Achi news desk-
At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, a scientist called Paul Schenk surveyed the eating habits of top athletes from around the world. The Canadians reported plowing through more than 800 grams of meat per day on average; the Americans drank more than two liters of milk every day.
Although there have been many changes in sports nutrition since then, the belief that meat and milk are the best fuel for building muscle remains. Nowadays, however, an increasing number of athletes are interested in reducing or eliminating their dependence on animal proteins, for environmental, ethical or health reasons. A pair of new studies reinforce the case that it’s possible to rely on plant proteins without sacrificing training gains, as long as you choose your proteins carefully.
The standard objection to plant proteins is that they lack the right mix of essential amino acids needed to assemble new muscle fibers. Unlike animal proteins, most plant proteins are missing or low in at least one essential amino acid.
In particular, there is one particular amino acid, leucine, which seems to play a special role in triggering new muscle synthesis. It is particularly rich in whey, one of the two proteins (along with casein) found in milk. That’s why whey protein is the powdered drink of choice in gyms around the world, backed by decades of convincing research, often funded by the dairy industry.
But perhaps one of the reasons why whey looks so good is that we haven’t fully explored the alternatives. A 2018 study by Luc van Loon from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, for example, tested nine vegetable proteins including wheat, hemp, soy, brown rice, peas and corn. To their surprise, they found that corn protein contained 13.5 percent leucine – even more than whey.
Based on that insight, van Loon decided to pit corn against milk in a direct test of muscle protein synthesis. Volunteers ate 30 grams of one of the proteins; a series of blood tests and muscle biopsies were collected over the next five hours to determine how much of the ingested protein was being converted into new muscle fibres. The results, which appeared in the journal Amino Acids, were simple: Despite all the hype about whey, there was no discernible difference between them.
A second study, this one published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise by a team led by Benjamin Wall from the University of Exeter in Britain, had similar findings. Instead of corn, he used a mixture of 40 percent pea, 40 percent brown rice and 20 percent canola proteins. Since different plants have different amino acid profiles, mixing complementary proteins has long been suggested as a way to overcome the deficiencies of any single plant protein. Sure enough, the protein blend stimulated as much new muscle synthesis as whey.
On the surface, the message from these studies is simple: Plant proteins are – or at least can be – as effective as even the best animal proteins for supporting muscle growth. There are a few caveats to consider, though. One is that the studies used isolated protein powders rather than whole foods. You would need almost nine cobs of corn to get the 30 grams of protein used in van Loon’s study, compared to just three and a half cups of milk.
Another is that plants are generally harder to digest, meaning that not all amino acids will be usable. That may not be a problem for healthy young adults who eat 30 grams of protein at once, which is enough to trigger a near-maximal muscle response. But for older people, who tend to have blunted muscle building responses to protein, or in situations where you’re getting a smaller dose of protein, the details of protein quality may become more important.
Of course, the effectiveness of plant proteins won’t be news to notable plant-based athletes like sprinter Scott Jurek or basketball star Chris Paul – but it’s encouraging to see the science starting to catch up. the end.
Alex Hutchinson is the author of Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance. Follow him on Threads @sweat_science.
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