Karina

You're listening to the No ******** Vegan Podcast, episode 193. Registered dietitian and award-winning author Vesanto Melina joins me to talk about all things vegan protein. Welcome to the No ******** Vegan Podcast, myth-busting and evidence-based advice to help you kick **** with your health and fitness on a vegan diet. Here's your host, Karina Inkster. Hey, welcome to the show. I'm Karina, your go-to, no BS vegan fitness and nutrition coach. So 181 episodes ago, in episode 12 of this show, I spoke with renowned dietitian Vesanto Melina, and today she's back on the show. But first, I wanted to share a little something. Along with my colleague, Coach Zoe, our goal in our coaching business is to get clients to life after coaching. So some certainly stay long-term for continued workout programming and accountability and a general kick in the **** but they're all at a lower level of coaching. They've got their nutrition nailed. We're no longer checking their strength training form. But these folks and the many others who go off completely on their own after working with us are 100% capable of building their own workout programs and sticking to them long-term. Our amazing client, Steph, just finished working with us. She said, I decided to take the initiative to figure out how to program a custom interval strength training workout on my Apple Watch workout program, develop 4 full body workouts, and jump rope a bunch. The fact that I was able to do this confidently and effectively is because of the work we've done together. I've learned how to develop a workout with body weight and various weight options, how to make a move more spicy, and to feel completely empowered in my home gym with all my equipment. Not to mention how to take care of the nutrition component. I've set some new goals and want to see if I can navigate their completion on my own with ease using what I've learned from working with the two of you. This makes us so happy to hear. Much as we always miss working with amazing humans like Steph when they move on, our goal in our work with clients is to get them self-sufficient for life. So if you want to build health habits that you'll still have when you're 103, check out and apply for our coaching programs at karenaingster.com/coaching. My guest today, Vesanto Melina, is a registered dietitian and co-author of books that have won awards internationally and received star rating by the American Library Association as go-to books on plant-based nutrition. Most recent are Plant-Powered Protein, the KICK Diabetes Cookbook, and Becoming Vegan, the Comprehensive and Express Edition, all co-authored with registered dietitian Brenda Davis. Their books are now available in 10 languages. Vesanto has taught nutrition at the University of British Columbia and at Seattle's Bastyr University and received the Riley Jeffs Award in 2014. She's the lead author of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics position paper on vegetarian diets, and she's an internationally known speaker in 14 countries. Her favorite meal is tempting tofu fingers from her recent plant-powered protein book. Here's our conversation. Vesanto, thank you so much for coming back on the show and speaking with me today.

Vesanto Melina

Great. I'm glad to be doing this with you.

Karina

It's been a while. So for our listeners, you were on the show in episode 12. Yeah. Way back in the early days.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. We were talking about vitamin B12, I think.

Karina

Yes.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, that's right.

Karina

And I think maybe the position paper that you co-authored.

Vesanto Melina

The position paper was just out, and that's actually still the latest position paper. And our book, Becoming Vegan, was just out too. And that's become a textbook, Becoming Vegan, Comprehensive Edition, is now a textbook in the US, Canada, and Taiwan.

Karina

Wow, that's amazing.

Vesanto Melina

Really used a lot in Taiwan and the Chinese edition.

Karina

Interesting.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

Hey, and congrats to you and your co-author, Brenda. You just achieved a milestone in book sales, right?

Vesanto Melina

That's right. Just in English, we're up to a million copies, and we've got also nine other languages.

Karina

Wow. So a million just in English then?

Vesanto Melina

Just in English. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Karina

That's huge. Amazing. Well, congrats.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, so things are changing. changing in the world. There's a lot of more interest in this topic of plant-based.

Karina

Well, you've been on the forefront for decades. And you know, when I say I've been vegan since 2003, a lot of people say, oh, that's like before it was cool. Yeah, right. Because now people are realizing from a business perspective, it actually makes sense to have vegan offerings and vegan products.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

Not just because it's more popular, but because it's a marketing term now, apparently.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. Yeah. It was interesting. I looked at a local website. I look at happycow.net. And we used to have a lot of vegan restaurants in Vancouver and, you know, in different cities. Now we don't have quite as many specifically vegan restaurants. We've got tons of restaurants, just about everybody with vegan offerings. Like it's shifted. So yeah, they're just doing it both ways. There's vegetarian and vegan. And then there's the ones that just everybody, people will phone the restaurant and say, hey, I can't come because you don't have anything vegan on the menu. And three of our group are vegan or whatever, you know, so they're changing.

Karina

Well, that's a good point. I feel like my favorite restaurants are still in Vancouver, so I haven't lived there for seven years, but the food scene over there is still one of the things I miss.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah. I call it Veg Couver.

Karina

Veg Couver. Yeah. And you know, some of my favorite restaurants are not entirely vegan. They just have incredible options that happen to be vegan.

Vesanto Melina

Happen to be. Yeah.

Karina

So I understand.

Vesanto Melina

I was speaking in New York just over a year ago in Manhattan. And most, high star Michelin restaurant has gone vegan.

Karina

Oh, that's right.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah. So it's changing all sorts of places. It was surprising. This guy was Michelin five star already and then decided to go entirely plant-based.

Karina

Was that 11 Madison? Yeah, I think it's called 11 Madison Avenue or something. I can't remember. It has the word 11 because that's the number, the street number, I guess.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

That's cool.

Vesanto Melina

It was fun to see. When I was speaking there, I spoke to 345 school food service administrators, and they serve 800,000 meals a day to children.

Karina

Oh, wow.

Vesanto Melina

So some of them got breakfast, some of them got lunch. And they made it for everybody. And they made them vegan on Fridays already, very big success. And they were shifting now to have vegan on Mondays. And the kids like the food. They don't throw it in the garbage.

Karina

Things are shifting.

Vesanto Melina

Things are shifting.

Karina

Things are shifting in the hospital worlds too. I always feel like those are behind the times for whatever reason.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

And it's changing.

Vesanto Melina

Our Kick Diabetes Cookbook, which has really good recipes without any added oil or sugar. It's used by 7 New York hospitals.

Karina

Wow, there you go. See.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

Things are shifting.

Vesanto Melina

Things are shifting.

Karina

Well, speaking of books and things shifting, you have a new book out.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

Currently going through. It's excellent so far. It's called Plant Power Protein. Yes. Nutrition essentials and dietary guidelines for all ages. So tell me the story behind this. Is this because there's a need for more info on protein? Is it because there's misinformation out there? Like where does the idea for this book originate?

Vesanto Melina

Actually came from our publisher. We've had the same publisher for, well, it was 1993 was our first book. And this publisher said, you and Brenda should write a book on protein. And we said, well, we don't even need to. Everybody gets enough protein when they're plant-based. And he said, that's what everybody asks about all the time. And so we leapt into the project and, you know, of course, found there were all kinds of interesting questions and myths and controversial points. And it got really interesting. We had a great time doing it. And then this book has now become number one on Amazon in the sustainability category.

Karina

Oh, amazing.

Vesanto Melina

And one of the special things about it also is that Brenda Davis, my co-author, she's just turned 65. I think she'll be 66 this month. But her son, Corey, is an agrologist with the government. That means a kind of environmentalist. And he's been vegetarian since birth and vegan. him since very early on in his preschool years. And he wrote the chapter for us about a strong section about sustainability.

Karina

Perfect.

Vesanto Melina

And that is a topic that's not used very much in, we find that a lot of the media about environmental issues have, you know, what kind of car you should drive and, you know, transportation issues. And From one research study a while ago, only 7% of the media talk about dietary choice.

Karina

That's an interesting point. It's one of the top things we can do.

Vesanto Melina

It's That's right.

Karina

Driving less or having an electric car. It's not having kids and it's eating a plant-based diet. Those are the top three.

Vesanto Melina

That's the big ones. Yeah.

Karina

Yeah, so absolutely. That's an interesting point. I think I remember from our conversation a number of years back, you were saying in the position paper that is always updated, of course, but you're one of the main authors.

Vesanto Melina

Somehow they didn't update that one yet. It was a really strong one. And there's one in the works, but it's not posted yet.

Karina

Not yet, right. Well, whatever the last edition was that you worked on, you mentioned that it was a new concept to have the environment mentioned as part of one of these benefits, right? So it talks about potential health benefits and decreasing risk of disease and all this, but the environmental piece was new, I think, at the time.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. And a lot of people still don't take it into account. I know there's environmental groups that talk about all those other issues and they don't talk about food choices, dietary choices. And yet that's equally important to transportation choices.

Karina

Yes, it is.

Vesanto Melina

So it's something you can just do tomorrow.

Karina

Yeah.

Vesanto Melina

You don't have to save up to buy. And by the way, don't get a whatever that guy's.

Karina

Oh, a Tesla. Yeah, don't get a Tesla.

Vesanto Melina

Don't get a Tesla because he does horrible experiments with monkeys and crashes.

Karina

Yeah, we're not we're not fans around here. So we're definitely on the same page. I actually just bought my first ever new car. It's A 2025 Mini Countryman and it's fully electric.

Vesanto Melina

Oh good.

Karina

Because I didn't want to support Elon.

Vesanto Melina

Good.

Karina

And I wanted to go with something that was going to last a long time.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

And is fully electric. So we fitted our house with a level 2 charger, the whole thing. And it's only been a couple months, but it's been amazing. It's been so great.

Vesanto Melina

It is. We've got a Mitsubishi.

Karina

Oh, cool.

Vesanto Melina

It's a hybrid.

Karina

Okay, yeah.

Vesanto Melina

And that's good, because when we go up to the interior to visit my kids, you know, it's a five-hour drive.

Karina

Yeah.

Vesanto Melina

You can not worry if you're going to run out of electricity.

Karina

Totally.

Vesanto Melina

Anyway, things are looking up in the world.

Karina

Well, let's talk about some of the aspects in your book. So we've talked about protein before on the show. I want to go into a little more depth around RDA recommendations. What does it mean? Who does it apply to? Healthy aging, kind of context in which protein becomes more important.

Vesanto Melina

Right, yeah.

Karina

And so just for context for our conversation, my coaching team and I, of course, work with vegans and we work with people on strength training and the nutrition that supports it. So we don't work with people who are bodybuilding or competing in physique competitions, like bikini competitions, anything on stage.

Vesanto Melina

Right, yeah.

Karina

We don't go that route. So we're working with folks who are strength training for life, you know, to be 103 and still kicking *** basically.

Vesanto Melina

I want to be 118.

Karina

Oh, 118.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

There you go. See.

Vesanto Melina

At 82, I can do a two-minute plank.

Karina

That's amazing. And I saw you do 5 fitness classes every week too.

Vesanto Melina

I do. Yeah, I do.

Karina

That's incredible.

Vesanto Melina

Different kinds. I took the, actually the Y fitness training a long time ago, like probably in the 80s.

Karina

Oh, so cool.

Vesanto Melina

And then, you know, it talked about how you need, as you know, strength and flexibility and endurance. And I can't remember what the other ones are, but you probably know.

Karina

Balance is one of them.

Vesanto Melina

Balance. That's right. So what I do is 3 Three that are, regular fitness and, strength and endurance and so on. And one that's about balance because I had a hip replacement and one that's about yoga, which is beautifully relaxed.

Karina

That's a great combo.

Vesanto Melina

And then I just started a self-defense for women course. I'll go to that tonight. And it's a 12-week course. I'm very excited about it because there are things that people, to keep safe that I hadn't thought about before. But one of these people works in a mall and at City Hall is their security person, our teacher. And she said, if somebody's vulnerable to getting attacked or robbed, the person that's watching for that will watch whether they're just standing tall and strong, or if they're kind of insecure and that they will go for the person that looks the vulnerable one. And you could just change that in a second by your stance. And she says that won't be the person that's attacked when standing strong. And the one that's got this frail stance will be attacked and robbed. I thought that was really interesting.

Karina

I never really considered that. My coach colleague Zoe is, she's a high level boxer. She works at a boxing gym when she's not working with our clients. She teaches, she does self-defense classes, martial arts, the whole thing. And so she, I don't know if it's still going, but she was leading a women's class very similar to this. So women's self-defense, learning all the different aspects, accessible to anyone who wants to come, pay what you can kind of thing. So she would be all over this. sounds excellent.

Vesanto Melina

And this is a women's class, mine, but the man next door said, oh, I want to come.

Karina

That's right.

Vesanto Melina

It's just so valuable. There's a lot of jujitsu in it, but of course, the teacher will adjust it for me as a, you know, a senior, when we start to fall, I'll be falling with a bit more. A little more protection. When we get there, a little more protection.

Karina

Yeah. Well, you lift weights, you're active, you're fine, you're bulletproof at this point.

Vesanto Melina

Well, I watch these people on TV. You know, I love that all the movies that are coming out have these women just, you know, kicking somebody in a certain way that just picks up five guys that rush at her.

Karina

Right.

Vesanto Melina

So that'll be pretty soon. Yeah.

Karina

Oh, yeah. That's going to be you in like six months from now.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

Awesome. Well, okay, so the people that we're working with are maybe not the population that's covered when we talk about general guidelines for protein, right? So you hear this number, 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of body weight per day. healthy body weight. And that's supposedly covers like 97% of the population, right?

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

So I do have questions about that.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, good.

Karina

But the people who are listening to this show, the people we work with generally are strength training regularly. A lot of them are plant-based, especially the ones that we have on our team. And a lot of them are currently in calorie deficits, specifically for fat loss. And they don't want to lose muscle. as well as the fat, obviously. So these are some scenarios that may increase our protein needs. So that's something that I want to talk about as well. But maybe we can start with the general 0.8 grams that we hear that a lot. And it's kind of in two minds almost. Like part of the vegan group will say, oh, well, all you need is 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of body weight per day. That's easy to get on plants. Don't even worry about it, which is true, it is easy to get on plants. Then there's the other faction, maybe like the strength athletes or the competitive folks or whatever, who are like, yeah, but that's if you're sedentary, that's the absolute minimum. If you strength train and, you know, care about body composition, you need way more than that. So where does the 0.8 grams come from and who does it cover? Let's start there.

Vesanto Melina

So you're right exactly what you said, you know, it covers 97.5% of the population and so on. But when I'm talking plant-based, I definitely like to up it by at least 10%, maybe 20%. I do consultations with people where I do a nutritional analysis with a very good program for all the different nutrients. And I like to have people around 110, 120% when they're in the pre-senior category. So that's if you're going into pregnancy or every different age, you definitely want this extra edge when you're plant-based. And we probably don't need it, and especially don't need it if you're using soy, because it's very similar to the animal products that, you know, the old guidelines were based on. But beans, lentils, and so on have enough fiber in them that we lose a little bit. So I like to be at least, you know, 0.9 grams per kilo, maybe 1 gram. Now, when we're talking about seniors, the North American guidelines are not any different. you could be 30 years old or 80 years old, and it still says the 0.8. But in Europe, they're quite different in their thinking. They're suggesting in many of the European countries that you should be at least at 1 gram per kilo. And in Scandinavian countries, they're like, or what, 1 to 1.2, anywhere in there. And that's what we're recommending. And the Scandinavian countries are even up to 1.3, 1.4. And we also have had lively dialogues with Michael Greger about this because he's saying you don't need more protein. But when you actually look at it, he's actually even recommending for seniors the one gram per kilo, even though he says you don't need more, he's up by 25%, you know, from.8 up to 1.

Karina

Interesting.

Vesanto Melina

And also what he's thinking about is if he's talking to the general population who already get way more than that anyway. So anyway, Brenda and I argue we had him here for breakfast in the summer. We have a live But that's one issue about nutrition and the research. I started teaching nutrition at university in 1965. So I've seen this whole evolution of our concepts and how nutrition is quite a lively. And one of my neighbors, who's a physicist, finds it not as exact a science as what he's working with, but he actually got cancer because he's a big sausage and alcohol person. So now he's taking nutrition a little bit more seriously, thinking about it.

Karina

Sometimes that's what it takes, right? It takes a health crisis for people to say, oh, maybe I should start looking at this.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. So while nutrition isn't as exact a science because it is alive, we're always finding out new stuff about protein, about vitamin D, about calcium requirements, all those kind of things. And we have some really good, huge studies and some areas we go, gee, we need to find out more about this. And we don't have the studies yet. We're seeing this big range from 0.8 up to 1.4 just for regular people, depending on where you are in the world for the recommendations.

Karina

That's an interesting point.

Vesanto Melina

So now for bodybuilding, when you're actually adding muscle mass, you definitely need more protein. And that could be if you're a senior that isn't absorbing very well and they've become weak in their muscles, or if it's somebody that's bodybuilding for a competition or just because they want to have more muscles. Now, I found an interesting thing. I've gone to do water fasting at True North a couple of times. And just because I was interested, there was a doctor, Dr. Michael Clapper, that I was very interested when he was down there a long time ago. I thought, boy, I'm going to go and find out what they're up to. And I went just before, it was about a year ago, before Christmas. And I water fasted for 10 days, but I did a DEXA scan before and after. And I found that I lost visceral fat, got to a perfect place, but I also lost protein. So I lost muscle. So it's really made me think carefully about actual fasting, that it's probably better to do something where you have limited calories and you're working out. Now that is darn hard.

Karina

Yes, it is.

Vesanto Melina

Really hard.

Karina

That's an interesting point.

Vesanto Melina

It is interesting. Yeah, because I did the DEXA scan before and after and then found I'd lost, I don't know what it was, but half of that was actual muscle.

Karina

Well, this is one of the reasons why people who are currently not necessarily fasting, but just in a calorie deficit for fat loss, it's one of the reasons why they have higher protein needs.

Vesanto Melina

They sure do. And it's only like a percentage of your calories is protein. So you cut way back on, you eliminate the soda pop, eliminate the donuts, all the white starchy stuff. But boy, you keep those tofu and especially lentils, and all the 20 kinds of legumes that there are. You keep those at your standard. And they will actually help you manage between meals anyway to keep your blood glucose level, because they've got a very slow delivery of carbohydrate. We need that for our brain.

Karina

Yeah, that's another reason why we recommend higher protein intakes for our clients, because again, most of them are in calorie deficits. they're going to feel more satiated. They're just going to get less hangry, basically. They're eating a good amount of protein. And we're not talking about like insane levels of protein where you need 18 protein shakes A day. Not at all, because that's not sustainable or sane or necessary anyways.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

But yeah, that's one of the reasons it's feeling full. It just keeps us satiated for longer on fewer calories.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

So do you see a difference between some of these recommendations And like what's optimal? Is there a level of protein that is acceptable and then a level of protein that's optimal depending on what your situation is? So for example, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, where all dietitians are involved, the dietitians of Canada, American College of Sports Medicine, they all recommend way more protein than 0.8, right? And so Even just recently, I think it was like two months ago.

Vesanto Melina

Well, no, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Dietitians of Canada, they don't recommend more. They're at the 0.8.

Karina

Oh, I'm talking about people who like strength training.

Vesanto Melina

When they get to the sports medicine people.

Karina

Right, okay.

Vesanto Melina

They're recommending more.

Karina

Got it, got it, okay.

Vesanto Melina

And sometimes they're sponsored by whatever company.

Karina

That's a good point.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, and dietitians groups are sponsored hugely and our government subsidies go to dairy in Canada and to meat in the US. Like 80%, 70% of our subsidies go to dairy in Canada and 80%, 70% go to meat in the US. So they've got these strong influences in advertising that these are good foods, even though like meat, for example, is a probable carcinogen and cured meats are class one carcinogens like bacon ham, sausage, all this stuff, which, you know, we used to think tasted so good, but boy, it's a cancer proven by the WHO statistics.

Karina

Yes.

Vesanto Melina

Cancer causer.

Karina

Yeah, it's a good point because protein is one of those things that has to take context into effect or into account. I mean, not like, you know, there's an RDA for iron and there's an RDA for zinc and B12. And Those don't really consider, there's probably some exceptions here, but they don't really consider like how old you are.

Vesanto Melina

Iron does. It's fairly well sorted out.

Karina

Yeah, but protein is different. And this is why I think it's so confusing for a lot of people because they're like, well, I'm not an athlete, but I do strength train. And so, there's kind of a range that makes sense for them. The older adults, so you mentioned increasing our protein needs as we get older. There was a very new study just came out a couple months ago. It's A meta-analysis looking at a whole bunch of randomized controlled trials in older adults who are all resistance training. And so it found if you supplement with protein and it was up to 1.5 grams of protein per kilo, right?

Vesanto Melina

Sure.

Karina

It actually improved physical function more than just strength training without the protein supplement.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. Yeah.

Karina

So, but that's a pretty high level compared to 0.8. That's almost twice.

Vesanto Melina

Well, a lot of those people, because of their dentures not working well and because of trouble getting out to the store and because of just not having lost your partner and you're just there cooking for yourself, they've got all these reasons. So they've probably been low on protein before. for a while, and then you want to boost it a bit. But it doesn't mean that person has to be on something like 1.5. But we find when people have got sarcopenia, this muscle wasting of old age, they really need to boost their protein, and they probably aren't even eating that much. when your calories are small, they're just, lost taste unless people lose their sense of taste if they're low in zinc. Then you want to boost it. So, and I found it difficult to build menus for people unless I add the protein powders for at least one meal. Like it's really tricky to get it up. And even for myself, I was adding some to my smoothies. And I found protein powders that didn't have a whole bunch of junk in them. They didn't have stevia, they didn't have sugar, they didn't have this and that. They were just like a mix of pea protein and rice.

Karina

I like those. Two ingredients, pea and rice protein. That's it. Nothing else.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, that's exactly the good kind.

Karina

Yeah. So when you're working with clients, when you're doing consultations, you're looking at someone's current diet, making recommendations, What are the factors that you take into account when you're figuring out how much protein someone needs?

Vesanto Melina

My website on that's Nutrispeak, nutrition speak, like consultations. And I can get people to do a food record or else a three-day food record. And then I get an idea of how they eat because I really want to work with people where they're at instead of telling them some pattern that it was out of the blue. And also people can't change that quickly. You see how amenable to change they are. Yeah, So then I have amounts for things. You know, how much, okay, you eat tofu, you eat lentils, you eat lentil soup. How much of that soup was actual lentils? How much was tofu, that kind of thing. And then see what their goals are. they trying to gain muscle? Are they just trying to get through the day? You know, so There's so many variables here and it's important to make it fit the person and where they are right now. There's a lot of different options. But when I'm working with someone, I definitely, who's plant-based, I definitely try and get them up to 110, 120%, the official recommendation. And if they're a senior, higher still up to the 1 to 1.2 grams per kilo.

Karina

That makes sense. I'm just looking at a quick Google search here specifically on the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. It's also showing the American College of Sports Medicine, which obviously just focuses on different populations. So the College of Sports Medicine recommends 1.2 to 1.7 grams if it's someone who's lifting weights regularly.

Vesanto Melina

That's right, yeah.

Karina

And then the Academy is 1.2 to 2 grams for people who are looking to gain muscle. And it depends on their volume of training and all that kind of stuff.

Vesanto Melina

And that makes sense. especially the academy one is a bit more reasonable. But, and sometimes those people are eating a lot of food.

Karina

Yeah, that's a good point.

Vesanto Melina

So they can fit in the protein.

Karina

Well, see, I remember talking to Robert Cheek. He's been on the show a couple of times, Vegan Bodybuilder. The first time we chatted, he was like, it's so easy to get the protein I need. And I'm like, yeah, that's because you're eating 3,500 calories A day.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

The average person. is not. I remember I used to have to eat over 3,000 calories a day just to maintain when I was working with clients in person. I'd be in a gym for 8 hours a day, walking around, demonstrating exercises, spotting people, doing my own training as well, right? But 3,000 calories of mostly whole plant foods is an insane volume of food.

Vesanto Melina

He sent me one of his lunches when we were writing our book. And I use this sometimes in my slide presentations. But he had on his plate edamame, lentils, and chickpeas. Like he had three kinds of legumes on his plate. It was just what he was having for lunch that day. It was really pretty.

Karina

Yeah.

Vesanto Melina

And he had also avocado and some veggies. And so it didn't look that huge, but he did have the three kinds of legumes on it.

Karina

I mean.

Vesanto Melina

Of course, somebody who's cooking for themselves and wasn't so golden might have one of the kinds at a time.

Karina

Totally.

Vesanto Melina

Now, how I do it a lot is because... We've got in our plant-powered protein book, tempting tofu fingers, it's called, or tempting tofu cubes.

Karina

You mentioned that as your favorite vegan.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, my favorite. And it's got little cubes of firm tofu that are marinated, and then I put it in the air fryer. And I love the air fryer, although it could be done different ways, like in a pan or an oven, but the air fryer will stop when you tell it to. You know, you set it for 12 minutes or whatever. And even though you're forgotten, you're out gardening, you're off using your computer, you went to the store or something, it'll stop and it doesn't burn it, you know? So I love that.

Karina

Plus it gets extra crispy. It's a total game changer.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, it is. And so I always have tofu cubes in my refrigerator, refrigerator being marinated, and then just stick it in the air fryer and I can easily eat half a block of tofu, firm tofu, but it's kind of like eating potato chips, except it isn't all full of junk.

Karina

Right.

Vesanto Melina

It's really good. So the marinade has low sodium tamari and a bit of rice vinegar, a bit of toasted sesame oil. and lots of ginger and some minced garlic.

Karina

Delicious.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, it's really good. And I can eat a lot of that. Like it isn't quite as hard as eating, you know, maybe a big bowl of kidney beans or something. No, but I can eat really a lot. And so you see what you like, you know?

Karina

Oh, well, my, I've mentioned this on the show before, but my current go-to favorite whole food protein source is fava bean tofu. Because it's 64 grams of protein in one block.

Vesanto Melina

Big mountain foods.

Karina

Big mountain foods, yeah. And they're women owned. They're local to us here in BC and they're based in Vancouver, actually.

Vesanto Melina

They are. Yeah, we've been out to their plant.

Karina

Oh, cool. And it's 91% protein by calories. So 91% of the calories in that food comes directly from protein. It's amazing.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. It's even higher percentage than soy because soy has a lot of fat in it. So yeah, that's a great thing.

Karina

It's really good. And in the air fryer, again, same idea. You could put a marinade over it. You could just do it plain and get it nice and crispy. Yeah, it's delicious.

Vesanto Melina

Big Mountain has good sausages too.

Karina

They do amazing foods, yeah.

Vesanto Melina

They've got one that's light and one that's dark. And sometimes that's good for people like my grandson and son-in-law came over and said, wow, this is good. It is. Really.

Karina

They have this crumble too. It's not as high in protein, but it's cauliflower and some other veggies. It's a really nice filler for things.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, and good for things like lasagna or shepherd's pie.

Karina

Exactly. Oh my God, now I'm getting hungry. So I think one of your main general concepts when it comes to protein is that most, if not almost all, vegans are getting enough protein, but some don't. So who are the people who don't?

Vesanto Melina

Okay, so I've got one client, for example, I have right now is very low calories. She kind of likes to eat one meal a day.

Karina

Okay.

Vesanto Melina

And some people have belief systems or patterns that are adopted for reasons that may or may not make sense to the rest of the world. But anyway, that's what they do. And so they can end up being low in calories. And so in this particular case, person was 5 foot 6 and went down to 82 pounds.

Karina

Oh, wow. Yeah, okay.

Vesanto Melina

But there, I need to work with the person's belief systems because you can give them all kinds of ideas about what's good and what isn't and it doesn't work, you know?

Karina

Right.

Vesanto Melina

You have to find things that will actually help them get them up to 94 pounds and then up to 100 gradually, but it takes.

Karina

Yeah, that's tough. So how do you go about that? Like how is this client moving forward?

Vesanto Melina

Gradually, also by finding they got hospitalized because they were too low, and that could help shift the belief pattern a bit. Somebody with a happy family and, just to, so that was just like an example of somebody who has certain beliefs. Also, sometimes people who are on entirely raw foods.

Karina

Right.

Vesanto Melina

One of our books is called Becoming Raw. And there's the raw food revolution. And I did menus for that. And boy, it was a struggle to get the protein up to the even 0.8. Like for fruit, I couldn't choose melons. I had to use berries because they've got little seeds in. So they've got a bit more protein that way. And Doug Graham is one of the raw food leaders. But I analyzed his meals one time and he had, I think, either 16 or 18 bananas.

Karina

My goodness.

Vesanto Melina

So people have these beliefs, but he was having 3,300 calories, doing a lot of running.

Karina

Yeah, so there you go. That's the same concept as before, where your volume of food takes care of your protein needs. But if you're on half that amount of food.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, he could barely get his protein to the recommended levels at that.

Karina

On 3,000 calories.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, on 3,200 or 3,300 it was. And that was, like you could do it by just eating lettuce or whatever. I mean, you shouldn't do that mono kind of eating, I don't think. But if somebody is trying to be raw, they can do it, but it takes really careful planning. They can have lots of seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, but that starts upping the calories. They're good protein sources, but they do have a lot of fat and therefore calories. So those are some of the ones I find kind of borderline. I know some of the big raw food studies found that 25% of the women of childbearing age lost their menstrual cycles. And so they wouldn't be, if they wanted to get pregnant and go through that stage, they wouldn't.

Karina

Well, that's a big risk factor. It's not just about pregnancy too. It's also bone mineral density and all those things that are affected.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. Yeah. So I do find the differences are, first of all, when people aren't eating enough calories or if they have some pattern, that isn't. And sometimes you can leave the person with much of their pattern, but just do some tweaks, okay, you can add this to your smoothie and it'll work and that kind of thing. Yeah.

Karina

Yeah, and folks who are working on body composition changes, we call ourselves weight neutral coaches because the weight on the scale doesn't mean anything if you're not taking into account your mental health and your body composition and about a million and three other variables. Anyway, but we also realize like we're not against weight loss or fat loss. We're for people having whatever goals they want for themselves, but we're going to support them in a way that is sustainable and not at the expense of their long-term health or their mental state or anything like that. Anyways, the point is a lot of people have body composition goals. They want to lose fat, they want to gain muscle, they want to do both at the same time. And I feel like in that specific scenario, the protein needs might be more of an optimal level, right? Like it might not be I'll get one gram of protein per kilo per day and be fine. It might be, well, actually, I'm seeing better results if I get 2 grams of protein per kilo, right? So sometimes it's experimenting with each person. Yeah, We find that also it has to do with how... how well someone manages in a calorie deficit. I do not do well with a calorie deficit.

Vesanto Melina

I don't either.

Karina

I just, honestly, like, I think it's physiologically impossible for me to eat less than 2,000 calories A day. So, you know, also there's differences in where people are on the scale of amount of food they can eat and the deficit they can be in and all that kind of stuff. But there was a study that came out, I think it was 2022, so it's fairly recent, another meta-analysis. And it found that increasing protein, and these are all people who are over 65, by the way, increasing it to like 1.5 or 1.6, somewhere around there, grams of protein, actually changed their body composition more than people who were eating less than that in terms of protein. And this is consistent in calories, consistent in everything else. So, you know, I mean, they might have the same lifespan, they might have the same, you know, disease risk or not, but we're seeing differences in things like body composition, which is important to people. And it might not be measured as something that's like lifespan or all these things that we talk about. But if people care about body composition, then I think this is important research.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah. And you know, a lot of those studies are like a number of weeks or months.

Karina

Yes.

Vesanto Melina

They don't do like 20 year studies.

Karina

Good point.

Vesanto Melina

And so a person can shift because they've been too low and then they get an impressive jump, but they needn't be 1.5 and certainly at 2 for years because they're doing this change. And one of the interesting things I've found. With some of the studies that have been done, like in Brazil, there's some researchers and in Europe are that the soy protein powders, that's what they've tested, are as good as the whey protein.

Karina

Right.

Vesanto Melina

So you go to a little health food store or supplement store and you'll just see tons of whey protein. But the soy is proving as much. Now, they haven't done as many studies with the pea protein and mixed protein, but I think we would see very similar patterns that are positive for those too. Yeah.

Karina

I would think so. Yeah, there was another study. It found for the people who were eating less than 1 gram of protein per kilo, they actually lost more muscle when they were in a calorie deficit.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

Than the people who were eating like 1.3 or higher.

Vesanto Melina

So I mean, that's. You're talking seniors, right?

Karina

These ones, no, that one was a meta-analysis on all different ages. Yeah, the other ones were.

Vesanto Melina

One of the things I found, this is shifting nutrients, but I have looked at my own vitamin D. And for years, I was low in vitamin D, although I'd just check it once in a while and I wasn't too worried about it. Sure. You know, but my vitamin D levels, serum vitamin D was low when I'd get it checked. And typically we have to pay when we get it checked. So I'd get it checked once in a while. And then I really started to take it seriously. And I worked with a lifestyle medicine Clinic, in Victoria based, but they have several places across Canada. And I had to increase my vitamin D significantly because I wasn't a good vitamin D absorber. And so the amounts are vastly different from what's officially recommended, 600 international units. I'm at 9,000.

Karina

Oh, wow.

Vesanto Melina

And I've got my serum vitamin D just to the optimal place. And I talked to this researcher, Dr. Veith at the University of Toronto, who's a world vitamin D expert, and he said, you know, what is optimal for one person can be toxic for somebody else.

Karina

Wow.

Vesanto Melina

So vitamin D and how you tell isn't by your intake and what's, you know, officially, but where your serum vitamin D is. For most people, it would have to be checked with them paying $80 or something for the test. But it was important to me to see that my absorption for years hasn't been that great. Now we know that's true for protein as well. When you get older, your protein absorption is less. Probably for some individuals, it's this and for other individuals, it's much higher or much lower. This is where we're finding we've got studies and they can come out with an average or a typical, but you can also consider you'll become the world expert on you.

Karina

Yes, that's a great way of putting it. Yeah. That's kind of the goal with everything related to nutrition and fitness and healthy living. It's one giant experiment for each person.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, that's right.

Karina

Yeah. 20 people on the exact same protocol of training and nutrition and all the things, you're going to get 20 different results.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. And when I look at research too, you know, because I've looked at it for so long, the way we used to look at protein and how much we needed, well, we'd look at like baby rats, and they're supposed to double their weight in three weeks. because they're just weaned and that kind of thing, or quadruple their weight even. And they would have studies where they'd feed them one thing. Okay, how did they do on, tofu wasn't commonly used then, but on potatoes or chickpeas or something, which, and they'd give them one food as their protein source or meat or cheese. How did they do with all these different things? Now, we're not supposed to just eat one thing, but a lot of our research was based on that kind of unsuitable concept. First of all, how many people in your client base want to double their weight in several weeks?

Karina

Exactly.

Vesanto Melina

Probably you won't find a lot.

Karina

And how many people want to sit there and eat only potatoes?

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, only potatoes there. Yeah, so the whole concept of what we were doing at the beginning was that, you know, it based a lot of our concepts. it made us think that meat was better and cheese was better.

Karina

Right, that's a really interesting point.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, and that got us thinking this certain way. Now, when we look at what we need now, we find that there are amino acid differences from this food or that food or this one, slight differences. But plant foods have every one of the essential amino acids. And when you eat a mix of foods, You're going to be fine. So that means you do want some, you know, green vegetables and orange. It'll have the rainbow in your fruits and vegetables. You want some legumes. You want some nuts and seeds. One of the interesting books that came out this year was Fiber Fueled.

Karina

Oh, yes.

Vesanto Melina

By Al Bulsiewicz. Yeah. And he was at Vancouver Convention Center speaking. in August, and Brenda Davis, my co-author, and Corey, her son, were speaking there as well. We kind of take turns who's speaking where. And he said that when people start shifting towards legumes, they should start really small. And I was thinking of small being like half a cup of lentils. No, one chickpea.

Karina

Wow, okay.

Vesanto Melina

Sometimes we get, we tell people, oh yeah, you should eat more beans and they go eat so many that they get gas.

Karina

Yeah, their system is just not used to it. They can't handle all the fiber all at once.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. So all these little microorganisms down in your intestines are going, yikes, why are you showing down there, Karina? I don't want to go this route. No, afraid not.

Karina

Totally.

Vesanto Melina

And so anyway, that was interesting what he. suggested.

Karina

I think that could apply to anything though. Like people who are just going vegan for the first time.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

I think it's more sustainable to do it gradually in a way that's going to last forever instead of doing a total 180 and being like, oh my God, it's not sustainable. I'm too overwhelmed. And then you just quit after three days.

Vesanto Melina

That's right. So I've done it that gradual way because I was vegetarian since the 70s and then vegan since the early 90s. But it's been gradual, you know, Where do I shop at the store? What kind of tofu do I actually like?

Karina

Robert Cheek likes to say that he's been vegan since the 1900s, so you can do the same thing. It's true. Yeah, you know what you were saying about making sure we're getting our leafy greens and all the different colors of vegetables. There's A faction of folks who are so obsessed about getting really, really high protein that it's at the expense of your veggies and your grains and your greens. And you don't want to go that route either. So they have such high protein goals. And honestly, usually it's from a trainer or someone who isn't vegan.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

Just as a side note, but you know, if you're trying to get like 40% of your calories. from protein on a vegan diet, you're foregoing things like fruit and sweet potatoes and quinoa.

Vesanto Melina

That's right.

Karina

Right? And so that's a problem as well.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, it is. Yeah. And we find for things like bone mass and bone strength, that calcium is important, vitamin D is important, but so are fruits and vegetables. Yeah. So it's good to have this mix. And in our plant-powered protein website, we've got a food guide there that people can look at, or it's a But it's plant-poweredprotein.com.

Karina

Love that. We are going to link to that in our show notes. So I've got your own website and then also the book website.

Vesanto Melina

Well, it was interesting when I was doing a talk for Dietitians of Canada about a decade ago, I was the keynote speaker for a national conference. So I really wanted to do a good job of it. And I hired a coach and spent a bunch of money and got a really good presentation. And it wasn't saying you have to be vegan. It was just saying how to deal with challenges in your life. And it was more about approaching, moving towards healthy eating. And I got a standing ovation, came off the stage, and at the next table was the director of nutrition for Health Canada.

Karina

Oh, wow.

Vesanto Melina

And I gave him a copy of our Becoming Vegan comprehension. the one that's a textbook now in so many places. And it's still accurate, like everything in it. And he said, oh, my family eats a lot this way. He said, we're not vegan, but we're, you know, pretty close on that wavelength. And they were developing the can of food guide at that time. And they used that It was in their office while they were developing.

Karina

How cool is that?

Vesanto Melina

And you'll see that the Canada Food Guide is very similar. Now, that book was entirely referenced.

Karina

Yes.

Vesanto Melina

That's why it's a textbook. It's just very, every word is carefully backed up. And so the Canada Food Guide is really a leading article Because it used to be so influenced by, say, the dairy lobby and the meat lobby, and this time they didn't do it that way, and it was probably pretty upsetting to a bunch of people.

Karina

I remember when they were making changes, there was actually like a public input option where you could go and give your ideas and... are you a nutrition professional and et cetera, et cetera?

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

And I remember it was gonna be the first one that wasn't influenced by industry.

Vesanto Melina

That's exactly right. So you'll see that food guide does not have a meat group.

Karina

Right. It's got a protein group.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, it has a protein group. It doesn't have a dairy group. Right. And that used to be, in my view, quite racist because Indigenous people never had dairy.

Karina

Well, a lot of folks are... lactose intolerant. It's something like 98% of the First Nations folks here.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

And like 90 something percent in other areas of the world. So yeah, fully agreed.

Vesanto Melina

And indigenous people and Asian people. 70% of the world's population has some degree of lactase insufficiency. So that was actually a racist food guide.

Karina

That's a great point.

Vesanto Melina

They changed it. Things were allowed to shift. So that was good. And we're ahead of the US. They're working hard right now because they're just working on their national food guide. which still has huge meat lobbies and also dairy lobbies. So we'll see how it works out.

Karina

Well, hopefully we can set the precedent there.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah, that's great.

Karina

Yeah. Awesome. Well, as mentioned, we're going to have links to your book. Congrats again on the new one. Amazing. Thank you. I'm about halfway through, so can't wait to finish.

Vesanto Melina

Yeah.

Karina

So links to your website, links to the book, all in our show notes. And it was so great to speak with you. Thanks for coming on the show again.

Vesanto Melina

Thank you, Karina. It's fun to talk with you and appreciate what you're doing.

Karina

Oh, thank you. Thank you again, Vesanto, for speaking with me on the show. Access our show notes at nobullshitvegan.com slash 193 to connect with Vesanto and to check out her book, Plant Powered Protein. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to the No ******** Vegan podcast at nobullshitvegan.com.