Sorry to ask a question that has sort of been covered before, but I hope this is at least a slightly new angle on an old topic. I could not find this specifically addressed with the search function.
You talk about the importance of Leucine in driving muscle protein synthesis, and that animal proteins are better at providing this. You have also mentioned the importance of the refractory period (specifically in the context of NOT taking BCAAs constantly throughout the day). What would be the difference between a meal that contains 30-40g of animal protein, vs a meal that contains 30-40g of protein from plant-based sources + a BCAA suppliment to ensure that the 3-4g of leucine necessary for a MPS event?
I know that vegetable proteins are usually less bio-available - would this affect the effectiveness of the MPS event, or, would it just necessitate allowing for a longer refractory period between meals?
I also know that some vegetable proteins are considered “incomplete”. Would the inclusion of a BCAA suppliment render it a “complete” source?
I should also say, thank you for the article on rules for optimising protein. Since adopting your nutritional advice (I reduced my meals to 4 a day, instead of 6, made sure they were spaced out at least 4 hours from each other, and made sure to get more animal protein per meal) I have made the best progress of my life.
There would be no difference between the animal and plant-based protein meal (even without BCAAs) at the 40g dose. In reality, there’s little to no difference in training outcomes with a plant-based diet vs a diet that includes animal protein once the dose is 1.6 grams of protein per day.
When did your opinion on vegan gains change, Jordan?
i recall reading your replies on the starting strength boards 5-6 years ago and you pretty adamant about a vegetarian diet being sub par for strength gains.
are there recent studies or products that changed you opinion?
Thank you for the reply - in that case may I ask why you advise animal protein over plant proteins considering that the vast majority of athletes consume large amounts of protein anyway? Even a relatively conservative protein instake of 160g / day between 4 equal meals would yield 4 MPS events throughought the day, which is more or less the best you can hope for, correct? Just wondering why you advise animal proteins instead? Because I could see how you would be able to then get the 4MPS events from say, 4 meals of 25g protein each, but 100g total protein (plus whatever small amount you get from veges on top of that) would not be enough to hit the protein macros for most lifters, no?
Yea, there’s been a substantial amount of data that has gradually changed my opinion on this stuff- in addition to understanding training adaptations better. I don’t think it matters if someone is vegan or an animal-protein consumer with respect to resistance training outcomes.
Hey Jordan you stated that there is little or no difference in training outcomes when the dose is 1.6 grams. Does that mean there is a difference under that 1.6 grams?
Is this true regardless of the EAA content of the vegetable-based protein, assuming there is overall a good amount of them in the diet?
For instance, if I have a lunch that has ~50g of protein, but nearly all of it is from seitan, and follow up with a meal 4 hours later that is high in EAAs, would your statement still be true?
I don’t know that they’re right per se’, as most of the counter arguments aren’t very nuanced either. In other words, they aren’t saying at this specific dose of protein or above it’s unlikely to matter. Rather, they’re saying that plant and animal protein are basically the- same so the source doesn’t matter.
Based on present evidence, we’d expect the potential for worse outcomes to be higher when protein doses are lower than that and thus depend more on protein quality.
I know you’ve been saying essentially this pretty consistently for a while now all over the place, but this is the first time it has really sunk in for me. This information is probably going to have a fairly profound positive impact for me. Thank you for being so patient. I really appreciate everything BBM does.
Thanks for clarifying this! As a vegan lifter myself, I’m really glad I don’t have to shoot for an ungodly amount of daily protein to maximize results.
Quick question on this topic though: would you still maintain that whey protein is the optimal protein source for muscle and strength adaptations? And if whey is the optimal individual protein source, could a comparable protein source be created via a blend of plant protein sources (I’ve read that a 70/30 pea/rice protein blend has a comparable EAA profile to that of whey, albeit with a somewhat lower EAA and leucine content per gram of protein)? Hell, maybe an even more optimal amino acid profile than whey could be created by blending various protein sources.
My suspicion here is that the digestion speed of whey still gives it the advantage here on a per gram basis.
But ultimately, I’m really not sure to what extent the EAA content of a protein contributes to muscle growth compared to just the overall protein content. I know this is micromanaging quite a bit, I’m just interested in the subject
