Struggling to Get Enough Protein? Listen here!

Think you’re getting enough protein? Spoiler alert— unless you are paying close attention, you’re probably not! Despite the hype around plant-based diets and “high-protein” snacks, most people are under-eating a key nutrient that keeps them strong, sharp, and healthy as they age. 

In this episode, Aimee shares her favorite tips to ensure you get enough protein and exposes the truth behind protein sources and the misleading social media blurbs that sell you short, from beans and nuts being a potent protein source to how labels and infographics use math to mislead you. 

She'll also break down the differences between animal and plant proteins, reveal why restaurant meals often fall short, and give you the real scoop on how much protein you actually need to maintain muscle and energy. Get ready to rethink your diet because getting this wrong could have long-lasting effects on your health!

Key Takeaways:

1. The Hidden Protein Deficit: Most of us are eating way less protein than we should, thanks to outdated recommendations.
2. Protein Myths Debunked: Beans and nuts are not the protein powerhouses you’ve been told they are - find out exactly why!
3. Restaurant Pitfalls: Even "healthy" meals out are leaving you protein-deficient. Get Aimee's top tips to enjoy a meal out without falling short!
4. Leucine = Muscle Builder: Discover why leucine is your secret weapon for maintaining muscle.
5. Why You Need More Protein: Age, activity, and life stage (looking at you, perimenopause!) demand more protein than you may think.
6. Processed Protein Pitfalls: Many bars and powders fall short—here’s how to spot the ones that won’t let you down.

Resources:

Protein Powder Recipe Book

Nutrition and Your Brain, Part 2: What to Eat for Depression and Anxiety

Find Research Citations and Transcript at Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Work with Aimee

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

Find Research Citations and Transcript at Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Work with Aimee

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

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Transcript

MacBook Air Microphone-1 1:00

Welcome back to blaspheme as nutrition. I'm your host, Aimee. And the last time I tried to do a Cartwheel, I fell flat on my fucking face. I will tell you straight up, nothing else has been as motivating to get me back in the gym, lifting weights. Speaking of muscle and strength. Protein is all the rage right now. And I for 1:00 AM really glad to see it. Have some time in the limelight. We have been so myopically focused on the carb versus fat debate for nearly four generations and protein has been sitting in the corner, like Cinderella, all this while being neglected. But finally that girl's got her dress on and she is the Belle of the ball. I have previously talked about how the current recommendations for protein may actually be half of what we need for optimal health in my episode, titled nutrition and your brain part two, what to eat for depression and anxiety. I've linked to that in the show notes. And I encourage you to go back and listen to that if you've not yet done. So. That said working to get enough protein can be a challenge for many, particularly if you're accustomed to eating several small meals a day, or if you struggle with low stomach acid or maybe you're taking medications that suppress your appetite or you've had bariatric surgery. Additionally for some people taking the time to source out adequate protein is a problem is especially if you rely heavily on dining out for most of your meals, most restaurants and fast food meals leave us short of what is needed when they adhere to the standard serving size of three to four ounces. Now if your problem in getting enough protein is that you get to full before you meet your protein needs. There are several things that you can do. First add some variety. Don't just have one kind of protein at a meal. Everyone's had the experience of going to a potluck or a buffet restaurant or a holiday dinner and being so tempted by the variety there that you end up eating too much. However, when it comes to protein, adding variety can be just the thing you need to get over the hump. It's easier to get your needed protein. When it's a mix of say three ounces of chicken and two ounces of shrimp, instead of just five ounces of chicken breast, or maybe adding three ounces of ham to two eggs, instead of trying to choke down five eggs each morning. Mix and match your proteins at the same meal to keep your protein interest higher and it will also increase the nutrient density of that meal by getting protein from different sources. Another thing that people find most helpful, especially in the morning is choosing softer proteins like cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, scrambled eggs. Or even ground meat. If you are one of those individuals whose appetite does not rise with the sun, give this a try when you're struggling to get your protein from other sources. Also, you can try choosing leaner proteins and this will give you more total protein per bite. In fattier cuts of meat, the fat displaces, some of the protein. So when we choose leaner protein sources, such as white fish, chicken, breast, Turkey, shrimp, egg whites. These protein sources have little to no fat. So each bite contains more protein compared to say pork shoulder or ribeye steak. I will say, if you do enjoy pork, pork Tenderloin is a really great lean protein source as well. Sometimes simply switching to a leaner protein source can bump you up to your goal if you do so. At one to two meals, I rarely recommend that people use exclusively lean proteins. As this can backfire due to food, boredom and fat is after all quite good for you. Supplementing with protein powder is another great way to get those last 20 to 30 grams in making a protein smoothie in the morning or adding it to your Greek yogurt, creating little treats with protein powder to fill in the gaps in an exciting way. These are all ways to increase your protein with a processed food that could actually be an ally in ensuring you have enough protein to reach your goals. I would much rather someone use protein powder daily so that they get adequate protein to prevent muscle loss. Then have them be a purist about whole foods and not be able to quite fit in what their body needs to retain muscle mass. I recently created a couple of recipe guides that contain nearly 100 recipes using protein powder in various breakfast ideas like protein, waffles, protein oats. Various snacks like protein bites and even some desserts like cookies that you might find helpful, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. If you're interested in taking a look. I would say the other greatest challenge that my clients who struggled to get enough protein have, is lack of meal preparation. maybe you simply don't have the time to do it on a consistent basis, or you're typically pretty good at it, but there's been a sudden unexpected derailment that totally throws you off your protein game in situations like this, letting others do the heavy lifting is what you need to do. You can. Choose again, more processed proteins, something that is pre cooked and refrigerated or precooked and frozen, and have it on hand for emergencies. I always keep frozen fish and pre cooked shrimp in my freezer, and I will also often have deli slices of ham or Turkey in the fridge as an emergency snack. If you're not too picky, you could just pull out the deli slices and eat them as is, but it's much more enjoyable to place those Turkey or ham slices on a chart or lettuce leaf, add mustard or pesto or another flavor enhancer and maybe some additional produce like avocado tomato, alfalfa sprouts and then just roll it up in that leaf and chow down. It takes less than five minutes and it's really quite filling. When you are dining out, ask for double the protein serving, unless you happen to be at a steak house or a seafood restaurant. Most restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants only add two to three ounces of protein and a bowl of pho or a Curry or stir fry. So ask to have double the protein, or if you are dining at a steak or seafood house, choose a protein option where the weight of the food is listed. For instance, an eight ounce steak or a six ounce filet of salmon. To ensure that you get enough. If time is really limited, also focus on protein sources as you're snacking. Go tos. Beef jerky, Turkey jerky, meat sticks, canned fish, but be mindful of. Shelf stable sausages like pepperoni sticks. and summer sausages because these typically have just as much fat in them as protein. So they will provide less protein than you would think because they're so fatty. Always check the label and get the highest protein option that is in front of you. Some people feel like they're getting enough protein, but then when they check with my fitness pal or chronometer they realize they are hardly getting any. And they've been misled to think that they're getting enough protein, because they've been told that nuts and seeds and beans are really high in protein. And this is. Technically true if you eliminate all animal protein, then these vegetable sources do become. Hi. And I'm quoting their sources of protein. But to put beans and nuts in the same category as eggs or meat is really misleading. And this is part of the problem that we have with getting enough protein to protect muscle as we age. Nuts and seeds are predominantly fat, about 60 to 80% of the calories in nuts and seeds come from fat. And they had, do have some protein and sometimes a little carbohydrate depending on that nut or seed that you're consuming. Beans are mostly carbohydrate about 60%. With some protein and a trace of fat. None of these are comparable to meet and do not even get me started on broccoli, which I have seen online touted for its high protein content on various influencer, social media infographics. I just. Get. Angry. Because this is so bloody misleading and it is really an excellent example of massaging the math, just so to factually. Advertise a high protein content from a food that ultimately has very low protein in it. And if that sounds confusing, I totally get it. Let me explain. There are five different ways that we can express how much a nutrient is contained in a food. Influencers with an agenda will typically knowingly or not. I use whichever method best supports their position. Now these five different ways are- let's use this case of protein; protein as a percentage of total calories. Calorie matched servings of different protein foods. Mass matched servings. So the equal weight of different protein foods. Volume matched servings where the protein content per cup is compared between two items. And typical serving size, which compares the protein content based on a standard serving size. Now the percentage of calories method calculates the proportion of calories from protein by dividing the amount of calories from protein in that food by the total calories of that item. So it highlights how much of the foods, energy, which we call calories comes from protein. If a protein bar is labeled to be 25% protein on the front of the package, and it has 200 calories. Then using this method, we would discover that 50 calories of those 200 came from protein. And that would end up being 12.5 grams of protein in that bar, because one gram of protein. Contains four calories. You'll see shortly how this gets twisted to mislead people. There's also calorie matched servings, right? So this is comparing foods based upon the grams of protein per 100 calories, let's say. This method allows you to compare the protein content when consuming the same amount of calories from different foods, or more often comparing equal amounts of protein, and then the caloric difference that it would take to. Get that amount of protein. So this can be helpful when people are focused on calories to ensure they don't accidentally exceed a defined calorie target. Or end up under eating. I rarely use it in the real world because calories just are not my primary focus when it comes to nutrition. With mass matched servings. This measures the amount of protein per grams of food, focusing on how much protein you get relative to that weight. Independent of how many calories it has. And I'll share an example in a moment. So using a hundred grams is a very typical example, used to assess nutrients on food labels in the United Kingdom, as well as Europe. And. Honestly, it is completely useless when assessing packaged foods, because a serving of any packaged food is rarely 100 grams. But 100 grams is the standard that's used on their labeling. So sometimes a package will also include the actual serving size and sometimes it doesn't, which annoys me to no end, because hardly anybody weighs out the food that they're consuming before eating it. And if you want to figure out how much protein is in say. One portion of a box of protein bars and a bar is 30 grams, but the label only lists a hundred grams. You have to do a lot of extra math, which is. Really unnecessary. This is one area where I feel the European union is really falling short and doing people a great disservice. So with volume matched servings, we compare the protein content per cup or other volume showing how much protein is present there. So this is really helpful for things like liquids that we typically measure in cups or something like Greek yogurt. With chopped foods or diced foods, it becomes a little less reliable since obviously how tiny or how large you make that dice can make a huge difference. One of the benefits though, is that it is much easier to estimate. One cup serving in our head than it is to try and figure out how big a hundred grams of something is. A typical serving size compares the protein content based on the standard serving size typically recommended for these comparing foods. And obviously that's going to vary between items, but it is the most reflective of the real world. For instance, if the goal is to get 20 grams of protein at a meal, you could say that a standard serving size of some Greek yogurts will do that for you. However, a standard serving size of broccoli is considered half a cup cooked or one cup raw. And now, you know, that's a little problematic, but it should weigh between 70 to 90 grams, depending on whatever authority you ask. In doing research for my master's paper. I discovered that there is no universally accepted measurement of weight for a vegetable serving. Most of the research I looked at though used between 80 grams and 90 grams as a serving. So I'm going to call a serving of vegetables, 85 grams. If we're going to weigh it. And 85 gram serving of broccoli, which would be about one cup raw contains two grams of protein and is close to what you get. If you measure out a cup of diced florets. So each method offers a different perspective on protein content, depending on whether you're comparing calories, you're comparing weights of the food, or you're comparing the serving size. And this is what makes it easy to use math, to confuse the hell out of people. In the case of broccoli. You may have seen, as I did on the internet, that broccoli is 43% protein. I mean, that sounds fantastic. It sounds like, wow. Broccoli's a really strong source of protein, right? Especially if you compare it to 85% lean ground beef, which is only 35% protein, the vegans love this fact and they use it to convince people that broccoli is either better than meat as a protein source or a quality source of protein in and of itself. But here's the catch. Broccoli is 43% protein by calories. And when you think of how many calories is in broccoli, you quickly realize it's not going to amount to much. And it doesn't. 100 grams of broccoli or three and a half ounces has about three grams of protein and 35 calories. That same amount of 85% lean ground beef contains 26 grams of protein. But let's look at it even closer. A typical serving. Of that ground beef, according to most official standards is about three ounces or 90 grams. And that would contain 17 grams of protein. So to get 17 grams of protein from broccoli, you would need to eat 570 grams of broccoli. Which for my American listeners is equal to about 20 ounces of broccoli. Not likely to happen. Now for anyone who eats. Little to no meat. They may correctly make the argument that comparing broccoli to beef is unfair. And yeah, you're right. It is. All I'm doing with that example is highlighting what I've seen on the internet, which is that broccoli is a great source of protein. And actually that's a great source of bullshit. Now more appropriately, we would want to take a look at beans and with beans, we do fare better than broccoli and being able to conceive of eating enough protein from these sources, but you do need to have a Hardy appetite. Both beans and lean white fish, such as Cod have very little fat. So I think that would be a fair comparison, right? However, because fish does not contain the fiber and the carbohydrates that are in beans. There's quite a bit more protein in lean fish than there is in say garbanzo beans. 100 grams of Cod has 23 grams of protein in it. Now remember again for my American listeners, 100 grams is about three and a half ounces. So that's a standard serving size. Three and a half ounces or a hundred grams of cooked. Garbanzo beans only has nine grams of protein. And a hundred grams of cooked garbanzo beans would likely end up being about half a can of garbanzo beans. Once you drained out all of the liquid. So again, if you're aiming to get a hundred grams of protein a day, You're looking at eating quite a lot more beans than fish, and that's going to be hard to do. To be more precise, it would take 440 grams, or just shy of one pound of Cod to get to a hundred grams of protein, which is a protein goal for many individuals, but if we were to stay on the garbanzo beans, it would take nearly two and a half pounds of garbanzo beans to get a hundred grams of protein. That's 1,125 grams. Or. One in one eight kilo. For my European folks. Again, let's make this more realistic. How about tofu? Tofu has more protein in it than say whole beans. It will still take 750 grams or 1.7 pounds of extra firm tofu. It would need to be extra firm tofu to get 100 grams of protein. Soft tofu will be less because it has more water in it. Tofu is the most concentrated source of whole food plant based protein. Vegetarians often end up supplementing with protein powder and vegans really do struggle to get sufficient protein without supplementation for this reason. The carbohydrates from starches and fibers and plant foods displace the amount of protein per bite. And that's why it's just so much easier. To get your protein from animal foods and for those who avoid meat. To really utilize dairy and eggs in order to get enough protein because. These foods lack both the fiber and the carbohydrate. So you'll see the same thing happen when you start to look at nuts and seeds as a primary source of protein. You have to eat a lot, to make a dent in your requirements. And it often requires eating more than most people can stomach in a day, particularly if your protein needs are higher. If you are under 18 years old or over 40 years old, if you're an active individual, if you're trying to lose weight, but you don't want to sacrifice muscle, or if you are in the perimenopausal or post-menopausal phase of life. All of this does not even go into the argument against vegetable protein as an incomplete source of amino acids to meet human needs when compared to animal protein sources. So let's talk about that for a little bit. Protein is made up of amino acids. Amino acids are these building blocks that create all of the protein structures in the body from enzymes to our muscles. I think of amino acids as these tiny little Legos that our body uses to make all the things. And just as we need different sizes and shapes of Legos to build a structure. So to do we need different amino acids to build a healthy functioning body. Our body requires 20 different kinds of amino acids to be exact. And these gorgeous miraculous vessels that we walk around in can make a leaven of these 20 amino acids all by itself. Most of the time. Effectively, there are nine amino acids remaining, which we call essential amino acids. And these, we are always unable to make for ourselves. And therefore we must get them from our food sources. Nearly all animal foods, meat, milk, and eggs contain the nine essential amino acids in sufficient ratios and quantities to meet human bodily demands. Our plant foods are often considered in complete proteins because they contain insufficient amounts of one or more of these essential amino acids. The exception to this is soy. Now if you've been alive for as long as I have. You may remember the concept of protein combining from the vegetarian movement of the seventies. And the idea with protein combining was that you could be a healthy vegetarian, if you made sure to combine your proteins in such a way as to meet all of your essential amino acids at each meal. Grains would need to be combined with seeds. Nuts or beans in order to provide all of these amino acids in sufficient quantity. And the cool thing is that. Historically humans have kind of figured that out. Um, beans and corn beans and rice, right? Our foundational foods for Latin American and Asian countries that maybe don't have a lot of meat in their diet. And so they somehow figured out how to put these foods together. In order to get that amino acid profile. Right. But this micro-managing of amino acids at each and every meal is ultimately unnecessary so long as you are consuming a varied diet.. However your total protein needs may not be adequate if you've adopted a meatless diet. And if there are additional dietary restrictions on top of this. The risk of amino acid insufficiency increases. Now. Amino acid insufficiency is an area of nutrition knowledge. That's still not really well explored. We know what overt protein deficiency looks like. But the ramifications of amino acid insufficiency or chronic sub optimal intake has yet to be really fully teased out. I mean, there are so many places I can go from here, but I want to stay on this notion of ensuring that we get sufficient protein in order to age well, stay healthy and strong and stay out of. Assisted living facilities and nursing homes as we age. In unprocessed form. Most plant foods do not contain sufficient leucine to send the signal to the body to keep or build muscle. Leucine is a specific amino acid that sends a signal to the body. And my mind is like a messenger boy, and it sends signals to the body saying, Hey, Hey, let's maintain this muscle mass or, Hey, we got enough to add additional muscle. So let's do it. We want this messenger to be present in our body multiple times a day. Just not whizzing by barely whispering, but loudly announcing to the body. Not to forget that muscle mass is important and to keep that muscle there. So how much leucine do we need in a meal to send out a loud enough message. Effectively two and a half to three grams of leucine per meal. Which ends up being at least in the case of animal proteins, 25 to 35 grams of total protein in that meal. The older you get, or the harder you're working your body with your workouts, the higher on that end, you want to go? So it takes about four to six ounces of animal protein to get this amount or about eight to 10 ounces of extra firm tofu. So if you're a petite vegan female or you've had gastric bypass surgery. You might be wondering how on earth you could eat eight to 10 ounces of extra firm tofu multiple times a day. And this is where the protein powder can be extremely helpful. Now for the meatless crowd, many plant-based proteins contain pea protein and pea protein does have sufficient leucine per 30 grams of protein in that supplement. Additionally, any dairy free protein that is a sport blend will have supplemented with extra amino acids that are designed specifically for supporting muscle mass retention as well as muscle gain. So, if you are choosing a dairy-free plant-based protein, look for a sport blend or make sure on the label that all of the amino acids are listed and look for the leucine and you remember, you want at least minimum. Two and a half grams of leucine per serving. And closer to three grams. If you're over 65, you're menopausal, you're undergoing a really low calorie diet. Or you're really beating the crap out of yourself and your athletic training. Whey protein, casein protein and egg protein naturally contain enough of these essential amino acids, including leucine. So you don't need to worry about it. If that's your protein powder choice. For my ancestral and paleo friends or the collagen protein lovers out there, I hate to break it to you, but collagen protein and beef protein isolate does not contain enough leucine per serving. For each of these, it's going to take about three servings of that protein powder to get to two and a half grams of leucine, unless it has been fortified with branch chain amino acids. So if you're putting collagen protein powder in your coffee in the morning, thinking you're doing your muscles of favor, unfortunately you are not. You're doing your skin. Uh, service, you're doing your joints, a service. You're doing your digestive tract, your intestinal lining a service, but muscles. Nope, not enough leucine there. So an extra bit of trickery are these European food labels, which I mentioned, right. In the case of protein powders, uh, serving as typically 30 grams of protein powder, not a hundred grams of protein powder. So if you are in Europe or you the United Kingdom, I don't know if Australia is doing this or not. You guys will have to let me know. Um, if someone looks at a label on a canister of say beef, protein isolate, and they see that a hundred grams of beef protein isolate contains 2.6 grams of protein. They may unwillingly think they're getting enough if they don't take that extra step to figure out that a serving of this protein powder is actually only 30 grams, not a hundred.

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You

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So to recap. If you are struggling to get enough protein first, you want to assess why. If it's that it's hard to eat enough. Choose more dense animal sources that are low in fat. Like egg whites, cottage, cheese, white fish, skinless, poultry. Or supplement with protein powder. If you're strapped for time. And if you're struggling with having enough protein on hand by. Because you're not making homemade meals, ask for double the protein when you're dining out, add in some protein based snack foods and consider some time saving options like prepared, refrigerated protein sources or frozen pre-cooked protein sources to have in the house at all times. I do hope this episode has made it easier for you to understand how to more easily get protein in your diet. If you have any personal tips to share. Leave a review rate the podcast. And let me know in that review what your favorite protein tip is as well as what you think about the show. As always remember to share this episode with a friend or a family member who may be struggling to get that protein in, or who may have recently posted online some silly shenanigans, promoting broccoli as some kind of protein miracle. Until next time, my blast, miss buddies.

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Any and all information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not to be misconstrued as offering medical advice. Listening to this podcast does not constitute a provider client relationship. Note, I'm not a doctor nor a nurse, and it is imperative that you utilize your brain and your medical team to make the best decisions for your own health. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked to this podcast are at the user's own risk. No information nor resources provided are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Be a smart human and do not disregard or postpone obtaining medical advice for any medical condition you may have. Seek the assistance of your healthcare team for any such conditions and always do so before making any changes to your medical, nutrition, or health plan.