@PeterAttiaMD Says Animal Protein “Makes Life Easier” (RESPONSE)

Animal vs Plant Protein Debate 0:00

What I'm hearing you say is, animal protein is better protein? It's more efficient protein. More efficient, yeah. So, I think people get so hung up on this whole plant animal nonsense. If you don't want to eat animal proteins, that's fine, but you just have to acknowledge if you're gonna eat vegetable protein, you gonna need more of it, and you probably need to cook it. And you need be more fastidious and deliberate in paying attention to the types of amino acids. There's 20 amino acid and your gonna have pay a little bit more attention looking at, how much methionine, How much leucine?

How many lysine am I getting? So again, You don' t have eat animals protein it just makes your life easier.

Cooking and Amino Acid Concerns 0:24

He made a few claims here. One was that you need to cook your plant protein sources. And it is true that cooking protein-rich plant foods can increase digestibility, but we do that anyway. With few exceptions, we don't eat raw legumes, and many other foods like tofu and plant-based meats are already pre-cooked. He also claims that we need be diligent about the individual amino acids that your consuming. But that's also unnecessary for most unless you're eating a very monotonous, low-protein diet.

Different plant foods can contain more or less of certain amino acids, but when you are eating varied diet comprised of things like legumes, grains, nuts, etc., they will complement each other.

Protein Digestibility and Muscle Gains 0:58

There's no need to hyper-focus on that. And finally, he also says you need more protein if you choose plant sources. And I suspect he's referring to some of the protein digestibility scoring systems. But there are some issues with applying that to plant-based diets, which you can read more about here. At the end of day, what matters are the results. And trials comparing people eating strict or near-strict plant based diets have demonstrated that they achieve similar muscle and strength gains to those getting most of their protein from animal sources.

as long as they're eating the same amount of protein overall. So even if there are these supposed differences in digestibility, it's not really enough to matter. And when you put all that together, he says that eating animal protein just makes your life easier.

Convenience vs Long-Term Health 1:36

I would agree that it is generally easier to pick out high protein animal foods than it to learn which plant foods may be high in protein, particularly if you're new to it. But what about beyond that convenience? Relative to plant protein sources, animal sources especially red meat tend to increase the risks of colorectal cancer and cardiovascular disease just to name a couple conditions. So which really makes life easier in the long run?