Aidan:
Hello and welcome to the Ideal Nutrition podcast. My name is Aidan Muir and I’m here with my co-host Leah Higl and this is episode 185 where we’re going to do a bit of an interview style podcast where I’ll be interviewing Leah and we’re going to be going through common mistakes people make when going plant-based and how to fix them. So we’re going to start by talking through probably protein just because it’s probably the most common one that people will have questions on. The first…what are some common protein related things that people run into?
Leah:
Yeah, I think like it’s just very easy to under do protein when transitioning to a plant based diet because of how different it is versus when you do have meat, dairy and eggs available to you. So particularly from like, if we’re looking in the fitness health space where people are quite active and they care about muscle building and recovery.
And we know those requirements can be quite high. Like it’s very easy, unless you think and plan your protein intake, it’s very easy to miss the mark on that. So I suppose some things that kind of my golden rules for protein when it comes to plant-based eating is really focusing on protein efficiency. So again, not something that you would look too much into maybe as someone who does eat meat, where we have a lot of protein efficient options.
And that’s talking protein efficiency in terms of how much protein a food provides per 100 calories. So the higher the protein per 100 calories, the better the efficiency. So I like to use my 12 gram rule, which is your main protein sources in your diet should have at least 12 grams of protein per 100 calories, or I don’t really consider them like a primary source of protein. They’re more of a secondary source of protein. If they’re more around that kind of four to eight grams per 100 calorie mark.
So really focusing on things like your hard tofu, textured vegetable protein, particular kinds of mock meats that meet that rule. There’s definitely quite a lot of variety that you can get within that protein efficiency, but at least just being aware of how much protein per calorie foods have goes a long way in actually hitting a decent protein intake.
Aidan:
We’ll also add a protein efficiency chart into our show notes. I’ve just like, was just writing that down as you speak, but if you go to our show notes, you’ll be able to visually see that as well, which is super handy. Cause when you see it laid out like that, you can see which ones will be the easiest one to get more protein per hundred calories too.
Leah:
Yeah. And I think even just, hopefully it’s the one that does include some animal proteins, or maybe we’ll chuck that in there as there is in there as well. But even just comparing the protein efficiency of animal proteins to your plant based proteins, you can see there’s quite a big discrepancy there. So we as plant based eaters need to be a little bit more planned out in our protein sources to actually hit a good protein intake without like way overdoing calories.
Aidan:
Other protein stuff like we could talk about quality of protein, how much does this matter? Protein combining is a common thing people talk about. Yeah. Give me a rundown.
Leah:
Yeah. I mean, protein quality is definitely something that I’ll more so hit on for the people that it really matters for. So, it’s talking general health, if we’re going plant-based for general health, we’re a bit active, but, you know, we don’t have any kind of major muscle building goals. It’s not something I’ll usually take too much into consideration other than let’s just have a variety of different proteins. Because a lot of plant-based proteins are not that quote on quote complete protein source where it has all the essential amino acids in the right amounts for optimising muscle protein synthesis.
It does make sense to have complimentary proteins across the day. things like making sure you’re having grain-based proteins, legume-based proteins, soy-based proteins. Again, just having that variety plus hitting a decent enough protein intake that in totality is going to obviously be a lot more effective at building muscle and recovery than someone who is just relying on, let’s just say, just legume-based protein or just grain-based protein. But that’s something that kind of just happens for most people. Like we often just kind of trend towards or lean towards more variety when it comes to protein sources. Otherwise things get really boring.
But a big one that I do push for a lot of my clients is a focus on soy protein because that is the one really good kind of complete high quality plant protein that we have access to. So if you have this overarching focus on including soy based items in your diet, plus general variety that tends to cover your bases.
Aidan:
And if anyone’s concerned about soy, we’ve done a separate podcast on that, which I’d recommend listening to. I don’t want to spam people with the same content over and over. Yeah, I’d recommend listening to that if you’re concerned about that.
Leah:
Absolutely.
Aidan:
Any other protein related mistakes or anything else people should know?
Leah:
Yeah, I think like a few general tips that I would give is a planning. Planning becomes a lot more important again on a plant based diet because we do have less of those protein efficient options. So like planning it all out, making sure we have like we’ve met that 12 gram of protein rule for our main protein sources in meals and snacks and just going in with a strategy, a plan, goes a really long way. And I think that can even be said for any diet, right? Where we’re trying to hit high protein intake, like a plan makes sense most of the time. And then also using protein powders, like they are a great tool regardless for hitting a high protein intake.
And I think they definitely have a place on a plant-based diet, as long as that’s not your only kind of major source of protein. Because more often than not, they’re not something that is like very well fortified. So we’re not really getting like the micronutrients alongside a protein powder as we would, let’s say tofu or textured vegetable protein or legumes or, things like that.
And then I guess the final one that I really like to mention is just in my own practice and also living as a plant based person who cares about muscle building and things like that. Having more of your protein come from your meals as opposed to your snacks is a really solid option just because it’s much easier to get a high protein intake and get like say 40 grams of protein in a meal than it is to get like 20 grams of protein in a vegan plant-based snack. If you’re someone who is including dairy and eggs, so much easier to rely a bit more on snacks, but there is like a very short list of like super high protein plant-based snack options. So it again makes more sense to really focus on those main meals.
Aidan:
Talking about calories now, just from your own experience, we’ve seen people going plant-based. Do you think people go to high calorie to low calorie? What’s more common? Thoughts on how to address it?
Leah:
Yeah, I guess like based on my own experience with clients, I would say it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Like I see people go into plant-based eating sometimes who are more so your whole food plant-based approach, really health focused, who do, and also really active, who end up like undershooting their calorie intake because they’re just eating all this like very voluminous, very satiating, low calorie food, and they just undercut themselves.
And then I’ve also seen it go in the other way where you have more of your junk food vegans or like junk food plant-based people who are more maybe transitioning out of ethical reasons, and then their dietary quality actually like reduces, and therefore it kind of leads to this like increase in intake of like very energy-dense foods, which may not be what they’re after, but kind of just what happens when they switch over. But for the most part, I feel like there is not really a general trend here.
Aidan:
Yeah. And I think this is kind of like, I was going to ask about process versus unprocessed being like, do people tend to swing too far in either direction? But I feel like you’ve kind of kind of answered that with that too.
Leah:
Yeah. Again, like mixed bag. It really depends on why someone’s going plant-based in the first place, that makes the biggest difference to, I guess, their initial approach. Where for someone who is more ethical, they might find they lean towards more of your mock meats and they get really excited about all the fun vegan products that are more like your discretionary junk foods, like very energy dense, like low nutrient density kind of stuff. But then you also have the complete opposite side of that spectrum for your more health-focused people.
Aidan:
Yeah, for sure. So like I was going to ask about common deficiencies and stuff like that. And I can see in our little notes that we keep for ourselves, you’ve already listed some stuff out. I actually want to go on each individual one. So the stuff we’ve got listed out is like common things that could be overlooked. Like B12, iron, zinc, calcium, omega-3, vitamin D, selenium, iodine, and so the last one.
Leah:
Oh, that’s just about a supplement I wanted to mention.
Aidan:
Let’s start with the supplement. Tell us about the supplement.
Leah:
Yeah, I think I guess it’s a bit of a plug for, you know, Simon Hill. Yeah, this is like the meal essential eight is the supplement he created. So that’s plant proof. Like if you’re plant based, I’m sure you know who that is. I just think he did a really good job at formulating this supplement because it’s like the essential eight nutrients that are commonly missed on a plant-based diet for those who are avoiding animal products. So I, as a general recommendation, I kind of, recommend this all the time because it has all eight of these things we’re about to talk about.
Aidan:
Do you take them yourself?
Leah:
I personally don’t. So I guess unplugging a little bit is that it is much cheaper to individually get these supplements and take, like I take pretty much all of these things in a, like I have a multi and then I individually supplement with certain things that I need for my own diet because it is cheaper than the a meal essential eight supplement. But the convenience of that supplement is what a lot of my clients love because they don’t want to take like a handful of things in the morning.
Aidan:
Yeah, gotcha. On my pick and choose and stuff, we’ll see what we get to. So with B12, we know that if you’re on a plant-based diet, well B12 is typically coming from animal-based food. So there is a high chance that you’re getting almost done from a five-day diet, there could be exceptions. You can talk me through exceptions potentially and also how often do you actually see it? Like how often do you see somebody who’s doing nothing from a B12 perspective?
Leah:
Actually very rare. Like most people that are plant-based that come to see me are taking a B12 supplement and are very well versed in the adverse side effects of not supplementing with B12. I think maybe also because they’ve consumed some of my content usually before they’ve come to speak to me anyway, so they’ve always got that in there. But it’s something that I definitely press for the people that don’t or who are transitioning over and don’t know the importance of it yet. Because it is a very, it’s a very hard thing to get on a plant-based diet. Like there are fortified foods that do have a decent amount of B12, things like nutritional yeast, certain mock meats, certain milk, like you’re so good brand fortified with B12 and if you have plenty of those products in your diet, you may not need to supplement.
\But as like a general rule of thumb I recommend B12 supplementation to pretty much anyone avoiding animal products because of the negative consequences being so severe of like leaving B12 deficiency untreated and then that Leading to like nerve and brain damage that is irreversible and like it’s not just like iron deficiency where okay, you feel pretty crappy, but there’s no like major long-term severe consequences from like letting it sit there for a little bit longer than, than ideal, but with B12 deficiency, there is those severe consequences. So I think it’s better to like almost slightly overdo it than it is under do it.
Aidan:
Yeah. And talking about that overdoing it, can you, would you have to go extreme to overdo it? Like if you had somebody who was having a few products like nutritional yeast and things, and they were having exposure to B12, and they’ve been monitoring their levels for like four years and they’re like, oh, they’ve been good. Maybe I don’t need a supplement. Would there be a downside to them adding anything or how far would they have to go?
Leah:
Yeah, I’ve definitely seen cases where people’s blood tests have come back and they’ve been supplementing and having fortified foods and they’re like above that, the healthy range on a blood test. But it’s like, it’s usually not very far above that kind of healthy range. And also like the negative consequences of being just above that is like, well, there isn’t really like you’d have to be like so far above it when it comes to most of your B vitamins.
So what I tend to recommend is even if you think you’re getting enough through fortified foods, it’s probably worth at least having, you know, like a 1000 microgram cyanic abound and like at least once a week and then just testing once or twice a year to see, you know, if that’s enough or if it’s too much.
Aidan:
Let’s talk about iron briefly. So iron we often associate with red meat, but there’s, we’ve got heme iron, we’ve got non-heme iron. So non-heme iron is typically in plants and typically is not going to be absorbed as well. So therefore needs are higher, even with less food options available to get it from. assume you see iron deficiency a lot.
Leah:
Like every day.
Aidan:
Do you have a couple of hacks for addressing it.
Leah:
Yeah, particularly in people with a menstrual cycle because they already have quite high iron requirements and then you put a plant-based diet on top of that and their requirements are like 1.8 times the recommended daily intake as people who eat animal products. It’s like, it ends up being like 32 milligrams a day of iron required just to kind of meet their baseline minimum. And in the context, that’s actually a lot.
So in like hard tofu is quite a good source of iron on a plant-based diet. 100 grams of hard tofu, you’re looking at like three, four milligrams of iron. So if you think like comparing that to your 32 milligrams you need for the day as a menstruating plant-based person, okay, you have to really focus on it to actually hit that. And it’s not that it’s not doable, it’s just that it is difficult and therefore a lot of people miss the mark on it and end up becoming iron deficient and then need to supplement to get them back up or iron infusion. But there are absolutely like a ton of plant-based options that are really iron rich.
So a lot of your soy foods are really great. Honestly, between your soy foods and fortified foods, like fortified cereals, fortified milks and other like mock meat products, like they tend to be the things that I rely on most for my clients when it comes to iron. And you can get bits and pieces through different vegetables and grains and nuts and seeds, but they’re more of like my, what I call my topper-uppers of iron.
Aidan:
Yeah, awesome. We’ll try and rapid fire a few for time’s sake. So we’re going to go, what should people know about zinc?
Leah:
Yeah, I think zinc is a good one to know about just because it’s very similar to iron in that the bioavailability is a lot less on a plant-based diet. So the RDI is 1.5 times the amount on a plant-based diet versus an omnivorous diet. zinc, there are a lot of good sources of zinc on a plant-based diet, but again, it’s like per standard serving of food, there’s not that much. Like if we’re thinking like really good sources of zinc, like nuts, seeds, whole grains, again, soy foods, legumes, like they all contain a little bit.
So you’re gonna pick up like, one to two milligrams here and there, but for those with like heightened requirements, men, for example, so the way like iron is typically like the mark is missed for women on a plant-based diet, I’d say it’s like the opposite where it’s more likely men are deficient in zinc because zinc is needed for testosterone production and they have a higher requirement for it for that sake. Between that and having a plant-based diet where there’s lower bioavailability, it’s easy to miss the mark on zinc if you’re a male plant-based person.
Aidan:
Omega-3?
Leah:
Yeah. So Omega-3, obviously no fatty fish. So we usually think of like fish oil, salmon, those kinds of things as being the main sources of Omega-3 in the diet. Obviously they’re not included on a vegan plant-based diet. We can get alpha-linolenic acid on a plant-based diet through things like hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax. So that is a form of Omega-3, but ideally what we’re looking for are those really quality forms of Omega-3 in your EPA and DHA. So that’s what is in your animal-based products when it comes to Omega-3. The body can convert ALA to EPA and DHA, but that conversion rate is pretty low and it is impacted by other dietary and lifestyle factors.
So vegans and vegetarians are more likely to have a low like low omega-3 levels than those who consume animal products. So it’s another thing to just be aware of and it’s probably worth at least making sure that you have plenty of ALA in your diet but for the most part I do recommend supplementation particularly to my athletes that are plant-based.
Aidan:
And I’m going to do one more so I’m going to do selenium. Let’s talk about…
Leah:
Yeah, okay. You chose an interesting one.
Aidan:
I was just genuinely interested.
Leah:
Yeah. So I feel like selenium and iodine are like ones that again are more easily missed on a plant-based diet. So selenium itself, we can get through things like nuts and seeds, but more common to get through your animal products in those higher quantities. But one of my best recommendations is to include Brazil nuts daily. So Brazil nuts are really rich in selenium. So if you’re not supplementing with something that has selenium in it, like a lot of your plant-based vegan Maltese will have the 100 % of the RDI for selenium. So if you’re taking one of those, less relevant. But if you aren’t, like one to three Brazil nuts a day can meet your requirements really easily.
I probably lied. Let’s talk about calcium. I’d be doing a disservice because it’s probably a very common thing where people might drop dairy completely and not necessarily make up the gap. So we probably should cover it. yeah. So I guess calcium is an easier one. it’s, yeah, a lot of calcium on a standard Western diet is going to come through your dairy products. But when we eliminate those, it is eliminating like a really good…
source of calcium in the diet. So what do we end up replacing that with? Ideally we’re going for some fortified dairy alternatives. So a plant-based milk that ideally has at least 120 milligrams of calcium per 100 mils. So to make it somewhat equivalent to your dairy products. But there are also like the VitaSoy yogurt and other kind of like dairy alternatives that also contain calcium fortification.
Made with plants vegan cheese is another one. I also love recommending a calcium set tofu So instead of being set with magnesium salt set with calcium salts and then you can look for calcium sulfate or the additive 516 in your nutrition information panel your ingredients list. And like those are really awesome sources of of calcium and also like your dark green veg.
Again, that’s more of like my calcium booster. So dark green veg, nuts, do contain some calcium, but they’re more of your calcium boosters where I would rely more on your fortified products and calcium set tofu as like your baseline to meet your needs.
Aidan:
Yeah. I’m going to do a bit of a change of pace here and I’m going to go and talk about eating out and or any other social challenges. You can take this in any direction you want because I don’t want to go like, like for example, could be like, when people eat out, they don’t get enough protein. That might not be a mistake. Sometimes you just want to get what you want, right? Like that’s, so like, I want you to kind of take this question if there’s anything that you think is interesting in relation to social challenges.
Leah:
I think this is interesting because in terms of social challenges, I suppose if you’re someone who is transitioning to plant-based eating and your friends and your social environment are not really aligned with that, it could create some issues of like not everywhere has vegan options. Are you going to be the person that maybe like when they eat out they don’t maintain a plant-based diet because that is an option? Or is it going to be that you kind of lead those social situations to places that you can eat freely or there are options for you?
In this day and age we, most places, at least in Australia, have a vegan option unless you’re like really rural. And the only thing on the menu that is vegan is hot chips. Like, look, sometimes that’s going to happen. But for the most part, like you’ll always get like a vegan burger or something. So I feel like it’s not that hard to still engage socially whilst transitioning to plant-based eating. But absolutely, it is harder to eat out, get takeout, convenience foods that are nutritionally adequate and vegan.
So if your lifestyle is more like you rely on a lot of that stuff for your nutrition, adding veganism or plant-based eating into that is gonna make it a hell of a lot more difficult because we don’t have that as many good convenience options that are, again, nutritionally sound.
Aidan:
Yeah. 2024 though, what a time to be alive in terms of the amount of access that we have to stuff.
Leah:
It’s just so normal to be plant-based now, I feel. I don’t know, maybe I’m in my own echo chamber, but I feel like it’s just really easy to be plant-based, particularly if you’re taking the not perfect vegan approach. Like, even if you’re vegetarian or you’re like just dabbling in more plant-based eating, like it’s so easy to do that these days.
Aidan:
Yeah. And that will be the final thing that we’re going to cover. So a bit of a passion area for you. We can talk about perfectionism and let’s go through it. That’ll be our…I think we will end on.
Leah:
To wrap up, yeah. I think this is always an important part of the discussion for me as someone who had my journey started out as that very passionate, angry, annoying vegan at the beginning when I first transitioned and now looking almost 12 years later, I’m kind looking back at that person and being like, I wish she wasn’t so crazy and insane.
I think there were so many things that I could have done differently that maybe made people not want to be plant-based or trial the things that I was doing because of my attitude towards it. I think now practicing in this space where majority of my clients are plant-based or vegan, I’ve worked with so many different people in this arena that I think the perfectionism around ethical veganism can be really harmful, not only to the movement, but just talking from like a nutrition point of view, like I think it can really harm your relationship with food.
And look, there are gonna be people out there that completely disagree with that, but at the end of the day, I’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of plant-based people in the last, you know, five to six years and I have seen it have this negative toll on people where if they just weren’t as much of a perfectionist with it, they could have maintained a really good relationship with food whilst ethically aligning their diet with, with how they feel and how they want to like interact with the rest of the world.
So I’ve, I’ve done an entire episode on, I guess a bit of a plug on perfectionism and veganism and my thoughts there on the Plant Strong Co podcast. So if you wanted to hear more about my thoughts, you can definitely go in and listen to that one.
Aidan:
Yeah. It’s even interesting what you say in terms of, guess, behaviour around how you act around veganism, given everything we know about behaviour change and how to influence people in more of a direction being like, if you add more pressure towards being a perfect vegan and also if you quote on quote shame people for not being perfect with this stuff, it may not make people want to make more positive decisions like that.
If you view that as a positive decision. And even an interesting example that is like kind of middle ground is like, if there is heaps of that, some people also view it as perfect vegan versus not carnivore, but like full like full other end of spectrum to a degree. And like you hear some people talking about like meat free Monday and stuff like that being like there’s so many steps in the middle. That’s like…
Leah:
it’s such a spectrum. Like there are so many, like such a range that you can kind of exist on as a plant based person. I think it’s really up to you to decide where is the most comfortable and also aligns with your ethics. If that’s like playing a role in your decision to be plant based. I don’t like the idea of pushing perfectionism onto everyone that tries to adopt a somewhat plant-based diet.
Because even just thinking about all the people I work with that have other challenges, like maybe they still live at home so they don’t have full control over what they’re eating. Maybe, again, navigating that family situation, like they have other people in the household they’re trying to care for. Maybe they’re neurodivergent and they have certain food aversions, or maybe there’s intolerances and allergies there. Like there’s so many reasons why this is going to be much harder for some people than others.
Aidan:
Cool. We’ll wrap up there. If you are interested in this topic and you’re not already listening to Leah’s other podcast, the Plant Strong Co podcast, I’d encourage you to listen to it. It’s blowing up. The stats are taking off. They’re huge. So check out what the hype is all about. But apart from that, this has been episode 185 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. So thank you very much for listening. And as always, if you could please leave a positive rating or review, we would massively appreciate that.