Latest / Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes / Lead in Protein Powder? Whole-Food Smoothie Protein Alternatives Ep 129
Transcript
- 0:37Coach Carlie: Hey folks, and welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast.
- 0:40Coach Carlie: I am your host, Coach Chris Newport, and I am excited you are here.
- 0:44Coach Carlie: So I've been hearing a lot of concern about a recent consumer reports article.
- 0:49Coach Carlie: And if you're watching on YouTube, I've got it pulled up right here.
- 0:51Coach Carlie: It's called Protein Powders and Shakespeare High Levels of Lead.
- 0:56Coach Carlie: So they took 23 different products, and they say that more than two-thirds of them contain more lead in a single serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day.
- 1:07Coach Carlie: So as I scroll down on this, if you haven't seen this before, I'll link to it below.
- 1:12Coach Carlie: So, should lead be in our diet?
- 1:15Coach Carlie: The short answer is no.
- 1:16Coach Carlie: And I will have to say that I made a boo-boo and the top products that they have to avoid, I'm not going to say them out loud because I don't want to necessarily bias anyone against these particular companies, but one of them is considered a mass gainer.
- 1:34Coach Carlie: Anytime you say a mass gainer, not only is a lot of protein, but probably also has a lot of carbs in it.
- 1:39Coach Carlie: And it's by a particular company that my automatic thought when I read this was the whole company must be bad.
- 1:45Coach Carlie: So I want to be totally transparent with you guys that that was that's on me.
- 1:49Coach Carlie: That I made a boo-boo, and then I had a client who was like, oh, but I'm taking this product, um, and it wasn't this exact same product.
- 1:58Coach Carlie: But from all the information that I could find, the particular whey product that she was taking was actually perfectly fine.
- 2:06Coach Carlie: So then it got me thinking, like, okay, uh, where are some of these coming from?
- 2:11Coach Carlie: What's the safest thing to do?
- 2:13Coach Carlie: Because one of the recommendations they have, and I'm showing it here again if you're watching on YouTube, and I'll tell it if you're just listening, but they recommend limiting to once a week is a product that I'm commonly recommending for folks.
- 2:26Coach Carlie: It's a garden of life product, it's their sport organic plant-based protein in vanilla.
- 2:33Coach Carlie: So the reason why I'm a little perplexed about this is because this Garden of Life particular product is NSF certified and NSF certified for sport.
- 2:45Coach Carlie: So, what I am in the process of doing, and let me back up, what that means is if it's NSF certified, they have been tested for heavy metals and should be okay.
- 2:54Coach Carlie: NSF for sport goes even further and says they don't have any ingredients that could make you test positive if you're training for something like the Olympics or you're a professional athlete and you cannot have any uh illegal substances in your body at all.
- 3:11Coach Carlie: So this particular product says maybe limit it to one and a quarter servings per week based on their concerns for lead.
- 3:20Coach Carlie: So then it got me thinking, okay, what can we do if we're not gonna do a protein powder?
- 3:27Coach Carlie: Because at the end of the day, a protein powder is a wonderfully convenient option for getting increased amount of protein.
- 3:33Coach Carlie: And recently the recommendations for protein by the government used to be 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, and now it has gone up to 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight.
- 3:48Coach Carlie: So if you take your body weight in pounds and you divide it by 2.2, there you've got your amount in kilograms, and then you can multiply it by the low end 1.2 or the high end 1.6.
- 3:57Coach Carlie: I like for the ease of calculation, I typically do 1.5 for most of our athletes.
- 4:02Coach Carlie: But if we've got, depending on the goals, we may even go higher.
- 4:06Coach Carlie: Generally, not an issue to that, especially if you're getting plenty of water and there's no specific kidney issues that you have.
- 4:13Coach Carlie: So here's my promise to you.
- 4:15Coach Carlie: I have already reached out to NSF and I want to get to the bottom of this and figure out why this product is NSF certified, and yet it's saying it has high levels of lead.
- 4:25Coach Carlie: So I will get back to you because the products that I am picking out for folks and that have been tried and true for me, I want to make sure that your trust is not broken in me, not only as a dietitian, but also the entire profession.
- 4:41Coach Carlie: Like here we are trying to give you the best information that's gonna be the healthiest for you.
- 4:46Coach Carlie: And it's like, what?
- 4:47Coach Carlie: This stuff is contaminated with lead.
- 4:50Coach Carlie: Where lead is typically coming from, which is, you know, plant-based, oftentimes, is it's somewhere in the soil, typically.
- 4:57Coach Carlie: But instead of going, oh, whoa is meat, everything's gonna kill me.
- 5:02Coach Carlie: Let's let's back up a little bit.
- 5:04Coach Carlie: How can we focus on some high food options instead?
- 5:09Coach Carlie: So I'm gonna pop over to a different screen.
- 5:12Coach Carlie: So if you're watching this, you'll be able to see what are some whole food sources that we can get instead of using a protein powder.
- 5:20Coach Carlie: Again, protein powder is great as a convenient source of additional protein, that it's especially great for our elderly population, maybe who aren't eating a lot, or somebody who maybe just recently had some sort of a mouth surgery and they're not able to chew, or for athletes who need the extra protein.
- 5:39Coach Carlie: So, what can you do, in particular to something like a smoothie, so that you're not as worried about lead content and that you're really focusing on whole foods.
- 5:49Coach Carlie: So, one of my favorite things to put in smoothies, hang with me here, folks, we got this, is cooked beans and lentils.
- 5:57Coach Carlie: Because that's kind of what a vegan protein powder is already.
- 6:03Coach Carlie: I prefer to use things like white beans, like a cannellini or a navy bean.
- 6:08Coach Carlie: Yes, those are legitimately different things, but they are very neutral tasting.
- 6:13Coach Carlie: So that's a great option.
- 6:14Coach Carlie: You can also throw in chickpeas.
- 6:16Coach Carlie: I find that they have a little bit more of a distinct flavor, so I can kind of pick it out in my smoothie a little bit more than something like a white bean or a navy bean or a cannellini bean.
- 6:27Coach Carlie: Uh, you can also throw lentils in there.
- 6:29Coach Carlie: You're probably gonna want to go for a more neutral type of lentil, uh, maybe like a green, um, brown.
- 6:37Coach Carlie: It tends to be a little earthier, red has a little bit more of a distinct flavor, but you can also do combinations of these.
- 6:43Coach Carlie: And then there's also yellow split peas.
- 6:46Coach Carlie: Those are, I find, a little bit more neutral.
- 6:50Coach Carlie: But at the end of the day, this is kind of what your protein powders are doing anyway.
- 6:54Coach Carlie: They're drying out a lot of these pea proteins and then grinding them up and putting them into a protein powder, which is why so many people have vegan protein powders and they're like, they taste like dirt.
- 7:03Coach Carlie: I'm like, well, yeah, that's kind of where they came from.
- 7:09Coach Carlie: So if you want to be more discerning about whether something has heavy metals or other toxins in it, you can soak them.
- 7:19Coach Carlie: So if you're just getting them dried, which is a great cheap way that you can do it, you can soak them, or you can buy them sprouted.
- 7:27Coach Carlie: So those have already been soaked, and then they're gonna be a little bit nicer on your belly, especially if you're somebody who doesn't eat beans and lentils, which we're not even gonna talk about fiber today because that's a whole nother conversation about longevity and fabulousness.
- 7:42Coach Carlie: So I hope that you all are pooping at least once a day.
- 7:46Coach Carlie: So um sorry to Kirk, who always says that my uh podcasts are wonderfully timed to when he's eating a meal and it doesn't make him want to eat a meal anymore.
- 7:58Coach Carlie: So my apologies to all you folks, but this is what we as dietitians like to talk about.
- 8:02Coach Carlie: So, anyway, you can do combinations of cooked bees or lentils, you can soak them beforehand if you want, and then you can just like leave them in the fridge, or you can buy already sprouted lentils and then or beans, uh, any type of bean or pea.
- 8:16Coach Carlie: You do want to cook them before you put them in your smoothie, if that's what you're using.
- 8:22Coach Carlie: All right, next thing up, and again, this is common.
- 8:25Coach Carlie: What you're gonna see in a lot of vegan protein powders are seeds, different types of seeds.
- 8:32Coach Carlie: With beans and seeds in particular, you just want to make sure that you have some sort of other food that's in the mix there, so we get all of your essential amino acids.
- 8:41Coach Carlie: So if you're doing just hemp seeds uh as like a protein powder, just make sure it's a combination.
- 8:46Coach Carlie: It's got maybe like chia or pumpkin seed powder and hemp seeds, or just use your own.
- 8:51Coach Carlie: So you can buy hemp seeds.
- 8:53Coach Carlie: I had a woman once who was a vegan and she was incredibly committed to it, which is great.
- 8:58Coach Carlie: And I love to see that people are committed to their health, no matter what dietary plan you're following.
- 9:05Coach Carlie: And for every smoothie she made, she would put in, and I'm not kidding, a half a cup of hemp seeds.
- 9:13Coach Carlie: And man, she was freaking crushing it with her protein.
- 9:18Coach Carlie: There's 10 grams in every three tablespoons.
- 9:23Coach Carlie: So consider that four tablespoons is a quarter of a cup.
- 9:29Coach Carlie: So she's getting as much, if not more, protein from her half a cup of hemp seeds than she would be buying from some sort of protein powder.
- 9:39Coach Carlie: And same kind of thing.
- 9:40Coach Carlie: If you want to soak those, great.
- 9:41Coach Carlie: Um, chia seeds are another option that you can put into your smoothies.
- 9:45Coach Carlie: However, if you soak them, it they are going to get their texture is gonna change, which is fine if you like that.
- 9:55Coach Carlie: Keep in mind that if you don't like the black chia seeds, you can use white chia seeds.
- 10:01Coach Carlie: So those are super easy to find in something like a Whole Foods, maybe even a Wegman's, um, or certainly online.
- 10:07Coach Carlie: I will do a little warning about chia seeds because they hold so much water, which they are they're magical if you have high cholesterol.
- 10:18Coach Carlie: They're fantastic for basically like soaking up, did you guys like that sound?
- 10:23Coach Carlie: Soaking up all of the cholesterol and then dumping it into your gut so that you can get rid of it.
- 10:28Coach Carlie: So super absorbent.
- 10:29Coach Carlie: It tends to turn a smoothie into more of like a pudding type of consistency.
- 10:35Coach Carlie: So if you want to turn your smoothie into a pudding and then portion it out to multiple days, like you know, three portions of your chia protein smoothie or chia protein pudding, knock yourself out.
- 10:50Coach Carlie: Like, how convenient is that?
- 10:51Coach Carlie: That you don't have to dirty the blender multiple times, you just do it once.
- 10:56Coach Carlie: Uh for me, I don't like the whole chia seeds that get in my teeth and it's not my jam.
- 11:03Coach Carlie: But if you blend them first or you like in like a coffee grinder, if you grind them first, then you won't have as many problems with that.
- 11:13Coach Carlie: It'll also like change the appearance.
- 11:15Coach Carlie: It won't necessarily change the texture, but it'll uh, well, if you grind the chia seeds, it will change the texture of whatever it is that you're making.
- 11:24Coach Carlie: And those pesky little chia seeds won't necessarily get caught in your teeth.
- 11:28Coach Carlie: Doesn't necessarily make them easier to digest.
- 11:31Coach Carlie: Uh, flax seeds are the one.
- 11:33Coach Carlie: If you use flax seeds, you do want to make sure those are ground because we are not sophisticated enough to break down flax seeds and like crack the seed open.
- 11:41Coach Carlie: So you do have to grind those first.
- 11:43Coach Carlie: So that is something certainly that you can put into your smoothies.
- 11:47Coach Carlie: Flax seeds are a great source of isoflavones, which is fantastic.
- 11:50Coach Carlie: I also love pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in smoothies because, again, high protein quarter cup of pumpkin seeds is nine grams of protein, quarter cup of sunflower seeds, seven grams of protein.
- 12:02Coach Carlie: Also a good source of vitamin E, which is a great antioxidant.
- 12:06Coach Carlie: Pumpkin seeds, great source of magnesium, fantastic for electrolytes and athletes, and they grind a little bit better than uh an almond, which is incredibly hard and will do a number on your blender if you're not prepared for it.
- 12:24Coach Carlie: You can also use nut butters, so that's a great segue to things like okay, well, if I'm not gonna put almonds in it, maybe I can use almond butter.
- 12:33Coach Carlie: You absolutely can.
- 12:34Coach Carlie: Pick your butter, people peanut butter, almond butter, walnut butter, cashew butter, like woo, now we're going crazy, y'all.
- 12:43Coach Carlie: Look out.
- 12:44Coach Carlie: So those are sort of pre-blended, so you won't break your blender, and then adds a little bit of um satisfying fat to your smoothie and good sources of fat too, as well as giving yourself a whole foods natural protein source.
- 13:00Coach Carlie: I have a picture up here of an organic nutso power fuel product, which is seven different nuts and seeds, which is kind of fun if you want to go that way.
- 13:13Coach Carlie: So, but again, you know, pick whichever one is is your jam, especially like if you're allergic to something, then you have so many options.
- 13:22Coach Carlie: Like if you're allergic to all nuts, you can use sunflower butter.
- 13:26Coach Carlie: So lots of options.
- 13:28Coach Carlie: The other option that you can put into your smoothies and use as a whole food protein source is tofu.
- 13:35Coach Carlie: Soy gets such a bad wrap.
- 13:38Coach Carlie: And we do have a separate blog on that, and I'm happy to link to that below of like what are the pros and cons of soy?
- 13:45Coach Carlie: But any soy product is has all of your essential amino acids.
- 13:50Coach Carlie: So that's fantastic for giving your muscles what they need in addition to the rest of your body, your immune system, etc., because protein does so many different things in the body.
- 14:01Coach Carlie: I prefer silken tofu for smoothies versus like a firm tofu that you would cook for, like, say, like a stir fry.
- 14:10Coach Carlie: Um, if you're concerned about GMOs, make sure to buy organic because organic should not have anything GMO.
- 14:18Coach Carlie: So what else do we have on here?
- 14:21Coach Carlie: Okay, this is a popular one: Greek yogurt, or and the Icelandic version of Greek yogurt, which is skier, or an even different type of Greek yogurt, which is called kefir.
- 14:33Coach Carlie: So they're all very similar.
- 14:35Coach Carlie: They're just used as different bacterias to ferment the milk.
- 14:40Coach Carlie: So Greek yogurt versus skir, which is Sky R, versus like kefir, which is more of like a liquid yogurt.
- 14:48Coach Carlie: So that might blend a little bit easier for you.
- 14:51Coach Carlie: But three quarters of a cup of skir or Greek yogurt, half a cup of blueberries, a banana, and some coconut water, like high potassium protein punch.
- 14:59Coach Carlie: Look out, y'all.
- 15:00Coach Carlie: That is a fantastic one that you can do post-workout or pre-workout, or just for breakfast.
- 15:08Coach Carlie: Another one that I would encourage you to try is, uh, and I don't have it listed on here, but I'm gonna add it, is cottage cheese.
- 15:17Coach Carlie: So this is one of those, this is like the 1970s cool kit on the block, but people now are like, oh, I hate cottage cheese, or they're like, oh yeah, I haven't thought about cottage cheese in so long.
- 15:29Coach Carlie: I'm in that camp.
- 15:30Coach Carlie: I I actually very much enjoy cottage cheese, but it doesn't matter because it's you eating the product, not me.
- 15:36Coach Carlie: But it's super easy to put cottage cheese into your smoothie and it blends all the curds, especially if you don't like the texture of cottage cheese, and then just add whatever you want to your smoothie to give it the flavor that you want.
- 15:51Coach Carlie: So you can add bananas, peanut butter.
- 15:53Coach Carlie: I like a peanut butter and jelly smoothies.
- 15:55Coach Carlie: So sometimes I'll add like strawberries, peanut butter, maybe a banana, and either Greek yogurt or skier or cottage cheese, or you could do a combination, like if too much cottage cheese gives it a certain flavor that you're not loving, maybe it's half Greek yogurt, half cottage cheese, because cottage cheese is so rich in protein and just a great source there.
- 16:17Coach Carlie: So the next one I'm going to tell you about might be a little bit of a shocker for some.
- 16:22Coach Carlie: It's egg whites.
- 16:23Coach Carlie: And no, I'm not asking you to crack open your egg from your local grocery store and like save the yolks over to the side.
- 16:32Coach Carlie: You buy the egg whites in the pre-paste carton.
- 16:38Coach Carlie: And holy casmole, it has so much protein in it, and it's pretty much flavorless.
- 16:45Coach Carlie: I used to make this a lot for my kids.
- 16:47Coach Carlie: I would do liquid egg whites, and then I would add um blueberries and I don't know, something else, like a banana or something, and then I would blend it, and then I would make them into pops, into popsicles, and they loved them.
- 17:03Coach Carlie: And they were like so great on a hot day where you get lots of protein and also you're getting some fruit.
- 17:09Coach Carlie: So you would be shocked at how easy it is to make a smoothie with egg whites.
- 17:17Coach Carlie: Again, make sure to buy them from the carton so that you know they're pasteurized.
- 17:21Coach Carlie: And you two can be like Rocky.
- 17:23Coach Carlie: And if you don't know that reference, um, I'm just going to pretend you didn't.
- 17:30Coach Carlie: So hopefully that was helpful and not sad, like, oh gosh, what am I gonna do about all these protein powders that are contaminated with lead?
- 17:38Coach Carlie: Not all of them are like that.
- 17:40Coach Carlie: We do need to be judicious about what goes into our body, but know that you can still get a lot of protein and some really great quality nutrition from whole foods.
- 17:52Coach Carlie: So if this was helpful for you, let me know.
- 17:55Coach Carlie: If you have other things that you want me to do a podcast about, shoot me a message, shoot us a DM on Instagram, contact us on our website, send me a carrier pigeon, whatever you can do.
- 18:08Coach Carlie: I love to help you guys out.
- 18:10Coach Carlie: This is like so my favorite thing to talk about food and talk about lunch ebony and talk about exercise.
- 18:16Coach Carlie: So let me know what you want to hear about.
- 18:19Coach Carlie: Thank you so much for listening and stay healthy.