Ep #61 - The Shocking Thing You Should Know About Protein Combining

Jarrod: 0:49

Episode 61 of smarter healthy living.

Anita: 0:52

So today we're going to spend some time tackling a topic. That's actually a myth,but it is so well grounded within the world of nutrition.We want to make sure you understand that it is a myth that it's not true. But you've probably heard it a lot of times and maybe even thought, that's something I really need to look into doing. You're listening to the smarter Healthy Living podcast where we firmly believe that getting healthy should never feel like torture. We're your host, Jared and Anita Roussel were college sweethearts, and health professionals who help you redefine what getting healthy looks like using a whole food plant based lifestyle. It's time to hear from the experts and learn the best tips and tricks that helped others get beyond the overwhelm, to create a vibrant life they love. If you're sick and tired of being sick, and tired, you're in the right place. So pull up a virtual chair, grab your matcha latte. And let's get started.Hey there sisters, we hope you're having an amazing day.And welcome to the show. We're glad that you're joining us.We've been getting outside a lot lately, the weather's warming up here. And it has been fantastic.So we've

Jarrod: 2:02

been enjoying the Florida sun down here. Yep,

Anita: 2:04

we got out yesterday went to the beach took the children with us. And in case this is your first time joining us we want to let you know welcome We are so glad you're here we do have four children and their age eight to 16. And so we got everybody piled into the Odyssey yesterday, and we went down to the local beach. And it was just an amazing experience with the fresh air and the sunshine. And,of course, the crashing waves,which is my favorite part. And this particular beach where we've we go and we just absolutely love it. And it has these huge rock formations, some go in a straight line down into the ocean stem go horizontally along the beach. And then along with that there are these winding just paths of sand everywhere that you can find plenty of places to sit, people were fishing running around with their kids. And it was just such an amazing time. So we hope you're getting out and enjoying the sunshine and the bright warm rays on your face. And just getting that fresh air and the grounding that you need to make you feel great. So today, we're going to spend some time tackling a topic. That's actually a myth. But it is so well grounded within the world of nutrition, we want to make sure you understand that it is a myth that it's not true. But you've probably heard it a lot of times and maybe even thought that's something I really need to look into doing.

Jarrod: 3:30

It's very pervasive. And you may have even believe this.

Anita: 3:34

And the idea is that it's necessary to eat animal products to get complete protein. Or that the fact that there's some way that you're going to get incomplete protein if you don't combine your vegetables and fruits the right way. So this is called basically it's just the idea of getting complete or incomplete proteins that really has a name not

Jarrod: 4:00

combining food combining. So there's been this thought that if you don't combine plants properly, then you don't get a true complete protein source. So the thought is, is that certain plants are deficient in one or more amino acids.

Anita: 4:15

So you hear a lot of times if you're eating beans,you need to make sure to get rice with it. Or if you're eating rice, you need to make sure you get beans with it so that you get a complete protein.

Jarrod: 4:27

Now Now it's our belief that beans and rice are kind of like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. You've got the peanut butter with the chocolate one with the others. Excellent. And we actually did even eat that for lunch.

Anita: 4:39

frequently. It's funny, I wonder if that was in the back of my mind. And that's what I what caused me to ask our 12year old to put that on for lunch. Yes, we have taught our children very easily. It's so easy honestly. Even our eight year old cooks this way the way that we train people how to prepare meals because we're all busy it needs to be simple. It's got to be obviously enjoyable and delicious too. But I asked my 12 year old i thought you know we're busy today we're taping the podcast for everybody and and in the back of my mind you know we already knew and had talked about this is the topic we wanted to do today so I'm kind of wondering did that subliminally fuel what we had for lunch when I asked him Andrew I just really want some beans and beans and rice.Actually it was Black Eyed Peas and rice which I absolutely love and of course you know it's got to have all that sauce on it and it's herbs and spices and all that goodness but oh they were amazing. We're sitting on on the porch laughing about how we're about to do this podcast about protein combining and we're sitting here eating our beans and rice but the beauty is we eat it because we'd like beans and rice not because We're afraid we're not going to get a complete protein. If we don't combine this feed with that food, we want to help release you from some of those worries today. So where does this idea come from?

Jarrod: 6:01

Well, there was a woman,her name is Francis Moore lepay,that wrote a book back in 1971.Now, the book was called diet for small planet. And her thought with this, or her purpose with this book, was to try to help end world hunger.Well, she was a sociologist, she was a sociologist, she was not a medical provider or dietitian.But she or nutritionist

Anita: 6:23

or biologists, she wasn't in any of those meals. So she just wanted to help to end world hunger. And it was an admirable goal. I mean, obviously, that's something that we would all

Jarrod: 6:36

want anybody to be hungry,

Anita: 6:38

but she didn't have education in this area, and was trying to do the best with what she knew and started teaching us again, back in 97. year we were born.

Jarrod: 6:47

Yes. So actually, the book, I think, came out early part of that year, so the book is just slightly bit older than we are. But I think in the book,she was talking about how plant sources of food took a lot less resources than animal sources of food, because you'd have to grow a lot of plant resources. And it takes a lot of water, to grow animals to the point to where they can then be used as food.So her thought was, and I think rightfully so that you can feed a lot more people with the plants than you can with the animals. And if you look at the large scale impact of the animal farming is it can be quite detrimental to the planet. But with this, I don't know how she came upon the idea that certain plants were deficient in amino acids. But she did. So she did the best that she knew and said you need to combine these four to be a complete protein source.

Anita: 7:41

But then she learned the truth that that actually was not true. But she had taught that it was a myth. And so sadly, the damage had already been done.And she went back and tried to retract that in a revision of her book.

Jarrod: 7:56

It was 10 years later,1981 in a revision, she had corrected that. But at that point, that idea had already taken hold. And, and even now, I mean, there there are doctors,there are people in nutrition programs and medical programs that are still teaching that even in some scientific journals, like there was an American American Heart Association had written an article. I think it was in the2000s. I think 2001 about this,and someone had even sent them a letter of correction. But they still held to that idea so so tightly that they would not correct their own publication.

Anita: 8:35

When it came. It's funny because it came into being this thought came into being after she wrote that the reason it became so big was because the magazine did an article on it incomplete and complete protein and the need to protein combined. And they wrote that and put that out in 1975. That was I think it was several years after she retracted her statement, was it or was it in between? No, in between? Okay,okay. So they wrote this. And anyway, it became really popular because it was in vogue. So it was the Vogue thing to do,right? Sadly, again, like we were saying, you know, I've even seen nutrition books for children. I was looking at this nutrition book, which that keeps coming up over and over again,because I keep looking at different textbooks and things for children. I'm not seeing out there what I'd like to see. So

Jarrod: 9:24

well, if this is the first time you've heard us, we homeschool our four children.

Anita: 9:27

Yeah. And I'm just I'm ended up having to write I'm writing our own curriculum and having to combine a lot of different curriculum, because it's just not there right now.So that may be something in my future, that you guys can look forward to me. Yeah. So when there's such a need, because,

Unknown: 9:44

yeah,

Anita: 9:45

I know, right? We've got a million things we want to do to help people and, and you know, we've got other things that are going on to kids got to be educated. That's real life.It's the reality of it all. But we've got to feel our bodies rightly. And we want you guys to understand these things that are myths that are not true that have been perpetuated, have gotten them out there. Now, the people that are teaching these things, they just they don't let them go. They're in their nutritional books that they're learning from. They're in college textbooks. I mean, I saw one college textbook from just a few years ago that had been published. It's still in their children's that nutritional book I picked up it was still in there. I know this has been perpetuated Jarrod was talking about the medical article. So that's why we share this important information with you because we want you to avoid making this unnecessarily complicated because the truth is, it can and should be very simple, enjoyable and delicious to live this way, enjoying whole food, plant based foods.

Jarrod: 10:47

We also don't want this to be Something that would hold you back from pursuing eating a whole food, plant based lifestyle,

Anita: 10:53

there's too many crazy things you've had to do in your life to try to quit diet. And that's why I love that this isn't a diet because not only is there no calorie counting and portion control living this way,and all the crazy things that you've taught to keep try to keep up with and the Weigh ins and the guilt and all those things, you get freedom from that. And the more you go, and the further you go in this, the more freedom that you have,because your body's released from a lot of the stress, the stress of it, but also the it's almost like addiction, some fades we've come to know are actually addictive. And as your body gets rid of that and detoxes, so to speak, you don't have to worry about those things anymore, because you don't crave them anymore. But then also just knowing that things like being able to let go of these myths,you're not going to be worried about these things, you know,in, we pile up in reality, I'm worried about this thing, I've got to know how to do this thing, this thing, this thing,this thing. And it's like calorie counting portion control, eating crappy foods I hate just because it's on my diet list, you know, things like that. It does not create a life you're going to enjoy that's going to be sustainable, you will not continue to do that forever. Because it's miserable.You don't like it, and who's going to continue to go out to eat and have to count calories and something or, you know, eat something that they don't enjoy.It's just no way.

Jarrod: 12:15

It's not a lifestyle that I see anybody bragging about, they might brag about some of the weight loss, but they may not say Oh, let me tell you about this miserable food I had to eat or this this terrible plan that I'm on? No, they don't do it.

Anita: 12:28

Well, and just in general, getting back to proteins in general, we did an episode about it recently that you need to go back and listen to but just kind of as a summary, we want you to know that protein should never be a concern for you. And we're going to explain why. First, to do that, you need to understand that protein is made up of essential amino acids.

Jarrod: 12:51

These are like building blocks think of I had used the analogy of pot blocks if you have young children or remember having them where you put them into n or like a string of beads, think of each bead like an amino acid, and they all string together and the different combinations will then fold up and create these different configurations that then determine what that protein does.

Anita: 13:15

Now I said that the body I need to correct something I said that the body is made up of essential are proteins are made up of essential amino acids. But they're also made of just essential right just amino acids, but people have broken them into two categories essential and non essential.

Jarrod: 13:30

And so it is non essential meaning you don't need it. No, it means your body makes it so the essential amino acids are actually the ones that you must get from food sources.little fun fact here. Animals also need essential amino acids.So that meat that you're eating,they have to get essential amino acids from plants, all amino acids originate from plants. Now there's like I said before, we do make some the non essential.But we still must get those essential ones from eating

Anita: 14:05

plant plants in a roundabout way or in a straight to the source way.

Jarrod: 14:10

And I think straight to the sources the most efficient way to go.

Anita: 14:13

That's what slideshow is.That's what our bodies are telling us. And that's what are the members and our membership,our clients have told us as well. That's what they're experiencing. So it's exciting.I mean, eating plants is liberating. They're delicious,but you just have to know how,but getting back to protein. So all proteins are made of amino acids. And when you eat amino acids, your body stores them, it can mix and match them as needed. And it also can even recycle them. This is why you need to let go there's a worry and the fear of getting enough with each meal or getting the right amounts or proportions or mixing, you know the right ones with the right ones at each meal. Because if your body can store them, it can mix and match them as needed and can recycle them. You don't have to worry about that your body was perfectly created to do that.But keep in mind not all proteins are created equal. And getting your protein from animal sources comes with a whole host of other things that can be detrimental to your health.Things like cholesterol hormones, saturated fat, animal fats, animal proteins are also known to cause inflammation,which makes them more difficult for your body to process. plant proteins are also perfectly created for your body. These are easily they are to provide enough protein so that there's no need to worry about getting the right combo. And you know what, you don't even need to worry about getting enough protein. You know, it's easy to do that because everywhere you go you're seeing ads and articles and advert, again,advertisements on just billboards and on the internet and through your TV, and that you can't walk through a store without seeing your boy chart in

Jarrod: 15:59

every direction,

Anita: 16:00

protein, this protein that Yeah, get your protein protein shakes, powders, bars.And so you think and all of a sudden, you're worried. I mean,we've seen it time and time again, family members, friends,anybody that we know, pretty much as at one point if they're not still been concerned about their protein

Jarrod: 16:21

conversations with people we just meet. And that's one of the first things that they say, Well, what about getting enough protein?

Anita: 16:26

Yep. So studies show, if you aren't getting enough calories every day for survival,like to live and be healthy, you aren't getting enough protein.And again, we talked about before, there's a name for protein deficiency, but it's so rarely used, because it doesn't exist. The thing is, you've probably never heard of it.Right.

Unknown: 16:50

Right. It's kwashior or.

Anita: 16:52

I knew you were gonna say it.

Jarrod: 16:54

It's a funny sounding name, but and you would remember it if you heard it, because it would be on all the papers on all the TV, news kwashiorkor.nd it's just a very rare ituation in which that happens,here you're just not getting ny food.

Anita: 17:09

And did you know that it's interesting, too, because multiple studies show that vegans vegans who eat no animal products actually exceed the recommended amount of daily protein, getting two times more than the average daily requirement for protein when they're eating a healthy, well balanced diet. So what's the takeaway here for you eat a variety of whole plant foods every single day. In the words of the American Heart Association, quote, plant proteins alone can provide enough of the essential and non essential amino acids, as long as the source of dietary proteins are varied. That's my way of saying variety. That's what I tell you eat a variety and Jarrod says the same. And then the rest of the quote is,and you get the caloric intake high enough to meet your energy needs, again, quit plant proteins alone can provide enough of essential and non essential amino acids, as long as the sources of dietary protein are varied. And the caloric intake is high enough to meet your energy needs. Listen,we don't ever want you to use your valuable time worrying about things that should not be a concern to you. That's one of the big reasons that people fail on their journey to help. And so we've made it our mission to help you adopt a whole food plant based life that is easy,that is enjoyable, and that doesn't have all these extra things that weigh you down and stress you out that you have to worry about doing. You don't need to do that. And that's the beauty of living this way. We've loved having you with us today.We look forward to seeing you next time. But before you go, be sure to leave a review. And make sure to go into the description where we tell you exactly how to get your name on the VIP waitlist for power on plant society, our membership that's opening up very soon, and we'll look forward to seeing you again on the next episode.