Plant Protein: The Science They Never Tell You

0:03Darin Olien:Welcome to Super Life with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world. Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all. Get ready to start living your super life.

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4:13Darin Olien:Hey everybody, welcome to the show. This is Darren O 'Lean. This is the Super Life Podcast. I am getting into a subject that is constantly a conversation in the world of health. That is, where you get your protein from. There's so much to get into here. I'm going to do my best to not go too far in the weeds and try to make it somewhat of an understanding. But the first thing I want to say is, This is not to try to convince you to be plant-based. It's none of my business. I'm 17 years in. I no longer consume animal products because from my perspective and for me personally, I didn't need to kill anything in order to get the nutrients that are coming from the plants.

5:01I am still strong. I am still active. And I'm going to dig in to the data here and make it a little more clear. Again, you can do whatever you want. None of my business. I don't want to make your health my business. But I do want to share my perspective. Since many of you ask all the time, I'm going to give it a go here. I've dug into the data and every day that goes by, I do not need animal products. There is never in the 17 years that I've been plant-based, there has never been an argument for me about my health, about longevity, and about performance that tells me from the data that I need an animal or animal-based products in order to thrive.

5:51That said, today I'll show you the protein science. I'll talk about it around heart health, longevity, performance, truths. We'll zoom out a little bit. We'll also do a part two on this where I'm going to dive into the ethics, the contamination, the antibiotics, the PFAS, the food systems, which should be part of the conversation about where you're getting your protein. Because source matters. So part one, we're going to dive into protein. This segment, Protein Basics in Plain English. Protein is protein. 20 amino acids, 9 essential amino acids. Plants have them all. Let me say that again. 20 amino acids, 9 essential amino acids.

6:45Plants do have them all. And if any of you want to see where I'm referencing, it's all in the show notes. So I'm not going to spend time saying, hey, this was on PubMed and blah, blah, blah. I have it all. That's where I'm coming from. This is the data that I'm sharing with you. Okay, so plants have them all. It's just proportional to each plant and the digestibility. But the presence is there. So I'll get into more of that later. I haven't had him on my podcast yet, but Stanford's Dr. Christopher Gardner has been super clear. I can't wait to talk to him in person on this point. Peer-reviewed work and many public talks and decades and decades of his academic research.

7:38All plants, all plant foods contain 20 amino acids, including all of the essential. I got the show notes. Diversity covers the quality, meaning a diverse amount. It's, let me just say this simply. We think that we need to sit down at every meal. And from our reduced brain perspective, we're always trying to reduce things down. And that's part of the brain. But we lose the perspective of what life looks like. So the research shows that just eating a wide variety of food throughout the week covers all of the amino acids and all of the right kind of amino acids, the leucine and everything else, if you're eating whole foods, legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, beans, just eating normally.

8:35So you don't have to think of it as, I got to get all my protein in this meal. No, eat a variety of food throughout the week, a salad, a smoothie bowl, a fruit bowl, a black bean burrito, whatever it is, you're covering your bases.

8:53Darin Olien:That's what the research shows. So again, there's no amino acids missing. It's levels of the amino acids, meaning how much of leucine is in anything. If you're just eating rice, then you're going to be deficient in some of the amino acids. You will be getting them, but you will be deficient in some of the essential amino acids. But who the hell is eating rice every day, all day? Unless you're poor and you can't afford it and you're in a desperate situation. But every one of you that has a device and is able to listen to this podcast is not in that situation. So it's irrelevant. So essential amino acids means that we need to ingest them.

9:36They are building blocks for so many things in the body. Plants have them. Variety easily covers your need. This is quotes and conclusions from multiple studies. Modern protein quality scores compares digestibility, not whether plants lack amino acids. You're looking at digestibility. And again, plant digestibility is also superior, easier to break down. Flesh of another being is stimulatory on the body, meaning it is a lot of work to break down with hydrochloric acids, with protease enzymes, with great digestion and great work from your body, it has to break flesh of another being into its usable amino acids.

10:36So therefore, again, all amino acids are in plants and they're more easily digestible and easier to break down for the body to access the amino acids. If you eat a wide variety of fruit and food and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and legumes, you're hitting all of those essential amino acids. Now that I've made clear on that, please, if you want deeper, all of you who want to go deeper and read the studies, they are all in the show notes. Next, what happens to heart risk when you go more plant-based? Well, the twin randomized controlled trial that everyone asks about, Stanford Medicine, randomized 22 pairs of identical twins.

11:28Same DNA. One twin went vegan, the other omnivore for eight weeks. Quality was virtually the same. Vegan twins had lower LDL cholesterol, lower fasting insulin, and lost more weight, despite both diets being quote-unquote healthy. That's in the JAMA network in its open 2023 study. Whole food diet patterns. The American Heart Association says heart-healthy patterns emphasize mostly plant proteins. Whole grains, vegetables, fruits, even liquid plant oils. Limiting saturated fat is key. If you are still under this weird delusion that saturated fat is not contributing to heart disease, you're on the wrong side of a massive amount of data.

12:25No matter what people say, you are not geared for a long-term benefit and outcome if you're believing that saturated fat is all good. Replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat lowers your cardiovascular risk disease markers. Period. So same calories, but different fats and fiber, lower your LDL and insulin and move in the right direction when plants take the lead. Again, another study out of JAMA. Red meat, processed meat versus plant proteins, and also some plant-based meats. Stanford Swap Meat randomized crossover trial had adults eating two servings a day of plant-based meat alternative versus red meat for eight weeks each.

13:22What were the results? The LDL dropped, the weight decreased by an average of two pounds in the eight weeks, and the gut-derived inflammatory markers fell from the plant-based side. This was out of Stanford Medicine. Many plant-based meats are processed to a certain degree. So is your meat. Your meat that most of you, over 97 % of you that are exposed to, every restaurant you go to, every takeout you get of your meat, your poultry, your fish, is from aggressive industrial agriculture. So it is processed. I'm going to get into that in part two. Whole food, plant proteins, beans, soy, nuts, seeds still remain the gold standard.

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16:47Darin Olien:And with a 100-day risk-free trial, free shipping, and returns, you can experience this game-changing cookware with zero risk. Come on, who wouldn't want to do that? Okay, in terms of longevity and mortality data, replacing animal protein, especially, of course, red meat and processed meat with plant protein is linked to lower all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality in large cohorts. JAMA as well as Dr. Walter Longo states over and over if you're eating way too much protein that is not geared toward longevity okay so again meat is very stimulatory very hard for the body to break down okay so more lentils tofu nuts fewer processed food increases your long-term beneficial and healthy markers performance and strength so most athletes you will need your you know this shifts around for different people but between 1.4 and 2 grams per kilogram of body weight so that's about 90 kg that i weigh if you calculate that out about 1.5 grams per kilogram I need about 135 grams of protein per day.

18:14And I get that easily with about two meals a day, with one snack usually of just broad spectrum eating. Nuts, seeds, the gooms. Again, I'm just reiterating. I have never lacked protein in my life. You are still receiving all of the amino acids. Again, let me just reiterate. Eat what you want. But the data is what I'm sharing with you. The data around amino acids and plant-based eating. Strength and hypertrophy. I've been testing this individually for the last 17, 20 years. If I am trying to put on muscle, I just eat more of a sensible amount of food. Because I know I'm getting all of the amino acids.

19:03I don't shy away from tempeh or tofu. none of that shows up it does not produce lowering testosterone at all that research has been debunked i eat tempeh i eat tofu i eat beans i legumes nuts seeds barucas all of that stuff throughout the week when total protein is matched between plants and meat and training is standardized the recent meta-analysis showed no strength penalty on well-planned eating diets of both omnivorous and plants. No difference. None. A 2025 randomized crossover trial in active older adults found a well-balanced vegan diet did not compromise daily muscle protein synthesis versus an omnivore.

19:58Again, all of this is in the show notes. So if you hit your total grams and calories spread across the day, the week, the month, and you hit your soy, your legumes, your grains, your nuts, your seeds, your spirulina, your salads, your fruits, all of that, and you get enough calories, you hit all of your performance targets. And it's ethical and sustainable. And we'll get into that in part two. A general active adult, again, between 1.2 and 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. If you're training heavy, 1.6 to maybe 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. But this easily hits. 15 to 25 grams each is in one cup of lentils, one cup of black beans, plus brown rice, 200 grams of tofu or tempeh, two to three tablespoons of almond butter, whole grain toast, soy, it's so easy to hit protein requirements.

21:10The one thing that we need to be aware of is your microbiome, diversity of your microbiome. And in this day and age, because we're not close to the food and eating it right away, right out of the ground, B12 supplement is recommended for both vegans and non-vegans. So that's the highlight of the research. We will pull this up and we will edit the flash of this research in the video form. But I just wanted to hit some of the major marks because we have carnivore stuff going crazy, which no long-term anything is going to work out well for you on carnivore. All of the guys who have been carnivore, their testosterone has plummeted, and you're sprinting towards some serious colorectal cancer, lack of fiber.

22:02It is just a really bad idea, certainly over the long term. Okay, so I just wanted to emphasize and kind of hit the marks on this idea that the complete protein is in flesh. There's so many other things to think about. And the amino acids, again, are distributed throughout normal eating throughout the day, throughout the week, and you get all of the amino acids. And in fact, Christopher Gardner's research shows that we get more than you need in that distribution of amino acids. Plus, the body with autophagy and recycling, when your cells die off, the body also tries to upcycle amino acids that are broken down because it's a great value to the body.

22:54So the body inherently is sustainable. So it upregulates amino acids when it can. Okay, so that's part one. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed that. It is something that I didn't want to talk about, but I know I have to. And my good friend Simon Hill goes deeply into this as well. So good shout out to Simon. If any of you want to dive into some of his stuff that have talked about some of these studies, have been revelatory in explaining more of this stuff, but I really love the work of Dr. Christopher Garner and I'll have him on my podcast soon. So thanks for tuning in. I love you and appreciate you.

23:36I am not the authority on what you choose to eat but just have the information and the facts. You can choose whatever you want. If you wanna eat meat, if that's something that you want in your life for me, I'll just give you my last personal point of view. I have spent 15 years plus running around this planet, understanding botanicals and ingredients and realizing that nutrient power is in plants. So it changed my life. And when I eat whole living food, living food creates life. I personally, my personal statement, I personally don't believe you can have optimal health eating dead flesh. Just don't believe it.

24:25But that's my point of view. And of course, in this day and age, people crucify you for just having a point of view. But that's mine. I'm gonna dive deeper on this on my Patreon. Again, I am not the agent of what you wanna do in your life. But let's just be factual and let's just have a discourse and let's just live in a sovereignty within ourselves. And we do not need, I don't need for you to stop eating meat. That's between you and your creator, your God, your life. I believe for me, the integration of eating plants and eating nutrient density and not being at the hand of killing anything in order for me to thrive, I have proven it in my life and it works well for me when I integrate all of the principles that matter the most.

25:19Because super life matters to me. Okay? I love you.