Plant vs Animal Protein

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The 10almonds Team

Plant vs Animal Protein: Head to Head

Some people will obviously have strong ideological opinions here—for vegetarians and vegans, it’s no question, and for meat-eaters, it’s easy to be reactive to that and double-down on the bacon. But, we’re a health and productivity newsletter, so we’ll be sticking to the science.

Which is better, healthwise?

First, it depends how you go about it. Consider these options:

  • A piece of salmon
  • A steak
  • A hot dog
  • A hot dog, but plant-based
  • Textured soy protein (no additives)
  • Edamame (young soy) beans

Three animal-based protein sources, three plant-based. We could render the competition simple (but very unfair) by pitting the hotdog against the edamame beans, or the plant-based hot dog against the piece of salmon. So let’s kick this off by saying:

  • There are good and bad animal-based protein sources
  • There are good and bad plant-based protein sources

Whatever you choose, keep that in mind while you do. Less processed is better in either case. And if you do go for red meat, less is better, period.

Picking the healthiest from each, how do the nutritional profiles look?

They look good in both cases! One factor of importance is that in either case, our bodies will reduce the proteins we consume to their constituent amino acids, and then rebuild them into the specific proteins we actually need. Our bodies will do that regardless of the source, because we are neither a salmon nor a soy bean, for example.

We need 20 specific amino acids, for our bodies to make the proteins we will use in our bodies. Of these, 9 are considered “essential”, meaning we cannot synthesize them and must get them from our diet,

Animal protein sources contain all 9 of those. Plant based sources often don’t, individually, but by eating soy for example (which does contain them all) and/or getting multiple sources of protein from different plants, the 9 can be covered quite easily with little thought, just by having a varied diet.

Meats are #1!

  • They’re number 1 for nutritional density
  • They’re number 1 for health risks, too

So while plant-based diet adherents may need to consume more varied things to get all the nutrients necessary, meat-eaters won’t have that problem.

Meat-eaters will instead have a different problem, of more diet-related health risks, e.g.

  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Metabolic disorders
  • Cancers

So again, if eating (especially processed and/or red) meat, moderation is good. The Mediterranean Diet that we so often recommend, by default contains small amounts of lean animal protein.

Which is better for building muscle?

Assuming a broadly healthy balanced diet, and getting sufficient protein from your chosen source, they’re pretty equal:

(both studies showed that both dietary approaches yielded results that showed no difference in muscle synthesis between the two)

The bottom line is…

Healthwise, what’s more important than whether you get your protein from animals or plants is that you eat foods that aren’t processed, and are varied.

And if you want to do a suped-up Mediterranean Diet with less red meat, you might want to try:

A Pesco-Mediterranean Diet With Intermittent Fasting: JACC Review Topic of the Week

^This is from a review in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and in few words, they recommend it very highly

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  • It’s OK That You’re Not OK – by Megan Devine

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Firstly, be aware: this is not a cheerful book. If you’re looking for something to life your mood after a loss, it will not be this.

    What, then, will you find? A reminder that grief is also the final translation of love, and not necessarily something to be put aside as quickly as possible—or even ever, if we don’t want to.

    Too often, society (and even therapists) will correctly note that no two instances of grief are the same (after all, no two people are, so definitely no two relationships are, so how could two instances of grief be?), but will still expect that if most people can move on quickly from most losses, that you should too, and that if you don’t then there is something pathological at hand that needs fixing.

    Part one of the book covers this (and more) in a lot of detail; critics have called it a diatribe against the current status quo in the field of grief.

    Part two of the book is about “what to do with your grief”, and addresses the reality of grief, how (and why) to stay alive when not doing so feels like a compelling option, dealing with grief’s physical side effects, and calming your mind in ways that actually work (without trying to sweep your grief under a rug).

    Parts three and four are more about community—how to navigate the likely unhelpful efforts a lot of people may make in the early days, and when it comes to those people who can and will actually be a support, how to help them to help you.

    In the category of criticism, she also plugs her own (paid, subscription-based) online community, which feels a little mercenary, especially as while community definitely can indeed help, the prospect of being promptly exiled from it if you stop paying, doesn’t.

    Bottom line: if you have experienced grief and felt like moving on was the right thing to do, then this book isn’t the one for you. If, on the other hand, your grief feels more like something you will carry just as you carry the love you feel for them, then you’ll find a lot about that here.

    Click here to check out “It’s OK That You’re Not OK”, and handle your grief in the way that makes sense to you.

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  • Mocktails – by Moira Clark

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve reviewed books about quitting alcohol before (such as this one), but today’s is not about quitting, so much as about enjoying non-alcoholic drinks; it’s simply a recipe book of zero-alcohol cocktails, or “mocktails”.

    What sets this book apart from many of its kind is that every recipe uses only natural and fresh ingredients, rather than finding in the ingredients list some pre-made store-bought component. Instead, because of its “everything from scratch” approach, this means:

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    Each well-photographed and well-written recipe also comes with a QR code to see a step-by-step video tutorial (or if you get the ebook version, then a direct link as well).

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  • Ageless Aging – by Maddy Dychtwald

    The 10almonds Team

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Maddy Dychtwald, herself 73, has spent her career working in the field of aging. She’s not a gerontologist or even a doctor, but she’s nevertheless been up-to-the-ears in the industry for decades, mostly as an organizer, strategist, facilitator, and so forth. As such, she’s had her finger on the pulse of the healthy longevity movement for a long time.

    This book was written to address a problem, and the problem is: lifespan is increasing (especially for women), but healthspan has not been keeping up the pace.

    In other words: people (especially women) are living longer, but often with more health problems along the way than before.

    And mostly, it’s for lack of information (or sometimes: too much competing incorrect information).

    Fortunately, information is something that a woman in Dychtwald’s position has an abundance of, because she has researchers and academics in many fields on speed-dial and happy to answer her questions (we get a lot of input from such experts throughout the book—which is why this book is so science-based, despite the author not being a scientist).

    The book answers a lot of important questions beyond the obvious “what diet/exercise/sleep/supplements/etc are best for healthy aging” (spoiler: it’s quite consistent with the things we recommend here, because guess what, science is science), questions like how best to prepare for this that or the other, how to get a head start on preventative healthcare for some things, how to avoid being a burden to our families (one can argue that families are supposed to look after each other, but still, it’s a legitimate worry for many, and understandably so), and even how to balance the sometimes conflicting worlds of health and finances.

    Unlike many authors, she also talks about the different kinds of aging, and tackles each of them separately and together. We love to see it!

    Bottom line: this book is a very good one-stop-shop for all things healthy aging. It’s aimed squarely at women, but most advice goes for men the same too, aside from the section on hormones and such.

    Click here to check out Ageless Aging, and plan your future!

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  • Pine Nuts vs Peanuts – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    Our Verdict

    When comparing pine nuts to peanuts, we picked the pine nuts.

    Why?

    An argument could be made for either, honestly, as it depends on what we prioritize the most. These are both very high-calorie foods, and/but are far from empty calories, as they both contain main nutrients. Obviously, if you are allergic to nuts, this one is just not a comparison for you, sorry.

    Looking at the macros first, peanuts are higher in protein, carbs, and fiber, while pine nuts are higher in fats—though the fats are healthy, being mostly polyunsaturated, with about a third of the total fats monounsaturated, and a low amount of saturated fat (peanuts have nearly 2x the saturated fat). On balance, we’ll call the macros category a moderate win for peanuts, though.

    In terms of vitamins, peanuts have more of vitamins B1, B3, B5, B6, and B9, while pine nuts have more of vitamins A, B2, C, E, K, and choline. All in all, a marginal win for pine nuts.

    In the category of minerals, peanuts have more calcium and selenium, while pine nuts have more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc. An easy win for pine nuts, even before we take into account that peanuts have nearly 10x as much sodium. And yes, we are talking about the raw nuts, not nuts that have been roasted and salted.

    Adding up the categories gives a win for pine nuts—but if you have certain particular priorities, you might still prefer peanuts for the areas in which peanuts are stronger.

    Of course, the best solution is to enjoy both!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!

    Take care!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • The Brain-Gut Highway: A Two-Way Street

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    The Brain-Gut Two-Way Highway

    This is Dr. Emeran Mayer. He has the rather niche dual specialty of being a gastroenterologist and a neurologist. He has published over 353 peer reviewed scientific articles, and he’s a professor in the Departments of Medicine, Physiology, and Psychiatry at UCLA. Much of his work has been pioneering medical research into gut-brain interactions.

    We know the brain and gut are connected. What else does he want us to know?

    First, that it is a two-way interaction. It’s about 90% “gut tells the brain things”, but it’s also 10% “brain tells the gut things”, and that 10% can make more like a 20% difference, if for example we look at the swing between “brain using that 10% communication to tell gut to do things worse” or “brain using that 10% communication to tell gut to do things better”, vs the midpoint null hypothesis of “what the gut would be doing with no direction from the brain”.

    For example, if we are experiencing unmanaged chronic stress, that is going to tell our gut to do things that had an evolutionary advantage 20,000–200,000 years ago. Those things will not help us now. We do not need cortisol highs and adrenal dumping because we ate a piece of bread while stressed.

    Read more (by Dr. Mayer): The Stress That Evolution Has Not Prepared Us For

    With this in mind, if we want to look after our gut, then we can start before we even put anything in our mouths. Dr. Mayer recommends managing stress, anxiety, and depression from the head downwards as well as from the gut upwards.

    Here’s what we at 10almonds have written previously on how to manage those things:

    Do eat for gut health! Yes, even if…

    Unsurprisingly, Dr. Mayer advocates for a gut-friendly, anti-inflammatory diet. We’ve written about these things before:

    …but there’s just one problem:

    For some people, such as with IBS, Crohn’s, and colitis, the Mediterranean diet that we (10almonds and Dr. Mayer) generally advocate for, is inaccessible. If you (if you have those conditions) eat as we describe, a combination of the fiber in many vegetables and the FODMAPs* in many fruits, will give you a very bad time indeed.

    *Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Monosaccharides And Polyols

    Dr. Mayer has the answer to this riddle, and he’s not just guessing; he and his team did science to it. In a study with hundreds of participants, he measured what happened with adherence (or not) to the Mediterranean diet (or modified Mediterranean diet) (or not), in participants with IBS (or not).

    The results and conclusions from that study included:

    ❝Among IBS participants, a higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, sugar, and butter was associated with a greater severity of IBS symptoms. Multivariate analysis identified several Mediterranean Diet foods to be associated with increased IBS symptoms.

    A higher adherence to symptom-modified Mediterranean Diet was associated with a lower abundance of potentially harmful Faecalitalea, Streptococcus, and Intestinibacter, and higher abundance of potentially beneficial Holdemanella from the Firmicutes phylum.

    A standard Mediterranean Diet was not associated with IBS symptom severity, although certain Mediterranean Diet foods were associated with increased IBS symptoms. Our study suggests that standard Mediterranean Diet may not be suitable for all patients with IBS and likely needs to be personalized in those with increased symptoms.❞

    In graphical form:

    And if you’d like to read more about this (along with more details on which specific foods to include or exclude to get these results), you can do so…

    Want to know more?

    Dr. Mayer offers many resources, including a blog, books, recipes, podcasts, and even a YouTube channel:

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  • How To Rebuild Your Neurons’ Myelin Sheaths

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The 10almonds Team

    PS: We Love You

    Phosphatidylserine, or “PS” for short, is a phospholipid found in the brain. In other words, a kind of fatty compound that is such stuff as our brains are made of.

    In particular, it’s required for healthy nerve cell membranes and myelin (the protective sheath that neurons live in—basically, myelin sheaths do for neurons what telomere caps do for DNA).

    For an overview that’s more comprehensive than we have room for here, check out:

    Phosphatidylserine and the human brain

    Many people take it as a supplement.

    Does taking it as a supplement work?

    This is a valid question, as a lot of supplements can’t be absorbed well, and/or can’t pass the blood-brain barrier. But, as the above-linked study notes:

    ❝Exogenous PS (300-800 mg/d) is absorbed efficiently in humans, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and safely slows, halts, or reverses biochemical alterations and structural deterioration in nerve cells. It supports human cognitive functions, including the formation of short-term memory, the consolidation of long-term memory, the ability to create new memories, the ability to retrieve memories, the ability to learn and recall information, the ability to focus attention and concentrate, the ability to reason and solve problems, language skills, and the ability to communicate. It also supports locomotor functions, especially rapid reactions and reflexes.❞

    ~ Glade & Smith.

    (“Exogenous” means “coming from outside of the body”, as opposed to “endogenous”, meaning “made inside the body”. Effectively, in this context “exogenous” means “taken as a supplement”.)

    Why do people take it?

    The health claims for phosphatidylserine fall into two main categories:

    1. Neuroprotection (helping your brain to avoid age-related decline in the long term)
    2. Cognitive enhancement (helping your brain work better in the short term)

    What does the science say?

    There’s a lot of science that’s been done on the neuroprotective properties of PS, and there are thousands of studies we could draw from here. The upshot is that regular phosphatidylserine supplementation (most often 300mg/day, but studies are also found for 100–500mg/day) is strongly associated with a reduction in cognitive decline over the course of 12 weeks (a common study duration). Here are a some spotlight studies showing this:

    Note: PS can be derived from various sources, with the two most common forms being bovine (i.e., from cow brains) or soy-derived.

    There is no established difference in the efficacy of these.

    There have been some concerns raised about the risk of CJD (the human form of BSE, as in “mad cow disease”) from consuming brain matter from cows, but studies have not found any evidence of this actually happening.

    There is also some evidence that phosphatidyserine significantly boosts cognitive performance, even in young people with no extant cognitive decline, for example:

    The effects of [phosphatidylserine supplementation] on cognitive function, mood and endocrine response before and following acute exercise

    (as the title suggests, they did also test for its effect on mood and endocrine response, but found it made no difference to those, just the cognitive function—which enjoyed a boost before exercise, as well as after it, meaning that the boost wasn’t dependent on the exercise)

    PS for cognitive enhancement in the young and healthy is not nearly so well-explored as its use as a later-life guard against age-related cognitive decline. However, just because the studies in younger people are dwarfed in number by the studies in older people, doesn’t detract from the validity of the studies in younger people.

    Basically: its use in older people has been studied the most, but all available evidence points to it being beneficial to brain health at all ages.

    Where can we get it?

    We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon.

    Enjoy!

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