From The Heart #30: Plant Protein Ratio Reset

Most people think nutrition change requires a personality transplant and a perfectly clean kitchen. We think it starts with one honest look at what’s on your plate and one realistic swap you’ll actually repeat. 

We’re recording this “From the Heart” bonus talk on a Saturday morning at work, because the system doesn’t stop when a doctor takes time off. Paperwork piles up, urgent lab results keep coming, and vacations can feel like getting punished twice. That reality sets up the bigger theme: health improves when we stop aiming for perfection and start building better habits we can sustain. 

Then we get practical about protein. Many of us sit around a 75% animal protein and 25% plant protein split, which often means more saturated fat, dietary cholesterol, and zero fiber in the animal-heavy portion. We walk through why shifting that ratio toward plant protein lowers chronic disease risk in a dose-dependent way, how to keep total protein high enough for strength and muscle, and why older adults need to watch calories and protein so “plant-forward” doesn’t accidentally become under-eating. We also cover protein targets beyond the RDA and list go-to plant protein staples like tofu, tempeh, legumes, nuts, seeds, and more. 

Finally, we tackle the hot-button stuff: soy myths and plant-based meat alternatives. We explain phytoestrogens in plain language, review what human evidence says about testosterone and cancer outcomes, and reframe “ultra-processed” by asking the only question that matters for real life: compared to what? If you want a smarter, calmer approach to plant-based nutrition that still fits BBQ season, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s protein-anxious, and leave a review with your favorite small swap.

Go check out my website for tons of free resources on how to transition towards a healthier diet and lifestyle.

You can download my free plant-based recipes eBook and a ton of other free resources by visiting  the Digital Downloads tab of my website at https://www.plantbaseddrjules.com/shop

Don't forget to check out my blog at https://www.plantbaseddrjules.com/blog 

You can also watch my educational videos on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMpkQRXb7G-StAotV0dmahQ

Check out my upcoming live events and free eCourse, where you'll learn more about how to create delicious plant-based recipes: https://www.plantbaseddrjules.com/

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Thanks so much!

Peace, love, plants!
Dr. Jules 

Transcript

From The Heart Format

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yo, Plant Base Buddies, welcome to a new segment that I'm calling from the heart. These are bonus episodes. There's no script, no plan, just honest conversations and lessons that come straight from real patience and real life. And most of the time I just hit record and I speak. So what you're hearing is raw, it's unscripted, and it's intentional. But if you're ready for something a little bit more spontaneous, this is from the heart. Yo, Lampade Buddies. Welcome back to another episode of me talking about nothing and everything on a Saturday morning. Um, for those who recognize the background, I'm at work while doing this. It is a Saturday morning, and you might ask yourself, what is he doing at work on a Saturday

Why Doctors Skip Vacation

SPEAKER_01 1:07

morning? Well, number one, I wanted to talk about the system and how the system pushes doctors to avoid vacation because we tend to get punished when we get back. And I also wanted to talk about ratios of animal sourced to plant-based sources of protein, how this impacts health, and bust a few myths surrounding soy protein and plant-based meat alternatives. So you may have noticed, but lately I am making a legit effort to try to translate most of my content in French or in English, depending on the how my content was produced. Like most people, I practice in French, but I am more comfortable producing content in English. All of my certifications were done with English material, English books, English teachers. So just nutritional concepts and concepts about lifestyle medicine come easier to me in English, right? But I do want to protect my French, want to protect French content online. And although the algorithm doesn't necessarily favor French content because of reduced engagement, people have still really increased engagement with my post these last few weeks. So to you, I appreciate that. But it means that I put more work into it because I do not trust AI to translate content that I've spent half an hour or 60 minutes to produce. So, what am I doing at work on a Saturday, you may ask? Well, for those of you who do not know, doctors have a lot of paperwork. So let's say a doctor has a thousand patients. Well, these patients are constantly going to the ER to walk in clinics for blood work, for CT scans, and sometimes patients have x-rays that were ordered a year ago. So all of these results flood are weak, right? We we probably have about 10 hours of paperwork per week, most of us. And that's not just reviewing tests and writing notes, it's insurance forms, work-related forms, disability forms. And so I I can you can imagine, I can't imagine a doctor that works by himself in a small clinic wanting to take vacation because as soon as he takes vacation, all of these tests, these labs, x-rays, scans, MRIs, insurance forms, they do not get looked at, and then they appear on your desk as you get back. And when you get back from vacation, surprise, you always have half a dozen emergencies that you have to manage, blood tests that are abnormal, and these need to be managed on an already overwhelmed schedule. So sometimes patients are like, why was my appointment at 1015 and you only saw me at 11? Well, believe it or not, we get curveballs every single day in terms of abnormal blood work, abnormal x-rays, and these need to be managed, and they need to be managed that same day. And it's not like we have like an hour reserved to manage that. I see patients from 8 in the morning. Often I leave at 6 p.m. Most days, my lunch is consumed in 15-20 minutes, and if I have 30 minutes to eat, I'm lucky and I'll eat in 15 and try to produce some content or a video to educate the public during my free time. That being said, I'm lucky. I work in a collaborative care clinic. We are 18 doctors, meaning that if I want to take some time off, I can always ask a colleague to cover for me. But as you've probably already guessed, my colleagues are also overwhelmed with insane amounts of paperwork and urgent tasks that need to be managed that same day. So, human nature being human nature, doctors typically don't ask for help. Now, that may be an ego problem. I know that my biggest challenge is asking others for assistance. I'd rather just do it myself because I do not want to be dumping responsibilities on someone who already is overwhelmed, right? So what happens, doctors, because of that, either don't take vacations or when we do, we regret them. Regret is a big word. I've never regretted spending time with my daughters and with my wife and taking a mental health break. But the reality is that once we come back from vacation, we have in I again I don't want to show you the pile of paperwork I have next to me, but there's a reason I'm here on a Saturday morning after wait working a 40-50 hour week, right? And do not feel bad for me. That is I chose this career. I love my job, I love what I do, but that brings me here on a Saturday morning. And one of my passions

The 75 To 25 Protein Problem

SPEAKER_01 7:41

is teaching. So obviously, teaching can be done now through social media platforms, and so that's why this morning I was talking about plant protein versus animal protein, and I got a lot of questions and I wanted to address a few of them here. So, number one, about 75% of the protein that we consume every single day is coming from animal sources, with about 20 to 25% of our protein coming from plant sources. So that 75-25 ratio means that in that 75% of animal protein, we're getting more saturated fat and we're getting zero fiber. There's no fiber in animal products, as most of you already know. But we're also getting everything else that comes in that animal protein package. We're getting heme iron, increased levels of TMAO, we're getting dietary cholesterol, and a lot of vitamins and minerals are missing. When you consume more protein from plant sources, you get dietary fiber, you get typically much lower doses of saturated fat, you get zero cheme iron, and you get zero dietary cholesterol. So most everyone agrees, everyone in the scientific community agrees that increasing the amount of protein you get from plants will improve health outcomes. And studies even show that just increasing minimally the amount of protein you get from plants improves disease risk, meaning it makes the risk of having chronic disease go down in a dose-dependent way. So that means that you would see benefit from going instead of 75-25 in terms of animal protein to plant protein, you get benefit in your health by going to 7030 or 6040 or 50-50. Now, most people here know that I eat a 100% whole food plant-based diet, and so I get a zero slash 100 ratio. That's not everyone's goal. The goal is simply to make small incremental change that helps you increase the amount of protein you get from plants, right? And so the issue with a lot of people is when they go on plant-forward diets or just simply increase the amount of protein coming from plants or plants on their plate, they're not intentional enough and they don't

Keep Protein Up With Plants

SPEAKER_01 10:34

plan ahead. And so for a lot of people, the amount of protein they will ingest and consume on a daily basis goes down, right? The goal is obviously to reduce the rates of chronic disease like heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure, cancer, autoimmunity, inflammation, all of these things go down and improve as you increase the amount of protein coming from plants. But the goal is not to trade that off for sarcopenia and frailty. The goal is not to increase amounts of plants on your plate at the expense of protein intake. The goal is to keep protein the same, just change sources. And people will say, well, what about muscle and strength? Now, muscle and strength is determined by the quantity of the protein that you consume, not by the source. So the goal is to keep protein the same, but favor more plant sources. Now, this completely in line with the scientific community consensus, as well as our latest 2019 update of our Canadian food guide that took out the food group for meat and substitutes and also for dairy and replaced it with a protein food group with a special emphasis on increasing plant protein. Other countries have followed suits since then. And so uh there's no debate, you you live better and longer if you increase the amount of protein that you get from plants without negatively impacting the quantity. Now, the RDA for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram per day. But the that means that over that you are highly unlikely to be deficient, but that doesn't mean that that's optimal. Optimal is probably somewhere between 1.2 to 1.6, depending on how active you are. If you are minimally active, and I obviously don't recommend that, but if you are minimally minimally active, probably getting around 1.2 grams per kilograms per day of protein is optimal. Someone like me aims closer to 1.4 to 1.6. Since I work out almost every single day, I need more protein to recover and fuel my muscles for growth, right? So when people go on plant-rich diets, what tends to happen is that by default, saturated fat goes down, dietary cholesterol goes down, fiber goes up, and a lot of phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals go up as well. So the healthfulness of a diet of that diet doesn't need to be debated. But what tends to happen is that these foods that are rich in water and fiber are more filling. And so people that eat more plants on their plate get fuller sooner and naturally they eat less calories. That's great if you have a chronic disease or you have comorbidities that are linked to obesity or being overweight. 60 to 70 percent of the population in Canada is either overweight or obese, so reducing calorie content is absolutely beneficial for health. But if you are 78 and you are already suffering from sarcopenia and frailty, meaning that you have low strength and low muscle mass, and your risk of falling and breaking a hip is high, going on a very plant-rich diet may actually negatively impact calorie consumption, meaning that you may be under consuming calories. Now, if you are supposed to be consuming 200 calories and you are now consuming 1600 calories, that calorie deficit may be accompanied by a protein deficit. And so this is the one caveat. I mean, it's important to reduce chronic disease risk because these are our top killers. People are not dying from cholera anymore. People are dying here in Canada from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol. They're dying from cancer and complications from inflammation and autoimmune conditions. So the goal is absolutely to reduce the risk of these chronic diseases, but not at the expense of making your muscles and bones weaker so you fracture a hip 20 years from now because you weren't eating enough calories and enough protein. Make sense? So what I'm asking you here is to if you're gonna eat the amount like the correct amount or optimal amount of protein, just try if you can to include more plant sources. Now, plant sources of protein include soy products that mean tofu, tempeh, edamami, soy milk. It would include legumes like chickpeas, beans, and lentils or peas. It would include nuts and seeds like hemp seeds that are richer in protein, nutritional yeast is a complete protein, Satan, wheat, gluten, flour. So the the issue is not where do you get your protein. The issue is that most people are not regularly or consistently including these food sources on their plates. And that's why saying to someone you need to get all your protein from plants is just not feasible or realistic for the vast majority of people that'll be listening to this today. That's why you just need to look at what you're already eating. Look at the 7 to 12 meals that you're rotating on a weekly basis, and just try to see if there's a small, simple swap that you can make. For some people, that'll be soy milk instead of cow's milk. And for some people, it'll be pouring a can of black black beans into the chili that they make every Sunday, right? And so that leads me to a few questions that I got.

Soy Estrogen Myth Debunked

SPEAKER_01 17:09

First question is soy. One of the questions I got is well, so isn't soy estrogenic? Well, number one, keep in mind that soy reduces the rates of chronic diseases. People who consume more soy have less cardiovascular disease. Soy protein lowers LDL cholesterol. People, there are studies showing the people who have switched from cow's milk to soy milk have lower blood pressure and lower markers of oxidative stress. And the issue with soy is more in link to the phytoestrogens. Now, phytoestrogens are different than estrogens. They're different because of the receptors that they bind to. Phytoestrogens act more like CERMS, selective estrogen receptor modulators, and populations that consume soy have lower rates of breast cancer. And when they've had breast cancer, those that consume soy have lower rates of mortality and of recurrence. Soy does not feminize men, it does not cause gynecomastia or development of breast tissue in men, and it does not lower testosterone. Unfortunately, this myth has been circulating wildly online, uh, but has been thoroughly debunked like for the last 30 years. Unfortunately, soy gets a bad reputation because initial studies were done on rodents. And just like rodents don't metabolize chocolate or grapes in the same way as adults do, if you feed your dog grapes or chocolate, you can literally kill them. And so extrapolating results from rodents in terms of soy metabolism to humans is just bad science. Now, when it was the only science that we had, it was highly appropriate to be better saved than sorry. But now we have enormous amounts of human evidence showing that soy consumption reduces rates of chronic diseases and of cancers in humans. I posted about that extensively. I have an episode on that, I think it's episode 39. Go check that out if you're interested in on my podcast. But what I'm saying here is that soy is a great health food. It comes with unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat. It comes with no dietary cholesterol, and it's rich in vitamins, minerals, calcium. It's a source of complete protein, and soy protein lowers LDL cholesterol, which is the may the main risk factor for our world top killer, cardiovascular disease. So most of the people listening here would absolutely benefit by increasing the amount of soy in in their diet. The other thing that I get as a question is, and one of the comments that I got today was a great one. It was look, I really enjoy burgers

Are Plant Based Meats Worth It

SPEAKER_01 20:23

and hot dogs on the barbecue during summer. Are these plant-based meat alternatives healthier because they're ultra-processed? Now, just because something is processed doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, number one. And number two, the healthfulness of a food depends on what you compare it to, right? So what I'm saying, for example, is if you compare cheese to butter, cheese will lower cholesterol when compared to butter. But when you compare cheese to nuts and seeds, cheese increases cholesterol when compared to nuts and seeds. So the issue isn't the food, is what you're comparing it to and what you're eating instead. And the same thing applies to processed meat alternatives. Studies show, and even the swap meat study that I've referred here a bunch of times, which studied organic pasteurease grass-fed beef, the gold standard of red meat, to beyond meat to literally ultra-processed plant-based meat alternatives. That study showed improvements in pretty much all of the health parameters instead of blood pressure that stayed the same because of the higher sodium content. Moral of the story is that when you compare processed meat alternatives like plant based sausages to the foods that they're supposed Replace health outcomes get better. Now, would I rather you eat a homemade plant-based burger that you made from cashews, oats, and lentils? Absolutely, that is the gold standard. But if you're eating a plant-based meat sausage, an alternative on your barbecue instead of the processed, whole processed meat, your health outcomes will get better. And we do have data to support that. So plant-based meat alternatives, when used instead of red meat and processed meats, are a step in the right direction and must be seen as a stepping stone food. For a lot of people, these plant-based meat alternatives aren't made as a health food. They're made for people who eat meat-heavy diets to help them transition towards healthier foods as like a stepping stone food. Now, I rarely consume these foods not because I'm scared of them, but because they simply don't have a big space on my diet because I typically eat whole foods, right? But this summer I will absolutely be throwing some plant-based sausages and some plant-based meat alternatives on the barbecue while I'm hanging out at the pool with my kids. So yeah, just because it's processed doesn't mean it's bad. And what you need to make sure to understand is the helpfulness of a food is determined by what food you're comparing it to.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Cool.

Small Swaps Beat Perfection

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Right on.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

So I would much rather everyone here have a ratio of 20% of their protein coming from animal sources and 80% coming from plants. Perfect world would be 100%. But I know that that's not realistic for many people. So the goal is simply to make small choices, small swaps, where the amount of protein you're getting from plants is higher than whatever ratio you have before. Most people right now have a 75-25 split favoring animal protein, but any improvement in that ratio will be beneficial. Voila. Cool. Let me know if this makes sense and this motivates you to make changes. Thank you for everyone who have been interacting with my content, whether French or English, it increases visibility. I appreciate your engagement. You're the reason that my content is now being seen by more people. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good or of being better. The fun part is that you do not need to go full plant protein to see benefits. Small changes in the right direction do add up and do have significant impacts on health outcomes. Cool. Right on. Have an awesome Saturday. I'm back to work. We'll talk to you soon. Peace.

Free Resources And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Hey everyone, go check out my website, plantbased drjewels.com, to find free downloadable resources. And remember that you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Dr. Jewel's Cormier and on YouTube at Plantbase Dr. Jewels.