Plant based protein VS meat based protein

I was wondering if anyone knew if plant based protein is more efficient than meat based protein? And the advantages of plant based lifestyle VS the meat based lifestyle?
Does anyone have pro and cons of either or both from personal experience?
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Replies

  • sarah1026652019
    sarah1026652019 Posts: 7 Member
    Sorry I should have expanded the efficiency part. As in training, and health such as blood clarity inflammation of the blood vessels etc

    I eat plant based Some days exclusively because my husband is Indian and a lot of the food is plant based we cook.
    And on those days I find I have more energy I can push myself a lot harder and I feel more “efficient” just in every part of the day.
  • sarah1026652019
    sarah1026652019 Posts: 7 Member
    So I was just wondering others thoughts opinions etc on the two. It’s nice to see what other people training experience
  • sarah1026652019
    sarah1026652019 Posts: 7 Member
    I brought this up to my husband and I told him the days we eat veggie meals I feel like I have more energy I work out harder I literally exceed my goals. And I can tell the difference when we eat chicken fish pro beef etc.
    He laughed and said at work today he actually watched a Netflix documentary called “Game Changers” and it talked about this same thing in elite athletes NFL, strongest man, UFC, and also high demand physical jobs such as firefighting.

    I think when I get the time maybe this weekend I will try and watch it. I guess they talk scientifically about the plant and meat outcome long term and short term in a body and blood circulation. With test done on the athletes.

    I’m interested to see where I stand. Because I LOVE meat I am born and raised In Colorado! We love beef and any meat!!
    But he said in the documentary that it mentioned even one serving of eggs chicken or lean protein clouded the fat in the blood.
    Idk I am very interested to watch this and learn a little more

    He also said there was a “strongest man” that is vegetarian on there and he said he wanted to be strong as an ox, and someone laughed and said while u eat ur salad? And he replied well what do ox eat?
    Hmmm food for thought
    I am going to go look deeper into this!!!
    Thanks for all the great views and education!!!!
  • jenny3073
    jenny3073 Posts: 117 Member
    Personally, meat/animal based works for me. I was doing low carb for awhile, lots of salads, some minimal veggies (can't stand most of them), protein bars (ugh), still had some meat but not a lot and occasional fish. I was not losing anything and thought, as a morbidly obese person, that I should have dropped some weight especially considering I ended my 40 year addiction with soda.

    I stumbled upon some info on carnivore (fatty meat (mostly beef), butter, eggs, fatty fish, cheese, minimal dairy) way of eating and decided to try it, to experiment. 4 weeks in, I feel FABULOUS, and dropped 23 lbs. Most BMR calculators had me at over 2k cals a day to lose, wasn't losing at all trying that, was hungry all the time and constantly thinking about food and snacking between meals... pretty much how I've been all my life. I got a scale that connects to an app with body composition info. The app showed my BMR was around 1200 cals a day due to slow metabolism. Day 1 on carnivore and I had no hunger, could go 10-12 hours between meals and have been keeping around 1200-1600 cals per day (two meals a day, occasional snacks) and the lbs. are falling off. I attribute most of it to less food (I'm very satiated), and whole food. I haven't had any processed junk, save for the occasional beef stick, and more importantly, I'm not craving any of the junk as I did before.

    I haven't really talked about this outside of a few subreddits, I know many do not agree with this way of eating and I am not one to try to advise anyone to eat this way as everybody is different and thrive in very different ways. Although this was something I personally wanted to try to help me get away from obesity, many non-overweight people follow this and report relief from inflammation, gut issues, and auto immune disorders that some plants might cause in some people. I don't have anything extreme in that area, but I've had much less stomach problems, fat loss, lean muscle mass increase (no exercise yet), more energy, and I rarely think about food anymore. It no longer rules my life! I am type 2 diabetic, no longer on medication and my last blood test looked great. The excess protein turns to glucose and seems to be keeping my blood sugar steady. I went in with the idea of only 4 weeks because it sounded so extreme but I can't deny how I feel, and that this just feels right for me. I am sure at some point I will occasionally enjoy a nice salad, maybe a treat or two here and there, but this is how things are now and I'm doing very well.

    With all that said, this is my personal choice and not advocating one way or the other, just sharing my experience so far.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    edited October 2019
    I brought this up to my husband and I told him the days we eat veggie meals I feel like I have more energy I work out harder I literally exceed my goals. And I can tell the difference when we eat chicken fish pro beef etc.
    He laughed and said at work today he actually watched a Netflix documentary called “Game Changers” and it talked about this same thing in elite athletes NFL, strongest man, UFC, and also high demand physical jobs such as firefighting.

    I think when I get the time maybe this weekend I will try and watch it. I guess they talk scientifically about the plant and meat outcome long term and short term in a body and blood circulation. With test done on the athletes.

    I’m interested to see where I stand. Because I LOVE meat I am born and raised In Colorado! We love beef and any meat!!
    But he said in the documentary that it mentioned even one serving of eggs chicken or lean protein clouded the fat in the blood.
    Idk I am very interested to watch this and learn a little more

    He also said there was a “strongest man” that is vegetarian on there and he said he wanted to be strong as an ox, and someone laughed and said while u eat ur salad? And he replied well what do ox eat?
    Hmmm food for thought
    I am going to go look deeper into this!!!
    Thanks for all the great views and education!!!!

    Be careful with "documentaries" such as this. They are typically one sided and cherry pick data to meet their agenda.

    Vegetarians and vegans eat diets very high in carbohydrates...athletes in general eat diets high in carbohydrates...because carbohydrates boost performance. It doesn't really have anything to do with plant based or meat based protein...it's the carbohydrates. As has been stated previously, most plant based proteins are incomplete which means you would have to vary your sources to make a complete protein.
  • biggiwig4483
    biggiwig4483 Posts: 90 Member
    edited October 2019
    Sorenki wrote: »
    i would say - don’t seek that kind of info on a forum of regular people. we mostly don’t know what the hell were talking about. i just watched game changers and if i think about the sources and potential motivations behind the research, i tend to think it’s at least a legit theory. it’s pro-vegan. protein is protein. schwarzenegger, jackie chan, james cameron. kinda heavy hitters. worth watching. especially the blood and the erection tests!

    I watched that too. I was shocked about the blood samples. The fat of the meat eaters was so cloudy. Apparently the blood is not floating so well.
    I lnow 2 meat eaters who had a stroke and a heart attack. Just got me thinking s lot.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,428 MFP Moderator
    psuLemon wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    I brought this up to my husband and I told him the days we eat veggie meals I feel like I have more energy I work out harder I literally exceed my goals. And I can tell the difference when we eat chicken fish pro beef etc.
    He laughed and said at work today he actually watched a Netflix documentary called “Game Changers” and it talked about this same thing in elite athletes NFL, strongest man, UFC, and also high demand physical jobs such as firefighting.

    I think when I get the time maybe this weekend I will try and watch it. I guess they talk scientifically about the plant and meat outcome long term and short term in a body and blood circulation. With test done on the athletes.

    I’m interested to see where I stand. Because I LOVE meat I am born and raised In Colorado! We love beef and any meat!!
    But he said in the documentary that it mentioned even one serving of eggs chicken or lean protein clouded the fat in the blood.
    Idk I am very interested to watch this and learn a little more

    He also said there was a “strongest man” that is vegetarian on there and he said he wanted to be strong as an ox, and someone laughed and said while u eat ur salad? And he replied well what do ox eat?
    Hmmm food for thought
    I am going to go look deeper into this!!!
    Thanks for all the great views and education!!!!

    Think critically about any claim suggesting athletes perform better on fully plant-based diets. High level athletes have professional trainers (including dietitians) who keep up with all the sound scientific research, and will do nearly anything to squeeze out a 0.05% advantage. If a fully plant-based diet were actually proven to be more effective, every high level athlete would be fully plant-based . . . or we have to assume most of them are kinda stupid, or not paying attention.

    Can athletes perform well on a fully plant based diet? I'm sure they can, because some do. Is it persuasively, objectively proven to be a better diet on which to perform? Doesn't seem likely, outside of advocacy propaganda "documentaries".

    And I say that as a long term (45+ year) vegetarian who has (in the past) trained and competed athletically.

    This cannot be emphasized enough. Most athletes are going to have a fairly varied diet, and most with good amounts of meat. Don't let the exception drive the conversation. There is a reason most bodybuilders and powerlifters eat meat. From a muscle protein synthesis standpoint, meat > plants.

    Why wouldn't the reason that most bodybuilders and powerlifters eat meat be the same reason that most of the people in the societies they live in eat meat? (Tradition/custom/expectation that a meal is built around meat, unexamined assumptions about the need for animal protein for good health, etc.) Given the many completely insupportable arguments about nutrition and even exercise that I have heard from bodybuilders and lifters, I'm not inclined to accept that particular appeal to authority. There's a reason the term broscience came into being.

    Sure, most bodybuilders or young lifters probably started with eating meat because that is what they knew, but as they probably got into the sport, its more likely they are looking for any advantage possible. And meats has higher levels of leucine which is a primary component for stimulating muscle protein synthesis.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    psuLemon wrote: »
    Let's not forget that Arnold wasn't exactly natural.

    He was only in about a 3 minute snippet of the programme too. He seems to be disproportionately represented as being pivotal to the point of the piece. There were many, many more compelling points raised.
  • biggiwig4483
    biggiwig4483 Posts: 90 Member
    edited October 2019
    Of course there are vegans who had strokes or heart attacks. When did I say they don’t exist??? I just don’t know anyone personally.
  • poisonesse
    poisonesse Posts: 573 Member
    I'm not vegan, but I do have kidney stones, and found out that they can be caused by sugar, chocolate (OMG NOOOOO) and... by meat! They say to lean more on legumes to get your protein. And by combining plant based proteins you can get complete proteins similar to meat. Not saying I'm gonna go there, but that's what I've been told by doctors.
  • JCW214
    JCW214 Posts: 1 Member
    I recently watched a documentary on Netflix, The Game Changer. It showcases elite athletes, scientists, etc. who dig deeper into this topic: Plant Based Protein vs Animal Protein. The narrator is an ultimate fighter and uncovers the optimal diet for human performance.