). Any claims that because they aren't perfectly whole they are bad for you seems like superstition to me.

That said, I have gone through long periods where I avoid them, and mostly don't consume them, since for me it's usually (not always) easier to get protein from other foods. However, when I was experimenting with 100% plant based, I did find it a bit difficult to hit my protein goal so used them occasionally. I also tried other things, like using tofu or white beans in smoothies (I like smoothies as an occasional meal, I know some feel differently). These worked, but the beans were many more cals (but fiber!) for the protein, and the tofu less so, but hardly less processed, and some might not want to add in more soy.

Basically, I would say that protein powder is just a protein source and shouldn't be treated as really all that different in kind than others -- depends on context and goals.