Lead in Protein Powder? Whole-Food Smoothie Protein Alternatives Ep 129

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Hey folks, and welcome back to Find Your Edge Podcast. I am your host, Coach Chris Newport, and I am excited you are here. So I've been hearing a lot of concern about a recent Consumer Reports article, and if you're watching on YouTube, I've got it pulled up right here. It's called Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead. 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. So as I scroll down on this, if you haven't seen this before, I'll link to it below. So should lead be in our diet? The short answer is no. And I will have to say that I made a boo-boo and the top products that they have to avoid, I'm not gonna say them out loud because I don't wanna necessarily bias anyone against these particular companies, but one of them is considered a mass gainer. Anytime you say a mass gainer, not only is a lot of protein, but probably also has a lot of carbs. In it, and it's by a particular company that my automatic thought when I read this was the whole company must be bad. So I want to be totally transparent with you guys that that was— that's on me, that I made a boo-boo. And then I had a client who was like, oh, but I'm taking this product, and it wasn't this exact same product, but from all the information that I could find, the particular whey product that she was taking was actually perfectly fine. So then it got me thinking like, okay, uh, where are some of these coming from? What's the safest thing to, to do? 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. It's a Garden of Life product. It's their Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein in Vanilla. 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. So what I am in the process of doing, and, 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. 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 illegal substances in your body at all. So this particular product says maybe limit it to 1¼ servings per week based on their concerns for lead. So then it got me thinking, okay, what can we do if we're not gonna do a protein powder? Because at the end of the day, a protein powder is a wonderfully convenient option for getting increased amount of protein. And recently the recommendations for protein by the government used to be 0.8 grams 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. 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. I like, for the ease of calculation, I typically do 1.5 for most of our athletes, but if we've got, depending on the goals, we may even go higher. Generally not an issue to that, especially if you're getting plenty of water and there's no specific kidney issues that you have. So here's my promise to you. I have already reached out to NSF and I wanna get to the bottom of this and figure out why is this product NSF certified and yet it's saying it has high levels of lead. 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 wanna make sure that your trust is not broken. In me, not only as a dietitian, but also the entire profession. Like, here we are trying to give you the best information that's going to be the healthiest for you, and it's like, what? This stuff is contaminated with lead? Where lead is typically coming from, which is, you know, plant-based oftentimes, is it's somewhere in the soil, typically. But instead of going, oh, woe is me, everything's gonna kill me, Let's, let's back up a little bit. How can we focus on some high food options instead? So I'm gonna pop over to a different screen. 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. Again, protein powder is great as a convenient source of additional protein. That'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 able to chew, or for athletes who need the extra protein. 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? So one of my favorite things to put in smoothies— hang with me here, folks, we got this— is cooked beans and lentils, because that's kind of what a vegan protein powder is already. I prefer to use things like white beans, like a cannellini or a navy bean. Yes, those are legitimately different things, but they are very neutral tasting, so that's a great option. You can also throw in chickpeas. 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 cannellini bean. Uh, you can also throw lentils in there. You're probably gonna wanna go for a more neutral type of lentil, uh, maybe like a green, um, brown tends to be a little earthier, red has a little bit more of a distinct flavor, but you can also do combinations of these. And then there's also yellow split peas. Those are, I find, a little bit more neutral. But at the end of the day, this is kind of what your protein powders are doing anyway. They're drying out a lot of these pea proteins and then grinding them up and putting them into protein powder, which is why so many people have vegan protein powders and they're like, they taste like dirt. I'm like, well, Yeah, that's kind of where they came from. So if you want to be more discerning about whether something has heavy metals or other toxins in it, you can soak them. 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. So those have already been soaked, and then they're going to 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 going to talk about fiber today because that's a whole nother conversation about longevity and fabulousness. So I hope that you all are pooping at least once a day. So, um, sorry to Kirk, who always says that my, uh, podcasts are wonderfully timed to when he's eating a meal. It doesn't make him want to eat a meal anymore. So my apologies to all you folks, but this is what we as dietitians like to talk about. So Anyway, you can do combinations of cooked peas 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, any type of bean or pea. You do want to cook them before you put them in your smoothie if that's what you're using. All right, next thing up, and again, this is common, what you're going to see in a lot of vegan protein powders. Are seeds, different types of seeds. 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. So if you're doing just hemp seeds, uh, as like a protein powder, just make sure it's a combination. It's got maybe like chia or pumpkin seed powder and hemp seeds, or just use your own. So you can buy hemp seeds. I had a woman once who was a vegan, and she was incredibly committed to it, which is great. And I love to see that people are committed to their health, no matter what dietary plan you're following. And for every smoothie she made, she would put in— and I'm not kidding— a half a cup of hemp seeds. And man, she was freaking crushing it with her protein. There's 10 grams in every 3 tablespoons. So consider that 4 tablespoons is a quarter of a cup. 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. And same kind of thing, if you want to soak those, great. Chia seeds are another option that you can put into your, your smoothies. However, if you soak them it— they are going to get— their, their texture is going to change, which is fine if you like that. Keep in mind that if you don't like the black chia seeds, you can use white chia seeds. So those are super easy to find at something like a Whole Foods, maybe even a Wegmans, or certainly online. 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. They're fantastic for basically like soaking up. Did you guys like that sound? Soaking up all of the cholesterol and then dumping it into your gut so that you can get rid of it. So super absorbent. It tends to turn a smoothie into more of like a pudding type of consistency. So if you wanna turn your smoothie into a pudding and then portion it out to multiple days, like, you know, 3 portions of your chia protein smoothie or chia protein pudding, knock yourself out. Like, how convenient is that? That you don't have to dirty the blender multiple times. You just do it once. For me, I don't like the whole chia seeds. They get in my teeth and it's not my jam. 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. It'll also like change the appearance. 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, and those pesky little chia seeds won't necessarily get caught in your teeth. Doesn't necessarily make them easier to digest. Uh, flax seeds are the one— if you use flax seeds, you do want to make sure those are ground because We are not sophisticated enough to break down flaxseeds and like crack the seed open. So you do have to grind those first. So that is something certainly that you can put into your smoothies. Flaxseeds are a great source of isoflavones, which is fantastic. I also love pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds in smoothies because again, high protein. Quarter cup of pumpkin seeds is 9 grams of protein. Quarter cup of sunflower seeds, 7 grams of protein. Also a good source of vitamin E, which is a great antioxidant. 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. 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. You absolutely can. Pick your butter, people. Peanut butter, almond butter, walnut butter, cashew butter. Like, woo, now we're going crazy, y'all. Look out. So those are sort of pre-blended, so you won't break your blender, and then adds a little bit of satisfying fat to your smoothie, and good sources of fat too. As well as giving yourself a whole foods natural protein source. I have a picture up here of an organic Nutzo Power Fuel product, which is 7 different nuts and seeds, which is kind of fun if you wanna go that way. 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. Like if you're allergic to all nuts, you can use sunflower butter. So lots of options. The other option that you can put into your smoothies and use as a whole food protein source is tofu. Soy gets such a bad rap, 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. But any soy product is— has all of your essential amino acids, 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. I prefer silken tofu for smoothies versus like a firm tofu that you would cook for, like, say, like a stir-fry. Um, if you're concerned about GMOs, make sure to buy organic because organic should not have anything GMO. So what else do we have on here? Okay, this is a popular one— Greek yogurt or and the Icelandic version of Greek yogurt, which is skyr, or an even different type of Greek yogurt, which is called kefir. So they're all very similar. They're just used as different bacterias to ferment the milk. So Greek yogurt versus skyr, which is S-K-Y-R, versus like kefir, which is more of like a liquid yogurt. So that might blend a little bit easier for you. But 3/4 cup of skyr or Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup of blueberries, a banana, and some coconut water. Water, like High Potassium Protein Punch, look out y'all. That is a fantastic one that you can do post-workout or pre-workout or just for breakfast. 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. It's cottage cheese. So this is one of those, this is like the 1970s cool kid 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. I'm in that camp. I, I actually very much enjoy cottage cheese, but it doesn't matter because it's you eating the product, not me. 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. So you can add bananas, peanut butter. I like a peanut butter and jelly smoothie, so sometimes I'll add like strawberries, peanut butter, maybe a banana, and either Greek yogurt or skyr 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. So the next one I'm going to tell you about might be a little bit of a shocker for some. It's egg whites. 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. You buy the egg whites in the pre-pasteurized carton and holy casmole, it has so much protein in it and it's pretty much flavorless. I used to make this a lot for my kids. 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, and they were like so great on a hot day where you get lots of protein and also you're getting some fruit. So you would be shocked at how easy it is to make a smoothie with egg whites. Again, make sure— buy them from the carton so that you know they're pasteurized. And you too can be like Rocky. And if you don't know that reference, um, I'm just going to pretend you didn't. So hopefully that was helpful and not sad, like, oh gosh, what am I going to do about all these protein powders that are contaminated with lead? Not all of them are like that. We do need to be judicious about what goes into our body, but know that you can still get a lot of protein and and some really great quality nutrition from whole foods. So if this was helpful for you, let me know. 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. I love to help you guys out. This is like so my favorite thing to, to talk about. Food and talk about longevity and talk about exercise. So let me know what you wanna hear about. Thank you so much for listening and stay healthy.

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