Everything You Need To Know About Amino Acids, Animal Vs. Plant Protein, How Much Protein You Need & Much, Much More With Kion's Angelo Keely.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, high level amino acids are the building blocks of all proteins in the human body. When you think about proteins in the human body, what most people don't realize is that that actually makes up 20% of our whole body.

Having a good amino acid pool on hand for muscle protein synthesis.

Exactly. Just to support the repair of all these tissues. That if you only take one amino acid and especially the branch chain amino acids in isolation without the other six, yeah, you can get kind of a boost in a workout, but it actually.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

All right, folks. Folks, as promised, it's protein time, baby. So get yourself strapped in to have all your burning questions about proteins and amino acids answered. I'm talking like how much protein you need and the difference between all the different kinds of protein powders out there and whey protein concentrate versus isolate versus hydrosylate, which makes me sound really smart when I say it. How to choose the right protein for your needs. Animal protein versus plant protein. The kind of weird history of whey protein, essential amino acids. Oh, my gosh. I really, really hope that you got your thinking cap on today because we're gonna take a deep dive. My guest on today's show has been on this show before. He was on the episode entitled what yoga trapezes, laser lights, kettlebells, mini meditation and ketogenic donuts have to do with building a nutrition supp. That was a doozy and I will link to that in the show notes. His name, in case you hadn't guessed based on that rollicking introduction, is Angelo. Angelo Keely. The co founder and COO of Keon and also a musician, a beatboxer, a rapper, a drummer, a very diverse guy, a dad, most importantly. I don't know, Angelo, do you want me to give your full on bio? Should I go tell people to listen to the initial interview that we did or I guess we'll probably get into a little bit of it While we're.

Chatting, they can go back and listen to the original interview. It's good to be back, though.

Yeah, it is, it is. And lest I forget.

The pretty link for this show, the nice convenient link that will take you to these show notes is BenGreenfieldFitness.com protein podcast. BenGreenfieldFitness.com Protein Podcast and guess what?

You know that old rule, Angelo, from like spelling or grammar or whatever, I don't know if you Learned this, but it goes like this. I before E, except after C, or in words that say nay as in neighbor or nay.

What's crazy is I never learned that second one. I just knew the C one.

Yeah. So that's the full thing. So I before E, except after C, or in words that say nay as in neighbor or nay. So I'm thinking about protein, because it's not protein, but it's spelled P, R, O, T, E, I, N. It seems like I just realized it kind of breaks that rule.

It does break the rule.

Protein breaks a lot of rules, baby. That's crazy. So, yeah, that's your fact for the day. Speaking of protein, dude, before we start talking about food and protein and everything else, I always like to pick people's brains, so to speak about something epic they did that morning, whether for breakfast or for workout or anything else. So what did you do to get ready for this podcast?

It was a pretty typical morning, honestly. So I don't know how epic it was. I did go to bed at my bedtime last night, and so I woke up at my kind of steady 4am and do you know what the most epic issue was? I came downstairs to make a coffee, and my espresso machine was broken, and so I couldn't make an espresso, so I had to figure out how to grind coffee, make a drip coffee in the morning.

What, in your teeth? You chew on it?

In my teeth?

No, I did that once. One time before Spartan Race. I was desperate. I knew I needed my caffeine. I didn't have a grinder, and I literally. I like chewed spit, chewed spit, chewed spit, chewed spit. And then. And then made the coffee.

That's so Ben Greenfield. That's, like, so on brand, man. No, I just. I just used a grinder and tried to do it quietly. Like, I had to go, like, the other room and figure out how to grind it so it wouldn't be so loud. Yeah, man. And then I meditated, went on a walk. I didn't lift weights this morning, but I'm going to this afternoon after this. I prepped for this a little bit.

Because we got a lot of science to dive in. Did you still meditate on that cute little meditation cushion that's out in your garage?

I do. It's cute. There's like, a little square one, and then a little zafu thing I sit on top of. It's nice. It's comfy.

I know. Every time I go to visit the offices down there at Kion, just so everybody knows that Angelo makes me stay in his. What's like your grandma's bedroom in your house? Is that what it's officially considered?

That's what it was. But you know, honestly, now it's become Genevieve, my daughter's bedroom.

Yeah. Because I wander down in the mornings to go like, do my. Do my hardcore kettlebell workout with one of your kettlebells or whatever. And I always kind of feel guilty because you're sitting there like a Zen monk on your meditation cushion. And I always ask myself if I should have meditated longer when I'm with you. I don't know if I'm just judging myself partially or what. Yes. The answer is always yes to that question.

The answer is always yes to that question. But you can do it anywhere. You don't have to be sitting down. You can be walking, talking.

I kind of had a fail last night, so I actually. This has to do with. With protein a little bit. Because the whey protein that you and I have been talking about a lot lately that we'll get into later, it would actually work in this recipe. But I really wanted to make the pumpkin spice colostrum cream cake last night and I ran out of time. But that was. Did you see this new recipe?

Oh, yeah, dude. So Jeff, our editor, made it and brought it into the office at like 9am and it was literally gone by like 10:30.

I'll post the recipe in the show notes. But basically. So colostrum, which has been. I have two brand new baby goats out in the garage. So I have like a refrigerator full of fresh goat milk and colostrum just like coming out the woods. I have more goat milk and colostrum like from the actual goats I know what to do with. And I don't think I'm going to use that colostrum for this recipe because it's kind of all mixed in with the milk. But it's the colostrum powder from Kion and basically the frosting for this pumpkin spice cake which has almond flour and arrowroot flour and pumpkin puree and everything as the base. The frosting is colostrum and cream cheese and vanilla extract and stevia and butter. And I just know that it's probably going to be up there with me for carrot as carrot cake is one of my top desserts, but I have yet to make it. So I almost, almost would have had cake this morning for breakfast, but maybe tomorrow we'll see.

Yeah, I always feel like the thing that makes cakes really work or not work is if you go out and buy a cake, it's always, like, just too sweet. I can't even eat, like a bite of it. It makes me feel sick. But this, this, this recipe, this icing, it's like, just barely sweet. It's so good, man. It's delicious.

So I. I'm probably going to put some of the. Some of the vanilla whey protein, though, into the frosting just to try to. To amp up the protein of the cake and make it so that I can actually have cake for breakfast, but call it like a health food.

Well, that's literally what I did. I was like, man, this cake, I don't want to miss out on this in the morning. I don't want to be this lame person that just skips this opportunity. So I cut myself off a little piece and I had it for lunch with a big dose of protein powder and I was like, that's good.

That automatically makes it healthy.

Yeah, it automatically makes it healthy.

Yeah. So protein, like, I know you've been getting deep into protein and you've been doing a ton of research on protein and, and amino acids. I mean, when we were driving around Sedona a few months ago when we did like our little. Our cute little man retreat down in Sedona, you were. I mean, you got deep into, like the leucine and the histidine and lysine ratios and some of the ways that we've changed up some of the amino acid formulations that we've been working on at Kion. But in terms of just the overall aspect of why this whole topic is important to you in the first place, I know that we said we wouldn't get into your whole back history, but you not only kind of were raised as like a health nut hippie, but you've also kind of been diving into a lot of interesting things in terms of like, weight loss and muscle gain. I know, over the past year. So dive into where you're at right now as far as kind of your personal journey leading up to you suddenly becoming like, one of the world's leading experts on protein.

I like that. One of the world's leading experts on protein. I definitely take enough protein or eat enough of it to be classified.

That's what I like to think. I think I eat enough steak to where I'm a world's leading expert on ste. Eating. It counts as.

Vaulting you to expert status.

Yeah, all depends on how you define expertise. I would. You know, it's definitely been a big part of my life. I was raised by. I was Raised about as kind of all natural health as you could be in the early 80s. My parents, my dad had been in the supplement business in the 70s. They owned a natural health food store. I was born at home. I never went to a doctor. I never had vaccines. I never, I mean, we were like, I never had a haircut. I was pretty, we were pretty crunchy. And one of the, one of the parts of that too was, I don't know exactly what motivated them at that point, but they were, we were pescatarians. I was raised pescatarian. And so we would eat fish.

You know, two to three times a week. But when we weren't doing that, we were only eating a plant based diet. And my parents, you know, drove it into me at a really young age the importance of mixing different types of plant protein sources to get a complete protein. So I mean, when I was like four or five, I had that idea of a complete protein kind of cooked into my mind.

You mean like mixing like grains with rice, with seeds with nuts, basically doing what a, what a good little vegan or vegetarian should do if they want to get, get a full amino acid profile from mixing plant based proteins?

Exactly. And we can get into this more later. But certain plant proteins simply do not have all the essential amino acids. And so if you don't eat a more balanced diet of multiple different types of plant protein sources, then you're going to have health problems. And on top of that, my mom was obsessed with amino acids. So the earliest, I mean, we took all kinds of vitamins and botanicals and stuff as a kid, but the most I remember is amino acids, like her giving me essential amino acids as a little kid.

Seriously. So, so not, not like branched chain amino acids, but your mom was giving you essential amino acids? Yes, dude, she was way ahead of the game. That's crazy.

Yeah, they were like obsessed. I mean, but they were like pretty again, they were, they're fringy. My family was like, pretty, pretty into health and my mom was super into fitness. And so she was a master swimmer and we would go to the gym. Like, we didn't, you know, I guess like my local kind of community center was the gym, daycare. And then when I was really young, you know, I started taking classes there, et cetera. But yeah, I remember like every day she'd be, she'd be taking her EAs before she went to swimming and then giving them to me afterwards.

And I don't think you ever told me this. That's crazy.

Yeah, and she'd be like, can't you feel it, Angie? And I could. So I had this idea as a young kid taking aminos and being like, oh, I can like feel it. I've got all this energy, you know. So I must just admit from the front end that I'm definitely biased, you know, from my earliest upbringing around this stuff. Yeah, man. So, I mean, that's my earliest childhood. And then again, not going into too.

Much detail, but by the way, as you're describing your early childhood, I can nearly smell the patchouli, like wafting out from your microphone.

It was there. I. We didn't burn patchouli incense because, like, my dad didn't like it. But I remember going to like other crunchy families houses and they would have patchouli and it would be like really strong. I'd be like, what's that smell? But yeah, so, you know, by the time I got to high school, that was pretty cooked in. But then I had a pretty. Again, I think on one of the previous episodes we talked about this, but I had this pretty traumatic accident. I got stabbed and beaten up real bad when I was like 16 and my patella tendon got severed. My leg like thus totally shrunk, you know. And I was in a pretty long recovery coming out of that. And one of the key things I did, actually, that's when I first started taking whey protein. And by that point I'd kind of transitioned out of like the pescatarian vegetarian thing that my parents had raised me. And just because, I don't know, meat was delicious. So I started eating meat and yeah, and I really, I started taking whey protein every single day. And it became part of my training. And I attribute a lot of my recovery to that, you know, to having sufficient daily protein.

Having a good amino acid pool on hand to recover from muscle protein synthesis.

Exactly. Just to support the repair of all these tissues. So that's, you know, that's like, that's the history of that piece. And then of course, when I met you and we started working on Kion and we're launching Kion, I mean, aminos are like the most obvious product. They're. They're dear to your heart. They're dear to my heart. So just obviously like super aligned with that as a product. But I think one of the most interesting things is actually in this last year, really in 2020, I had a pretty significant health transformation. I have to admit. It's kind of like a fit to fat to fit story. Or more like a kind of fat to really fat to fit ish story that I, that doesn't roll off the.

Tongue quite so well.

Well, it's not, it's not quite as well when I say the numbers. Like I lost 40 pounds and I got way, and I got way stronger. And it happened pretty fast. It happened really fast actually, like in just a few months. But I guess I named that there was a little bit of increase first, I think when, when the pandemic, pandemic first hit and there was just the stress of trying to run a business in that context and all the impacts on family. I probably gained like 15 pounds. And that was like, whoa, dude, like you're not taking care of yourself. You're supposed to be running a health company. What are you doing? And I just really started looking at my diet and my behaviors and what I needed to do. I honestly followed a really simple recipe. I just, I watched how many calories I consumed. I upped my daily protein intake to support muscle protein synthesis, to support the development of more lean body mass that would raise my resting metabolic rate. And.

I walked and I did strength training. And a big part of that too was compensating some of my daily protein intake with amino acids with kion aminos.

Which just allows you to get more protein with fewer actual calories simply because you're consuming.

You'Re cutting straight to the chase. You're just getting the amino acids without the actual calories that you might need from fish or meat or even. We'll talk about this later on, or even like whey protein. So it's kind of handy from a weight loss standpoint is basically the ability to be able to like have a steak without the calories.

Exactly. If your primary goal, which my goal was at that point of time to develop lean muscle and to lose fat, then in taking a well formulated essential amino acid, one gram of a well formulated essential amino acid, you can basically take half the quantity that you would have to take of the most like highly protein rich protein source, like a whey isolate. So literally I can take half as many amino acids. So yes, it's way more calorically efficient. It spikes muscle protein synthesis, it develops muscle, satiates you.

Yeah, yeah. And the other, the other important thing is, you know, when you're talking about using protein as a weight loss strategy and the, the whole idea of, of calories in versus calories out is of course like foundational to losing weight. But in addition to that, and this is relevant to what you're talking about in terms of like the vegan, vegetarian plant based strategy of mixing different grain and rice and seed and nut sources to get your full protein profile. It's kind of fascinating, this whole idea of what's called the protein leverage hypothesis, which is basically the idea that a human being will consume as many calories as are necessary to achieve your ideal nitrogen balance, regardless of how many calories that it takes to achieve that amount of protein intake. Meaning like, if you've got really poor quality protein sources, or you're having to mix a lot of different foods, such as you would need to do in a plant based diet to get the amount of protein that you need for the day, you are probably going to need to eat more carbohydrates, more fats and more calories overall to meet your protein requirement, compared to if you've got access to higher quality protein sources that allow you to reach your nitrogen balance for the day without necessarily having to eat a lot of additional calories to get it in. So the idea is that, you know, you essentially have to eat more calories to reach your protein intake for the day. If you're consuming low quality protein sources or protein sources, that you have to combine a lot of amino acids to get a full profile of your protein by the end of the day. So this whole idea of the protein leverage hypothesis, the takeaway message of it is that if you're going through a weight loss phase or you're wanting to keep your appetite satiated, then kind of getting closer to a higher protein intake combined with really good quality protein sources allows you to be more satiated appetite wise with a lower calorie intake versus if you're consuming poor quality protein sources, having to mix a lot of foods to get your protein. So it actually is a really good weight loss strategy to take. And this is something we'll talk about later on. I think the average amount of protein most people need, which is about 0.55 to 0.8 grams per pound. Ish. Like if you're going through a weight loss phase, hitting closer to that 0.8 grams per pound will allow you to feel fuller, faster and eat fewer calories to like reach your net need of nitrogen balance at the end of the day. It's called, it's called a protein leverage hypothesis. It's really interesting.

That is literally exactly what I did. I focused on my daily protein intake, hitting those higher protein quantities at the same time just having a general picture of how many calories I should be consuming in a day. And then I honestly didn't worry about the rest of the Calories. I just made sure I got that protein intake in and it did. It satiated me. Um, I felt great. And yeah. And honestly, just I lost a bunch of weight and I got a lot stronger. And that's one thing I didn't just like lose weight. I literally went from like doing sets of like, I could do like 10 pull ups to like maxing out at 18 pull ups total, you know, like pure clean pulps, which I had never done before. And so being able to do that while you're also losing weight, it was pretty remarkable for me. And really that's exactly it. It's just focusing on that protein intake.

How many amino acids were you eating each day? Like in terms of the essential aminos?

I mean, there was a time period when I would be taking.

I could take up to 60 grams a day. Wow.

Yeah. I mean that's a lot.

Yeah, I would never advise anyone else to do that. And that's like with a pretty not unlimited supply of amino acids, but a lot. But there was definitely a time period where I was taking a lot of doses of 15 to 30 grams. And honestly earlier on, and I was digging way deeper into the research around amino acids as well, thinking that I needed the full 30 grams in just that if you, whatever the daily needs for someone's protein intake are, if you divide that by about five or six, hitting those doses of protein every three hours creates the, you know, the optimal. You know this better than anyone, probably from being a bodybuilder in the past. Like you create these optimal muscle protein synthesis spikes that then last for about three hours. And I was thinking I need around those 30 grams, but really with an EAA, you only need like 15 grams at my body weight and it creates that spike. And so I would do that like at 9:00am, you know, have lunch at 12, do it again at 3, and then have, you know, dinner at 6. That said, then there were times when the 9 and 3 were like, I would take 20 grams or 30 grams and then I realized it wasn't worth it. It wasn't creating any added benefit for me.

Yeah, I've been doing 40 grams a day because I got like a kind of a minimally invasive knee surgery about five weeks ago and I started taking 40 grams a day. But the way I've been doing it is with this jello recipe I've been making, I call my nighttime jello recipe. But I started just having a little block of this jello at different points throughout the day, like every three to four hours or so. But what I do with the jello is I put a ton of like, I literally put, I think I just recently posted a video of me just like dumping the entire canister of the kion aminos into the coconut water that I heat up as my base for the jello. And then Great Lakes, the company that makes like gelatin, like grass fed gelatin, they have a vanilla flavor of gelatin. And so I add all the aminos, then a ton of gelatin, coconut water, a little bit of allulose for added sweetening. And then I just basically heat that all up, stir it up, pour it into like a Pyrex glass container, let it set in the refrigerator and I'll do just, just because I get kind of tired and I'm not a fan of mixing the aminos in the water as much as I am like mixing them into something that's more like chewable or with a little bit more consistency, like a smoothie. But this jello, oh my gosh, like, like it not only does this idea of consuming a gel, it's basically when you consume a gel, like substance. You know, if anybody's looked into Gerald Pollock's research at University of Washington on the fourth phase of water and how water can be a gel, it's one of the best ways to hydrate yourself. But then like one, my, my rough calculation is that one big block of this jello has about 10 grams or so of amino acids in it and around 15 to 20 of collagen. So I'm just kind of like feasting on this stuff at various points throughout the day and especially at night for satiating your appetite and kind of avoiding that 1 to 3am ish wake up time that sometimes occurs when you're restricting calories or at least kind of cognizant of your overall calorie intake at dinner, just nukes that. So I think probably if you were to come up to my house in a few weeks, that I'll mostly be subsisting on Jello and cake, Jello and colostrum cake. And I'll probably be doing so with a big smile on my face.

So I still haven't, I mean, I saw that recipe from you and I still haven't tried it. I'm just like not, I'm not, I, I'm not quite the super motivated cook all the time, but I, I want, I want to try it. It looks amazing.

It literally takes, it takes no time flat to make and I make big batches of it now and I, I'm making Two batches now I keep one batch in the freezer. As soon as I run out of one I go to the like I'm, I'm obsessed with it. Joel Green, kind of a nutrition guru who I interviewed a couple of years ago, he sworn by it for like three years. And when I interviewed him I'm like okay, I'm trying it. And I kind of went on and off and then have just been hardcore eating this jello every day and especially at night before bed, like about the time I'd be pulling like a, you know, I have healthy ice cream in my freezer but sometimes I'll reach for that at night and I'll grab one of these jellos instead and just like have no desire at all to snack on anything after I eat a chunk of this stuff. So it, you know, that's why I've been getting the aminos in. But yeah, 60 grams is a lot and I think probably it was a lot.

It's not necessary. Although you could, I mean like if you were, if I was in a really aggressive. I just don't, it's not sustainable long term. But if I was trying to be really aggressive or honestly if I was much older. Some of the Dr. Robert Wolf research actually shows that people over 65 that take you know, 15 grams multiple times throughout the day. So probably not. Yeah, it could be up to four times a day in between meals. It greatly reduces the risks of sarcopenia, helps them not only maintain but build lean muscle at an older age. So it can make sense. But for my you know, 37, it's, it's probably overboard.

Yeah, well, I mean like, like the, the idea first got into my head of kind of like amping up the intake when I talked to two guys, David Minkoff, like, like a guy who's done like 40 plus Ironman triathlons. He's kind of like an anti aging doc down in, down in Florida and, and this guy just like lives on amino acids and, and you know he told me how he takes like 40 grams of amino acids per day. And like he's a, he's a super fit lean dude. And then Mark Sisson, when I was down in Malibu a few years ago, he came up to me when I was, I remember I was having a smoothie outside, sun life down there. He's like Ben, I have this new thing I've been doing and it's amazing. He's like, I'm recovering from my, from my ultimate Frisbee matches. My skin, my hair, my nails is absolutely the health of it. And Cary, his wife was doing the same thing. They were doing 40 grams of collagen a day. And he's super into collagen. Minkoff was super into aminos. But I'm looking at these probably two of the fittest old dudes I know just hammering collagen and, or amino acids throughout the day. And there's just something to it, especially for the sarcopenia aging component, the fact that you absorb protein a little less efficiently as you age anyways, which can be hacked to a certain extent by taking a good like protease based digestive enzyme along with, with any protein you eat, which I think is just crucial if you're aging and you want to stave off sarcopenia. But this whole idea of just like.

Higher than, than what would be expected intake of amino acids or collagen as you age, I think, I think it's one of the best hacks out there for, for staying pretty, pretty swole, so to speak, as you're getting older.

Totally. I mean, the only note I'd make on the collagen is that the collagen does not have, right, that kind of essential amino acid profile of an EA supplement or a whey isolate or something like that. But it's got, and I know that's probably Mark's focus on it, right? He's talking about his skin, his hair, his nails. It's super high. And we'll get into this right in a little bit with some non essential amino acids, hydroxyproline, proline, glycine, which are what synthesizes into that stuff. And so naturally that's why it's become this magic beauty anti aging supplement, collagen, because it's super high in those. And as we get older, our bodies don't metabolize those as well. We don't convert them out of essential amino acids as well. But if you want to get swole, it's got to be the essential amino acids.

So essential amino acids just to back up a little bit. And I think now I'd love to start getting into some of the more scientific aspects of this and.

Get into the nitty gritty of amino acids and protein. First of all, amino acids, quick overview. And then after you give a quick overview, can you differentiate between kind of like the three different forms out there? Because you got BCAAs, which I call overpriced flavored water, basically. But you can clarify what BCAAs are versus EAAs, versus something that people may have heard of a little bit less NEAAs. So what are amino acids then? What are the different types between NEaaS, EAAs and BCAAs?

Absolutely. And I'll just start off by saying, like, Ben, you've written so well about this, so I think anyone that wants to dive into even more on this, they should just go read your blogs, like, where they can get super detailed information. Because I think in this podcast we can kind of bring it all together and paint the big picture. But if we don't cover anything, you've just done an awesome job of covering it all.

And I'll link to that BenGreenfieldFitness.com protein podcast. I'll link to the big aminos article and the big protein article I wrote recently. But for all the lazy people who aren't going to go read and who are like, I don't know, hike in the woods, listening in. Go ahead, dive in.

Yeah, so I mean, high level amino acids are the building blocks of all proteins in the human body. And when you think about proteins in the human body, what most people don't realize is that that actually makes up 20% of our whole body and actually 50% of our solid body mass. So it's, it's actually the second largest component after water. So amino acids are, they're a big deal. And in terms of like what proteins do in the body, and that's what amino acids do, they support muscle protein synthesis, immune system regulation, neurotransmitter regulation, energy production, ATP at the cellular level, digestion and absorption of nutrients. Like, the list just goes on and on and on and on. And kind of getting into your question about, well, what's the difference between these different categories of them? There are 20amino acids. Well, I guess there's some say there's 22 now, but there's basically 20 if you really want to dig into it, you can, your audience can go and have that argument. But there's basically 20amino acids responsible for making all the proteins in the human body. And nine of those are essential, essential, meaning.

Our bodies cannot make them, we must eat them, we must consume them exogenously. And.

And all the other ones are not essential. And so those we call non essential amino acids and some, some of the non essential amino acids could be also considered conditionally essential, meaning that they're normally not essential, like our bodies can make them if we just eat enough of the other essential amino acids, those, those nine. But sometimes if you're sick or you're an infant, you have some kind of issue or you're Extremely old. Sometimes they become conditionally essential.

So really you just need to make sure you get these nine. And those nine amino acids are going back to what we talked about earlier. They are what is part of a complete protein. So if you eat a complete protein, most animal proteins, and you actually can get them from plant proteins, but you have to eat not all of them, and you sometimes have to eat like a ton of them to get them. Going to. Your question though, about BCAAs, which are kind of like the, probably the most well known specifically in the supplement industry, those are three of the nine essential amino acids, and they're leucine, isoleucine and valine. And the reason why those three BCAAs have become so, you know, popularized and famous is really because of the main one, leucine, which has been closely tied with muscle protein synthesis. So while these nine essential amino acids, when you, when you take them exogenously into the body, they support the production of all these different types of proteins, sometimes they turn into other amino acids. Leucine is the one that like really stimulates muscle protein synthesis. And thus, you know, our body is always breaking down our muscle and we need to consume more essential amino acids, especially leucine, to, to, to stimulate muscle protein synthesis to rebuild that muscle. And leucine is kind of the, the key to that, supported by these other two branched chain amino acids and BCAAs or branched chain. It's just the structure of the amino acid. And those three are similar in that way. So you have to, you have to have these three together to do that. But the thing is, if you only take those three without all of the essential amino acids, you don't actually get the results. And the science has come to be proven. There's a lot of old research, but all the research basically, especially the last 10 to 20 years, has shown that if you only take one amino acid, and especially the branch chain amino acids in isolation, without the other six, yeah, you can get kind of a boost in a workout, but it actually can have a catabolic effect. It can actually break down your muscle because you need all of the nine essential amino acids to actually stimulate muscle protein synthesis. So I guess, quick review, you got essential amino acids, they're the nine that you must take into your body. Non essential amino acids are the other 11, some of them sometimes being conditionally essential. And the branch chain amino acids are three of those nine that have been popularized in supplements, et cetera, and as something that you can or may want to take for exercise for muscle protein Synthesis. But as you and I agree, we would advise against.

Okay. And this is essentially kind of one of the fundamental reasons behind what you were talking about, how your mom would mix different protein sources. Is it because by combining these protein sources, getting a complete amino acid profile that otherwise you wouldn't. Maybe you'd just get like some of the non essential, not all the essential, maybe some of the BCAAs, not all the essential, et cetera, unless you combine all these different foods.

Yes. So our bodies have developed in such a way that our bodies want essential amino acids together. It wants all nine of them together. And when it gets all nine of them together, it's able to process them and to synthesize them and to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. So you can develop muscle. If you only get some of them, then your body, I mean, kind of at the heart of the idea of them being essential. Right. If you are only eating foods where you only get six of the essential amino acids, then core functions of your body are going to start to break down and they're not going to be able. Your body's not going to be able to be healthy. So almost similar to maybe how. And again, I'm saying similar. It's not the same thing. Similar to how people think about a multivitamin or needing to eat a variety of different plants, protein sources, et cetera, to get all the different types of micronutrients that your body might need. We actually have this need in the macronutrient of protein. It's really not just protein. It's actually the nine essential amino acids that make up most proteins that we need those. And if we do not get those, and you only eat foods with part of them, you will have deficiencies and you'll have a host of issues. You could have brain fog, weight gain. Honestly, pretty significant neurotransmitter issues like you can, you can lead to all kinds of types of mood behaviors because these things are. These amino acids directly are precursors for amino acids that actually are the neurotransmitters in our brain. So it's pretty serious actually to not eat.

Which is probably one of the reasons why, like the nighttime jello that I was talking about, for example, helps me sleep so well, just because it's serving as a precursor for some of the neurotransmitters that would be responsible for assisting with sleep. When you are not getting all of the amino acids, you essentially can, can put yourself at a higher risk for neurotransmitter imbalances, which would affect everything from like brain fog to sleep quality, you know. So it's not just about performance exactly.

Well, I guess it depends on how you define performance. But if you don't sleep well, it's going to mess up your performance pretty bad.

Yeah. Now what about creatine? Where does creatine fit into the picture? Would you classify that as an amino acid?

Yeah. So creatine is a non essential amino acid. This is an interesting one, creatine, because it's non essential, your body can synthesize it and it's actually, without going too deep into the science, it's synthesized by glycine and arginine, but each one of those are also synthesized by other amino acids. And ultimately it comes from an essential amino acid set of essential amino acids that turn into creatine in your body. Thus you don't have to eat foods that have creatine in them. That said, creatine has some really important benefits for performance. You wrote a great article sometime in the last couple months on this about all the amazing things that creatine can do not only for physical performance, which really relates to the core way in which it impacts energy production, but also for cognition and sleep, et cetera. And there are foods that are higher in the non essential amino acid of creatine. So for example, animal proteins, steak is quite high in creatine and there are no plant proteins that have creatine. So again, this is one where if you're eating an only plant protein diet, you're definitely way lower in creatine than someone who's eating animal proteins. You don't have to eat it, you don't have to eat creatine because it's not essential. Your body will generate it, but it's going to be in much lower levels in your body and you could have, there could be other impacts on your life from that. So creatine is one where if you're eating a plant based diet, even if you're eating a really good plant based diet with no other supplementation, you're choosing exactly the right proportion portions of different plants to get their amount of protein. You may want to consider supplementing with creatine.

Right. With the general range being.

Latest research that came out showed about three to nine and a half grams per day. And they actually showed for seniors for staving off sarcopenia with creatine getting closer to actually that which is higher than the 5 grams per day I recommended in the past. But for senior, excuse me, especially active seniors, closer that nine, nine and a half grams per Day of creatine seems to be pretty beneficial. Yeah.

I think you're going to find that across the board with most research. It shows with seniors just it's beneficial often to take higher doses of most of the amino acids simply in the way that the bodies, that older bodies need it and the way that they're able to metabolize it.

Yeah. Now, in terms of how this fits into the protein scenario, we've established what amino acids are and the difference between the NEAAs versus the EAAs versus the BCAAs. When we're looking at how these feed into the protein scenario, you get to count the amino acids that you take in. If you're using something like essential amino acids towards your overall protein intake for the day. Right. So let's say you determine based on your weight that you want to take 0.8 grams per pound. And let's just because I suck at math, say you weigh 100 pounds. I'll make this easy. So small person, 80 grams of protein per day. If you're taking 20 grams of essential amino acids per day, would that therefore dictate that you would need about 60 grams of protein from, let's say food based sources or protein powders or things like that?

I would say roughly. And the reason why I say roughly is because.

Amino acids on their own are not technically protein. That said, when you eat a protein source, if we just compare it to like a whey protein isolate, um, half of that whey protein isolate is going to be essential amino acids and the other half is going to be other amino acids. And thus when you compare it, you know, directly to an essential amino acid powder or capsule that you take, like. Yes. So that's what it breaks down to and that's what you end up eating. But it's, it's not technically protein. And the only reason I say that is because I personally would count it in the exact same way that you did. So If I'm eating 60 grams of whole food protein and I compensate with an additional 20 grams of essential amino acids, I could say I'm hitting my 80 grams of protein. The caveat to that though, the caveat to that is that when I take those essential amino acids, it is 100% essential amino acids. So 20 grams of. And I'll just do a direct comparison with like, with kion aminos and kion protein. 20 grams of kion essential amino acids has the same amount of essential amino acids as 40 grams of whey protein isolate. Because the other half of the whey protein isolate is other non essential amino acids. And so rather than getting into the idea, like, I wouldn't encourage anyone to just live off essential amino acids.

But. And in that way, it can't really be classified as protein. But if you're in goals that you're trying to support essential amino acid consumption, then you can look at it one of two ways. You could say, like, hey, I'm eating 80 grams of protein to ultimately get 40 grams of essential amino acids out of it, but I'm getting these 40 grams of other good amino acids that are also good for my body. You do want to eat these whole foods that support you. And in that way you can, you could basically consider the essential amino acids either at 20 grams of protein or as the equivalent essential amino acids that would be in 40 grams of a really high quality whole food protein. Did that make sense? I went around it a couple times, but just want to make sure I made it as clear as I could.

I got it. And for the, for some of these numbers, I'll definitely add some of these numbers to the show notes as well. If people want to review or if you're not taking notes right now, I'll put all the, all the numbers that Angela's referring to on the show notes. So once you step back and look at this, and I briefly alluded to protein ranges in terms of protein needs for people, as far as what you've looked into, because I know you've been working a lot with our team of scientists and formulators at Keon and taking a deep dive into this as well. Total protein intake for the day. How much protein then would you say that the average person listening in actually needs?

I think the best answer is it depends on. But it's probably more than you typically think. And for this kind of audience that is focused oftentimes on active living, it's going to be more than the average person. So the recommended daily allowance. And I'm going to keep the numbers really simple like you did earlier. Let's just say the person weighs 100 pounds. The recommended daily allowance is 0.3 grams of protein for every pound. So if I weigh a hundred pounds, I should eat 30 grams of protein. But that's for a sedentary adult who's not really moving.

That's super low.

That's like super. That's super low. And basically, as you start to look at other categories of people, endurance athletes, strength athletes, people that are trying to lose weight, older adults that have additional digestion issues with protein and actually thus metabolizing the protein and getting the amino acids out of it. The numbers typically are always higher. And I actually think, to keep things simple, the range you described is right on, like, 0.5 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound. So if I weigh 100 pounds, somewhere between 50 and 80 grams of protein. If I weigh 200 pounds, it's somewhere between 100 and 160, and the numbers go up. If you're that much more focused on strength, on really building strength, or on trying to lose weight. If you're trying to lose weight, you could go all the way up to even above a gram a pound.

And then there's like, the anecdotes too. Like, you know, and, and I don't necessarily completely discount anecdotal evidence, but. But many professional bodybuilders and guys who are, like, working out two to four hours a day and, you know, we're. Or maybe like a, a college football player is trying to put on 20 pounds of muscle or whatever. Like, some of them are pushing like, 2 grams per pound, which is, you know, a lot. But you'll see some anecdotes of people trying to put on tons of muscle, actually getting close to like, double of what we're talking about.

And I think that what I would say is the people that are doing that, they are eating that protein over many meals throughout the day. That would be the other condition on it. Like, if you, if you eat too much protein in one setting, it's going to lose its impact. Those bodybuilders, right? That's like the story of these guys waking up in the middle of the night to eat, like, 30 grams of lean chicken breast. Right. It's because they're timing it to, to basically eat these doses of protein every three to four hours throughout the day. But there starts to just be like, a significant loss of return if you start doubling it and you're only eating like, three meals a day. You're just. Your body's not. It's not generating an additional muscle protein synthesis spike.

Yeah. And then kind of a nuance, like, you know, based on your response about. It depends. Yeah. If you're, if you're active, you're definitely pushing towards that high range. But there's other cases too. Like if you're pregnant, if you're, if you're a growing child. Totally. If you're recovering from an illness or an injury. Like, I was talking about how I amped up my amino acid and collagen intake for this knee surgery I'm recovering from. You talked about if you're in a calorie deficit or a weight cut, how going above that RDA is beneficial, or at least closer to the high end of that. 0.55 to 0.8 grams per pound. And then one thing that flies under the radar is if you have digestive issues, if you have hypochloridia, which is low stomach acid levels or depleted amounts of enzymes like poor pancreatic enzyme function or gut dysbiosis, like all of that can lead to decreased bioavailability or decreased digestion of protein. And that would be another case in which you'd want to push more towards that high end. Comma also includes some type of protein digesting enzyme along with your protein smoothie or your steak or any other protein source that you're consuming. Aside from the one thing I don't think you need digestive enzymes with. And that would be like just a. Straight up. Amino acids.

Exactly, I was gonna say. Or you take essential amino acids. Something though, to get that additional support if your body has a hard time digesting the proteins themselves. And personally for myself, kind of in this period of health transformation, I aimed for 0.75 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and or target body weight. And I made it really clear and I was just like, go for that, you know, and it made it, it was a very easy daily goal to have. I didn't have to think that much about it.

Yeah. And we've established that, you know, just pushing aside supplements and powders and amino acids for a moment, that compared to plant proteins, animal proteins are going to have a more complete amino acid profile. Like meat and eggs and fish and even dairy. You know, those are all superior sources of protein due to that complete amino acid profile, due to the higher amount of protein per calorie and also due to the fact they're just more nutrient dense. Right. You have more B vitamins and more vitamin D and more omega fatty acids and more zinc and more like heme based iron and a lot of other things in meat that dictate that it's just better across the board or at least more convenient to get all your nutrients and your protein by including meat in your diet. Is there any ranking of protein quality or amino acid quality when it comes to the actual meat sources themselves? Like, you know, fish versus eggs versus dairy versus beef versus chicken, et cetera.

So there's a few out there. There's like the protein digestibility corrected amino acid score. There's also the digestible indispensable amino Acid score. I like the latter and I believe you like the latter as well because it actually distinguishes more between just like if something hits in the protein digestibility corrected amino acid score, basically one is the top number that you can get. And so if you hit a one that just is like the highest, whereas with the digestible indispensable amino acid score, it gives more differences between actually how digestible it is. And it's based on basically using an ileal digestion determination versus the fecal digestion.

Okay, so fecal digestion. If you're looking at kind of like the old school way of ranking the quality of a protein source.

The protein digestibility corrected amino acid score, the PDCAA has been traditionally used as a ranking. And if I'm not mistaken, I think that what caps out as the highest using that old school method is actually like a whey protein isolate. If I'm not mistaken, the kind of like newer way of ranking the quality of a protein that looks at what you refer to as like the small intestine digestion, the ileal digestion versus the fecal digestion is, and sorry for the Alphabet letters here for folks, the digestible indispensable amino acid score, the diaas. That's kind of like the new best way to rank the quality of a protein source.

Exactly. And so like you said, so in the past away protein isolate got a one with the pdcaas, but so did whey protein concentrate, so did even like a soy protein isolate. But when you compare those using this newer system, they rank lower. The soy protein isolate significantly lower, I think over 20% lower than the whey protein isolate. So it's definitely significant which system you're using to rank.

Okay. And in the, in the past and I think these are based on the, on the old that the PDCAAs that has been ranked. But when it comes back to that initial question that I asked about some of the animal based proteins and their quality, I think chicken wound up ranking towards the top. Although I recently interviewed.

What'S her name, Terry Cochran, about things like amyloids and other issues with cleanliness of protein and also the nutrient density of the protein. Even though chicken seems to have a pretty high protein score, when you look at the other factors of chicken, she even calls it the dirty bird, even though I think some pastured chickens would be okay.

The chicken despite being higher is probably not the best source. But organ meats rank super high.

Organ meats rank super high.

Yeah, like even slightly higher than beef, which is like a close second. And Then I think fish comes after that. Eggs are kind of sort of high up there. And then dairy would be still really, really good and better than most, if not all plant based sources, but kind of like towards the bottom of the animal based sources. So essentially it's like chicken, but meh, with chicken, just based on some other issues with chicken and then organ meats, really good beef, really good fish, pretty good eggs, pretty good dairy.

Okay, exactly. And I think the other main component though, to consider this with like the digestibility of the protein itself, thus us being able to use that protein and turn it to amino acids, is what else comes with it. So with organ meats, there's all these other great nutrients that come with that digestible protein as well. Pretty significant when you compare that to chicken, for example.

Yeah, yeah. And then, and then for plant based protein sources, I mean, since you grew up as a hippie vegan, you obviously have kind of been exposed to the best ones to combine. But as far as plant based protein sources that you would consider to be pretty high, like nowhere near what we've just talked about with the animal based sources. I know that there's some that are higher for meeting your daily protein needs. Have you looked into the ranking of some of the plant based protein sources?

I mean, soy really across the board ranks super high and that's why it's been used so much by the functional food and supplement industry. Now there's all kinds of other issues and concerns around it with phytoestrogens, but it is the one that consistently ranks pretty darn high.

So if we're talking about real food sources like edamame, I'm not as big a fan of edamame just because it's a non fermented soy sauce, which makes it a little less digestible. But like tempeh, natto, like a fermented tofu, those type of soy protein sources would be really good to include in your diet. I know pea protein is pretty high that also sometimes messes with some people in terms of digestive distress, but it does rank pretty high. I think spirulina is up there.

Yeah, it is.

Spirulina is really algae based sources. Yeah. Quinoa, amaranth, millet, all those super grains. Those are, those are good, like better. Better than, than rice for sure. And then hemp's pretty decent too, isn't it?

Hemps? Yeah, hemp's pretty good. It's funny, I have these other just like concerns overall with plant proteins, particularly ones like hemp, where you have to Consume a really large amount of a isolate of a plant protein. And these, these plants that are grown out of the ground. And oftentimes when there's lots of heavy metals in the ground, I'm just kind of skeptical of them. So sorry to bring that up related to the protein digestibility of it, but it is a main concern for me. Where I like a hemp protein is. Yeah, it's just, it's got a lot of the, of the metals from the Earth in it.

Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that, that there are some plants. Lettuce would be another one. Hemp is one. But, but they serve as bioremediants. They actually draw. They're kind of like filters for the, for the planet Earth. And if they're grown in soil that happens to have much metal or they're grown near roads, things like that, you actually can wind up. And, and I've, I've seen some tests on people who are like frequent users of hemp protein or even frequent users of marijuana. And, you know, there are high levels of things like lead and arsenic and other metals. When you look at like a nutrival analysis of people who are, who are not super careful of their sourcing, some of these bioremediants, and obviously, you know, if you were to go Google the Dirty Dozen, you'd find some, some other plants that would be a good idea to be super duper cognizant of the, the actual sourcing and the soil in which they're grown. But yeah, hemp and lettuce, you actually have to be pretty careful with those when it comes to your metal exposure.

And with those, again, it's, I mean, I think the difference between eating.

You know, a head of lettuce versus eating an isolate. Like, we're not eating lettuce isolate, right. Where they're extracting everything out of the lettuce and we're only eating that part of it. You're basically sucking, you're, you're sucking out all the metals with that at the same time and consuming that. And so I think that's really, it's not like to scare people away from eating peas or rice or lettuce. I don't think anyone's eating raw hemp. But when you're eating, you know, highly processed forms of it, I think that's really where the risk comes in more.

That also comes down to something we were talking about earlier to a certain extent, or at least is reflective of that, that whole process. Protein to calorie ratio, right. If you're trying to get as much protein as you can while not consuming a ton of calories along with them, you would be well advised to choose the higher quality protein source because you get, you just gotta eat less of em to get the actual amount of amino acids you'd want.

Exactly.

So we've, we've got our animal and our protein or our animal and our and our vegetable based protein sources that we've kind of ranked for people. And I also, I'll link to the article that I wrote where I kind of lay out the different rankings of each of these and which ones are better when it comes to real food sources. But then we've also of course got some of the sources we talked about earlier. We explained essential amino acids, but I think a lot of people probably need to better wrap their heads around the protein powder sources because we have whey protein isolate, whey protein concentrate, whey protein hydrosylate, pea protein, soy protein, et cetera. And I want to ask you a few questions about these different protein powders and which protein powder would be best. But when it comes to all the different powders out there, can you kind of lay out where we're at right now with the landscape of available options for people and kind of like unpack the actual powders and where you stand on those when it comes to good sources of protein?

Absolutely. So there's a lot. So I'm going to try to summarize quickly. I mean, I think the most simple division is between animal based and plant based proteins. So in plant based proteins you're going to have rice, pea, hemp, soy, and for outside soy, oftentimes they're going to be combining different types of plant proteins in order to get that complete essential amino acid profile. So oftentimes you'll see like pea and rice protein powder combined. And then on the other side you have animal. And the most common one that lots of people have seen is whey. And there's different forms of whey which we can go into. There's just whey concentrate, whey isolate, whey hydrosylate. Again does make us sound fancy and smart. We can say that word. But there's others. There's casein which is another form of protein that also comes out of dairy. And across all these different options, the way that I think about it is number one, what's the essential amino acid profile? So is it complete? Does it have all of them? And most of the ones that are on the market today do. Right. And they do that by in a plant based world by combining different types of plant sources. Number two is going to be how much, how much leucine does it have? We didn't, we didn't get too deep into this earlier, but you did a great job in your amino acids article on this and we can go more into it now if we want to. But basically having higher leucine content in the amino acid profile of the protein is directly what's going to support muscle protein synthesis. And for me, that's a big reason why I take protein powder. That's why I'm doing it in most cases.

Yeah, it's not just muscle protein synthesis too. It regulates the production of anabolic endocrine hormones. Leucine does. You get a stimulation of insulin, which is going to enhance the uptake of the other amino acids and also suppress some of the muscle protein breakdown. Leucine, I know, also modulates the MTOR pathway, that cell survival pathway that so many people who are trying to live to 160 are trying to completely shut down. But I've said this before and I don't know how you feel about this, Angelo. I don't want to live an extra 20 years if I'm cold and hungry and libido less and kind of shrunken.

And basically weak and hard to kill my entire life. Yeah. So leucine content I think is pretty darn important. And again, a lot of people say why not just take BCAAs because they have a ton of leucine. But the problem, as we've already established, is that there's a lot of side effects of using the amino acid sources that aren't complete that dictate that if you can find a complete protein source that also has higher amounts of leucine in, it's going to kick the pants off of bcaa. So, yeah, the leucine content, I agree, that's important to look at for the protein source as well.

And then after that it does become how can I get more protein with less calories? So that's another major thing that I'm looking at. And I think once we start, once we get to this point, so we're looking at complete essential amino acid profile, high amounts of leucine. We basically cut out all the plant proteins, so now we're just looking at more protein and fewer calories. Well, I guess the one other nuance I would, I would put in there too is because there's a lot of bodybuilders that are super into casein. It's, you know, it's A more common protein you can take at night. It has a longer release, basically related to how it's digestible. But the science has also shown that the amount of leucine and the way the BCAAs function in whey products outperforms casein if you take it more frequently. So it's ultimately superior for muscle protein synthesis. So then I'm basically looking at different forms of whey, and I'm looking at a whey concentrate, a whey isolate and a whey hydrosylate. And the simplest way of defining it is that whey concentrate is the simplest form and whey literally is like if you have yogurt and you see that clear liquid on top, that's whey.

And casein is more of the white milk colored protein that's inside of the dairy itself. So when you have a whey concentrate, it's basically just, it's a concentrated form of that whey that naturally exists in dairy products. When you get a whey isolate, you process the whey concentrate a little bit more to separate out the carbohydrates and the fat and also to remove some of the lactose. So basically, the difference between a whey concentrate and a whey isolate is that you're going to get more protein for less calories. You're going to, by removing some of the fat and the carbohydrates and you're going to remove the lactose, which is for many people an irritant. One other difference is like, concentrate for some people and depending on the formula can taste a little bit better. It's a little bit more of a. Well, it's got more fat and carbs in it, right?

Yeah, probably because it does have more fats and more carbs. Like, it's got a little bit more of a creamy taste. Like you can, you can kind of hack that with flavor profiling on a whey isolate. But yeah, if you were to just like take a plain concentrate, a plain isolate, the concentrate in most people is going to taste better, but it's also got the fat and the carbs and then the lactose in it. Which is why, you know, when I was a bodybuilder and I go all these like health and fitness conferences, you could usually tell you to step into an elevator based on all the protein farts. Who is, who is consuming the isolate versus who is consuming the concentrate?

Measure it by the farts. That's a great, that's. I think that's another one of the digestibility scores. We didn't talk about earlier, you gotta.

Go fart free when you can.

And so then a further refined form of whey protein is the whey protein hydrosylate. And that basically removes everything but the protein. Like a whey protein concentrate is about 80% protein. Whey, whey protein ISO is about 90% and the whey protein hydrosylate is 99%. And so it takes out all the lactose, it takes out everything but the protein. It becomes way more expensive to make, we might call it distillation process is more expensive. And in the end it tastes pretty gross. You know, for most people, whey protein concentrate is going to be the cheapest. If you have zero lactose, you know, intolerance, you really don't worry about it and you don't, you don't care about calories. You know, it might be a good option for you if you're looking, if you are more, you know, if you're trying to get the best protein to calorie ratio and you still want it to taste good, then whey protein isolate is the choice. The one other point I want to add to all this is, you know, we're talking about all this without actually talking about the dairy sources themselves. I think it's really important to emphasize that choosing a dairy source that is grass fed can dramatically change the profile of what that protein is or, and just the quality of it, not to mention what kind of, you know, farming practices, etc. You want to be supporting.

Well, how so? Like, I want to unpack that a little bit because I've been asked like, people like, well, does it even matter because, because you're just getting the isolate doesn't matter the source that much. Like if it's grass fed, does that really matter?

I think it matters. I mean, for me, there's, there's two main components to this. So number one, on the environmental impact itself, like that alone, choosing to support industry that treats animals in a certain way and also treats the production of meat in a certain way that, you know, I am going to get to eat the meat that, that's going to support the production of meat ultimately that is grass fed is worth it for me. On top of that, the concerns of the other types of chemicals, potential hormones, etc. That are fed to animals that are not grass fed, it goes right back to this concern that we had earlier about the plant proteins, right? So I am condensing down everything that was put into this plant in the ground, right? And so if it was grown in a place with heavy metals, I'm like condensing down and isolating down those heavy metals. And I think the same concerns there rest with a whey protein isolate. If you're not choosing a grass fed source, you're isolating down the proteins that were created using hormones and other forms of chemicals.

Yeah. So basically what you're looking at is the potential for antibiotics, added hormones, BPAs, heavy metals, which has been a huge issue in the protein powder industry anyways, you know, and you see this with bone broths as well, like the sourcing really matters. And it appears that it comes down to the actual cattle from which these, these proteins were derived. Is that, is that really the metals? Is it more the cattle or is it more the soil?

Or do you know it would be this. Well, the cattle are eating grass that comes out of the soil. That said that compared to the types of heavy metals that would be coming out of the corn that would be fed in more of like a feedlot type environment, have a higher risk of having higher heavy metals.

Yeah, well there, there was a, there was a study in 2018, I don't know if you saw this one, it was called like the clean label protein powder study. And they found like, like over 50 of the big protein brands, like most of the ones you'd see when you walk into GNC or whatever, pretty concerningly elevated levels of BPA and then metals from like lead, arsenic to mercury to cadmium. And so what was interesting was the certified organic and also the plant based proteins that were tested, those are the ones that had some of the highest amounts. What that means is that you should actually look for whether or not any protein powder has been pretty rigorously tested for toxins like heavy metals and other contaminants. And you're off to a good start if you're choosing an organic grass fed source that is clean. But you do have to be pretty careful.

I 100% agree. And I think, you know, this is one of the, this is one of the concerns and problems with certifications is organic and labels like grass fed, which is actually not a certification, is just based off someone saying grass was fed to the animal. And in our process of trying to track down the highest quality grass fed whey protein isolate for making the kion clean protein, it was actually pretty hard. There's a wide range where it's like anywhere from 50% to 60% to 70% to, to more than 95%. To the surprise of many, there is not a grass finished whey protein isolate. Anyone who says that there is is lying to you. And that is because of the production that's required for, for raising the animals and managing through different seasons. It's not cause they're trying to like feed them a bunch of corn at the end, but they just can't 100% promise that. But finding a brand that is truly 95% plus, it's hard and to find those suppliers and to manage it. And so if you see a grass fed whey protein isolate that is half the cost of all the other ones, there's a reason why, I'll just tell you that it's because they're slapping the label on there. Yeah, some grass was fed to it, but it was not, it's not really long term grass fed.

Yeah. And then I think the other thing that I didn't necessarily want to skim over with whey, that I think is important because we talked about the superiority of it when it comes to amino acids and digestibility. And also the absence of the carbohydrates and the fat and the lack of lactose that you'd find in the concentrate. The lower cost compared to a hydrolysate, which I think is overpriced considering that it has an awful taste. And also a lot of the good immune system boosting benefits are just kind of like filtered right out of it. The other thing that's important to bear in mind though, same as with the animal proteins we talked about, is the nutrient density. Because if you look at whey, not only do you have cysteine in it, which is a glutathione precursor, and that's one of the reasons why, because whey protein is well known as a way to enhance your glutathione levels. But you got lactoferrin, you know, the same beneficial protein for gut health that you'd find in colostrum. You've got a lactoperoxidase which got, you know, that's the antimicrobial benefits, immunoglobulins, you know, these immune building proteins that, you know, same thing as you'd find like, you know, colostrum and really good milk. There's growth factors in there like IGF1 and IGF2 and platelet derived growth factor and fibroblast growth factor. There's bioactive peptides in whey, you know, again like lactoferrosin which is similar to lactoferrin, but it's more of like a peptide that you know, and a lot of people are injecting peptides now. But whey protein is actually a really good source for a lot of these recovery based peptides and that's even got probiotics or not probiotics, but it's got prebiotics in it. Whey protein does like one is galactooligosaccharides. And so when you step back and look at, at kind of going beyond just the amino acid profile, like I'm, I'm freaking convinced and especially over the, over the journey that, that I've spent the past year, you know, working with you and the scientists at Kion and flavor profiling and everything that, that if you can nail a good tasting whey protein isolate from a good clean grass fed source, like the numbers don't lie. Like it is, I think the most superior protein source on the face of the planet. When you actually step back and look at it absolutely.

For, for a powder. I mean like I of course still eat steaks, I still eat chicken, I still eat all these other sources. But if I'm looking for a protein powder, it' sit's just the obvious best choice.

Yeah, I mean if you put a ribeye steak in front of me or a nice creamy vanilla protein powder smoothie, I'm still gonna choose thethe steak pretty much all the time. Unless I'm off to exercise and I want something that's more digestible. My rank profiling would be for a pre workout amino acids bar none. Because for pre and during a workout, you don't even think about digestion some type of way. Isolate would be kind of like next best. Especially if you need the calories and then the steak, the chicken, the eggs. It's not that convenient as a pre workout or something you can suck down during a workout. But you're right if you have to choose real food, unless there's a requirement for you to be, from a logistical standpoint, consuming a powder, I'm always going to choose real food. But if I have to choose a protein powder, you know, whey protein is going to be it. You know what's interesting too with whey protein is, and I learned this when I was working on that, on that article on whey protein is it's been around a long time.

I actually didn't even know any of that stuff until I saw your article on that. Catch me up on that again, like the exact history of it.

Okay. Yeah. So archaeologists discovered these remains of pure whey in these ceramic vessels that date as far back as 7100 BC. Which means that even though ancient man wasn't necessarily pumping iron and drinking vanilla and chocolate whey Protein. At some point, humankind was separating whey, like, instead of discarding it, like cheesemakers might do today, and they were using it for some kind of specific purpose. Like Hippocrates, he's known as the father of modern medicine. There's documentation that he prescribed whey to his patients for immune issues and gastrointestinal ailments and skin conditions. And, like, later during the 1600s, all the way up through the 1900s, they had these European whey houses where they actually served whey drinks and whey dishes. They were basically like fancy whey spas. People would literally, like, bathe in whey as a skin treatment. And you can still find these fancy skincare products a lot of times made in Europe, that are actually fashioned with whey. So Ouai has this history of being. Being a health food that dictates that it's not this modern, newfangled thing. Humankind is known about whey. Anybody who sings Little Miss Muffet also knows this. The curds and the whey and Little Miss Muffet. But it has a really, really interesting background, just the history of whey protein. We've been tapping into it for quite some time. It just. Maybe we haven't had it in big protein tubs, but, yeah, it's been around a while and actually recognized for quite some time as a pretty significant health food that. Although people in modern times, I think, sometimes associate it with, like, bodybuilders and weight trainers and, you know, and people who are just in the physical culture environment, like, it's got a pretty big history and just, like, health overall.

I think the inside baseball and the Muppets piece was my favorite thing of everything you just said. But you're right, it's been around forever. And I think one of the biggest issues that I feel is really unfortunate for this, for whey specifically, is the way that the fitness and the natural food and the supplement industry works is like, there's always got to be something new, right? And whatever's new has got to be kind of like talking bad about what was before. And because whey has been around a while, it's gone through all these iterations of having the new product come back and kind of talk smack about it, whether that's pea and rice protein or it's soy or whatever. Like, everyone's trying to critique it and somehow make a case about how it's bad, but, man, it's withstood the test of time. If you just look at the science over the last 40 years, it is like the Superior protein powder. And it's clear, that said, there's, you know, everyone's gonna pull out their research or this, you know, this study or that study that argues against it. But if you look at the full body of research, it's pretty clear like it's, it's the superior choice.

Okay, so, so we've established like if you're gonna do protein powder, whey protein isolates, pretty much top of the totem pole. We've established that you should ideally ensure that it's sourced from grass fed cows that are grazing on clean pastures and clean soil. So you're getting non gmo, so you're getting antibiotic free, you're getting growth hormone free and you're getting low in metals. We've established that the protein source is in terms of protein per calories, really high. And we've established that if you can find a protein you should ensure that it's been tested for a lot of these toxins that we talked about like BPA and the heavy metals, the lead, the arsenic, the mercery or the mercury and the cadmium, et cetera. If you have digestibility issues, especially if you have lactose tolerance issues, then that's another reason to choose it. But how about the actual. Because I know you've been deep in this, in formulating the kion protein. How about the flavor profiling? Because a lot of protein just tastes nasty. How do you get this? Because I've just been geeking out on especially the vanilla flavor. That's probably my favorite of the new kion protein. But even the unflavored, like it tastes like this rich, creamy, velvety breast milk. And I've had some really nasty because I've been consuming whey protein powder since my bodybuilding days like 20 years ago. And I haven't really experienced a protein yet like this. And obviously I'm not down there at the offices in Boulder kind of hands in with the flavor profiling. But how was the actual flavor of this stuff nailed? Like the flavor and the consistency and the texture, like, like give me some more inside baseball on that.

It really does start with the unflavored protein. I mean I can't, I can't even count how many raw ingredient suppliers of grass fed protein we tested. And it involved, you know, really deep analysis of all the quality specs too. Right. So we have to just confirm that it's even going to meet our super high standards. But then once we get them in, you know, it got down to, I mean I tested tens of them, but by the end, there were three or four that could actually meet our specific standards. It ended up just being that, if I'm honest, we just bought the nicest one you can possibly get. It's from the highest quality cows in the highest quality location. And it just had that sweet taste. The other ones, honestly, they're great, and you can cover it up with flavor profile, but the unflavored, they had this slight kind of, if I'm honest with you, almost like an utter taste. Like sometimes when you eat, like pork or something, it's got that kind of, like animal taste. This was just like the cleanest, purest, most delicious raw ingredient. And it really just has come down from being willing to pay for the premium, highest quality farms, highest quality filtration processes to get that kind of raw ingredient.

What do you mean, the highest quality filtration?

You know, what it really breaks down to is when people are collecting the milk and then transporting the milk and then filtering the milk. All of those processes can be done to different levels of quality specs. And this is really across the board with any supplement that you're taking at every single stage, people can be more or less diligent when you are willing to pay for a premium raw ingredient. Literally every single stage of the process is managed neurotically, where the quality is just maintained at every single stage. And so it's kind of hard to name, like, a specific place where things can. Where issues can arise. But it can come anywhere, actually, from, like the milking to the transportation to the filtration centers themselves.

Okay, got it. So, and then what do you add in to actually, for people who haven't seen the label on the new whey protein isolate that we're doing at Kion, what else is in there as far as the actual flavoring? Because people have asked me, sucralose, acesulfami, potassium. You'll see that a lot of times, some of these known artificial sweeteners that are considered to be, in some cases, neurotoxins or harmful for the microbiome, which I'm always looking for when I'm looking at the label of a protein powder. But in terms of nailing the flavor profiling, in addition to just the filtration and the sourcing, is there anything else that's getting put in there that you would say is amping up the flavor profile?

Again, I mean, not to sound too redundant on this, it really comes down to the quality of the raw ingredients that we use. And so with this flavor, we used organic, natural flavors. Again, what you're getting from that is you're just getting the highest quality distillation of specific organic flavors and stevia, and that's it. There's just nothing else in there. I know other people have compared our protein, and I myself to just other brands.

You can just taste a bunch of kind of like, other stuff in there, and really just keeping it simple and keeping it the highest quality raw ingredients, that's how you get that flavor. Like, I'm the guy too, like, when I go out to eat at a nice restaurant, actually, when you're in town, right, we always go to that same steakhouse in Boulder.

Yeah. What's the name of that one?

Is it 316?

Yeah, the one where they. They can bring you the bone marrow and give you, like, a shot of. It's like a shot of bourbon that they do. It's like a bone marrow shoot. It's amazing. Like. Like, you do this shot of alcohol down the bone marrow, you get like some umami flavor of the bone marrow. If anybody has ordered bone marrow at a restaurant, see if they do a bone marrow shoot, like a shot of alcohol down the bone marrow, because it's pretty interesting. It's kind of a distraction from the whey protein discussion, but drinking alcohol with bone marrow is a real treat.

Anyway, the steakhouse. Why is the steakhouse so good? Because they get the nicest meat and they cook it in the nicest butter, and it' syou start with the most high quality ingredients. You don't add a bunch of other junk to cover up flavors. You just. You keep it really simple and you. And you include the best raw ingredients. And so, I mean, at the most fundamental level, that's what it takes, but it also takes iterations and iterations and iterations of flavors, of getting, like, just the right amount of the organic, natural vanilla flavor, getting just the right amount of the sweetener. And the thing that I think really that makes this protein powder pop, though, is the Himalayan salt. By adding this little bit of.

That's right, I forgot about that.

That's the sweetness. And it's like if you have the most, you know, if you have a really delicious cookie or a brownie or something that's sweet, like the salt, you don't notice it, but that salt adds this whole extra body and character to it. And once we got just the right amount of that Himalayan salt in there, it was like I'd never had anything like it.

You're making me hungry already, man. Um, okay, so in terms of the whey protein isolate Anything else that, that you want to cover as far as what went into the actual design of this stuff?

I don't think so, man. I mean, again, it' sit' sit really like when you're trying to be the kind of company that we are, you just spend a ton of time on the front end investigating the highest quality sources, working with the best partners, not adding any junk and just, just being diligent, really just being kind of neurotic about it. And you know, I think and any other company could make this product for half the cost, but I wouldn't want to take it. I know you wouldn't take it. Our team wouldn't take it and so, and I would want to give it to my family. So it's really just, it's about being neurotic through every single stage of the supply chain and the formulation process.

Yeah, well, well, I will, I will link to in the show notes. But the article that, that came out on Kion's website a couple of weeks ago about like, because a lot of people think you just mix it in with a smoothie, which is actually really good, like that. One of my favorite recipes right now is I use the vanilla Kion clean protein and then I put the colostrum, the Kion colostrum in there, the creatine. And then I'll just do like bone broth ice. Sometimes I'll add a little bit of extra sea salt and stevia and then dude, just top that with some cacao nibs or some coconut flakes or some bee pollen and that's amazing. But I'll link to this article in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com ProteinPod podcast Protein Pancakes. There's a recipe for these protein keto bites, which are amazing. Protein hot chocolate, overnight oats. Like adding your protein to overnight oats, that was another really good one. Protein Chia pudding. Banana nut protein muffins. Protein granola. Adding protein to your cereal milk, which is like my sons did that a couple of times, like the Magic Spoon cereal with the protein powder added to the actual milk. So you're getting even more protein.

Oh man.

And then salad dressing, you can take the unflavored protein and then add a little bit of white vinegar or lemon, like a lemon juice, some olive oil, some salt and pepper and it's literally like this protein infused creamy dressing. A lot of people don't realize there's all these uses and we've already established you can take a bath in it too. Right? Like they used to do in the Roman waste spas.

And how much do you put in the bathtub when you do that?

Ben, there's so many fun ways to use protein, man. I'm honestly going to post to Instagram once I nail the actual recipe of how to add this into the colostrum cream cake. But I think. I think I've only scratched the surface of all the ways I can use these. These wonderful bags of protein powder that are. That are now at my house. So we got. We got unflavored again. It's. It's really good, you guys. Like, if you haven't tried the unflavored, even that will knock your socks off. But then smooth vanilla, that's probably my favorite. And then rich chocolate. Like, all three are really good. Which one's your favorite, Angel?

I alternate between doing rich chocolate and then just throwing some, like, frozen organic berries in the blender with the vanilla. I love those too. I basically. I was originally drinking it, you know, just shaking it up with water, but I throw ice cubes in some water and, like, make it into. It's amazing. Like, ice cubes, a little bit of water, and the chocolate powder, and it literally tastes like a chocolate milkshake. And then the other one's kind of like a strawberry.

Wait, you're just doing ice cubes with the chocolate and protein powder?

Yeah, ice cubes, water, and the chocolate protein powder. It's, like, plenty rich, dude. It's like less than 100 calories for 20 grams of protein. It's incredible. I gotta try that. Yeah, the berries, it's a little bit more, but it's. Man, it's. The berries with the vanilla, too, is just killer.

All right, well, I think. I think we're getting a little bit blue in the face talking protein, but I'm pretty sure if anybody's listening to this whole episode, you pretty much know everything that you need to know about protein and amino acids as far as amping up your life with them. However, if you want to take an even deeper dive, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com proteinpodcast I will link to the different uses of protein powder recipes. I was just talking about the pumpkin spice colostrum cream cake recipe, my nighttime jello recipe with the amino acids and the collagen. But then I'll also link to two, actually three really good articles. One on creatine, which Angela mentioned. But then I've got a big article I wrote about this new whey protein isolate and whey protein in general, and then also, like, EAAS versus BCAAS and how to kind of hack your protein and aminos intake primarily for muscle gain and fat loss, but a whole lot more. So I'll link to all that if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com protein podcast and I'm serious, Angela. This discussion made me hungry. I only had breakfast two hours ago and I'm ready to go have some protein again.

I'm going to go ahead and shake right now, man.

All right. All right, let's do it. All right, folks, I'll also link to the other podcast today with Angelo. We had that really entertaining podcast. If you want to find out more about his back history and where he comes from, I think you'd really enjoy that episode. And Angelo, it's always a pleasure, man.

It's a pleasure, dude. Hopefully I'll see you soon. In a few weeks.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today. If you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much. Means a lot.

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