Plant Protein vs. Animal Protein
Wondering whether it matters if the protein in your diet comes from animal products or plant-based foods? Curious as to whether you are missing out on any specific nutrients if you don’t include animal-based protein in your diet? I’ve got you covered!
Does It Matter if Your Diet Consists of Animal or Plant-Based Protein?
First off, let’s discuss why getting enough dietary protein is important and how much protein is optimal to meet our daily needs.
Getting sufficient protein intake is really important for maintaining and building muscles, and through that, it also helps to improve cardiometabolic health. It’s extraordinarily important for preventing sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass as we age. In fact, it’s estimated that older adults, especially females, will lose 10% of their muscle protein just in the peri-menopausal period. Sarcopenia is a major contributor to frailty in our older years, which decreases quality of life and increases the risk of falling and breaking a hip.
The preponderance of evidence suggests aiming for 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, which is actually double to triple the recommended daily allowance. Here’s the best part – it doesn’t matter if your protein consumption comes from animal products or plant-based sources. You can meet your protein requirements from meat, fish, eggs, tofu, legumes (e.g., lentils, chickpeas, beans), or even broccoli, with the caveat that it is important to include diverse sources of protein.
It doesn’t matter if your protein consumption comes from animal products or plant-based sources as long as you incorporate diverse sources of protein.
There are nine essential amino acids, which are considered nutritionally indispensable, meaning that we absolutely have to get them from food—our human body can’t make them. These include histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Additionally, there are six amino acids that are considered conditionally indispensable, which means we can make some but the process is so inefficient we probably still need to get them from food. These include arginine, cysteine, glutamine, glycine, proline, and tyrosine. A complete protein is a food with an amino acid profile that delivers sufficient quantities of all nine essential amino acids. Almost all animal products are complete proteins, with one exception being collagen or gelatin. In contrast, most plant foods are incomplete proteins. Complete sources of plant protein include soybeans and soy products (e.g., edamame, tofu, natto, tempeh), hemp hearts, quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth, chia seeds, and the classic vegetarian combination of beans and rice.
While technically we only need to get the nine essential amino acids through diet, it is far preferable from a health standpoint to get all of the amino acids from foods. That way, we don’t have to rely on sometimes inefficient conversion processes for the amino acids our bodies need to make all the various proteins in our cells and tissues. That being said, amino acid deficiencies are incredibly rare and typically only seen in the context of starvation and gross malnourishment. Provided you are getting enough protein and you’re getting your protein from a diversity of food sources, you don’t need to worry about complete proteins and incomplete proteins. You don’t need to make sure that you’re getting a complete protein with every meal. For instance, you don’t have to have the rice and beans together; you can have rice at one meal and beans at the next.
Bottom line, from the perspective of getting the protein our body needs to function, as long as we’re getting enough protein, the protein source doesn’t matter. That being said, different high-protein foods have different overall health impacts. For example, if we’re considering cardiovascular disease risk, seafood and legumes are the most beneficial protein-dense foods!
If you want to hear all my thoughts on how much protein we need and whether or not it matters if it comes from animal or plant sources, check out my video.
Are You Missing Nutrients if You Only Include One Type of Protein in Your Diet?
When we’re talking about protein as a nutrient, it doesn’t matter if our protein comes from animal foods or plant foods as long as we’re getting a sufficient amount of protein. However, different protein-dense foods have distinct impacts on our overall health, and that’s because of the other nutrients they contain.
Overall, the most beneficial protein foods with respect to health benefits are seafood and legumes (e.g., lentils, chickpeas). These are the ones that lower risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and many forms of cancer. They also lower all-cause mortality, a general indicator of health and longevity used in scientific studies to determine whether or not something is good or bad for us overall.
One of the nutrients we get from animal protein foods is vitamin B12 (cobalamin). Vitamin B12 is used in metabolism like all B vitamins. It’s also incredibly important for neurological health. For example, there’s a really strong link between lower vitamin B12 levels and age-related cognitive decline in the elderly. The best sources of vitamin B12 are mollusks, shellfish such as clams, mussels, and oysters, red meat (especially organ meat), seafood in general, and then meat in general. There is a very small amount of vitamin B12 in tempeh, but in general, if you eat a vegan diet or other plant-based diet, B12 is one nutrient you need to think about and almost certainly supplement. Zinc and iron are the other ones to at least keep an eye on since they are more concentrated in animal protein foods in addition to being easier to absorb.
What does this mean? There are nutrients exclusive to plant foods and nutrients exclusive to animal foods. It’s easiest to meet the Nutrivore goal of getting all of the nutrients our bodies need from the foods we eat if we’re open to adopting a plant-forward omnivorous approach. That being said, you can still apply the Nutrivore philosophy to other dietary structures, and indeed, the nutritional sciences education that underpins Nutrivore will help to identify nutrients that you may need special strategies to ensure you are getting sufficient amounts. As always, when dealing with specific medical issues or specific dietary concerns, working with a licensed nutritionist or dietitian can help.
If you’re interested, check out my video where I discuss differences between animal and plant proteins.
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