OK that does not mean that much though because the sample group is way too small to draw some real hard science out of it.
Saying that as a plant protein lover.
gymbros are afraid of soybased products, eventhough there is very little if any phytoestrogen that affects them in a significant way.
they are more likely to get estrogen-like chemicals from thier plastic bottles and drinking water.
Amino acids are amino acids. Some are harder to get from plants than others.
I wish more people understood that EVERYTHING is chemistry.
And all of chemistry is just physics.
What about consciousness?
Truly the strangest epiphenomenon we’re all aware of
Even love?
Of course! Even love! Just mix a dash of dopamine, a sprinkle of serotonin, a shot of oxytocin, and a hint of norepinephrine. Shake well in a nervous system, serve warm, and call it love!
No, watt is love, so love is energy over time, not chemistry.
Especially group sex
with 44 men, so an orgy.
That’s gay.
Now let’s have a control group with no supplements
Yes, please. I’d love to see that.
Might want to look into the levels of lead in their blood.
I noticed this recently after looking at a circulating post “protein powder high led” or something.
The plant based ones seemed to always have higher amounts of led, is that a thing?
There is lead in the dirt that is taken up by the plants. This lead then gets into the digestive system of the animal from which the protein will be derived. This causes lead to be present in animal based protein supplements.
However, a significantly smaller amount will pass from the plant to the animal than from the dirt to the plant. As such, plant based protein powders will contain a higher concentration of lead unless it is removed at some point during the process, as the plants just have more lead in them than the animals.
I am slightly surprised that both groups lost a similar amount of fat.
Oh, right, supplements. So similar amount of fat as well. Well, kind of an obvious result and doesn’t really say a whole lot about the differences between plant- and protein-based diets.
There is a very large contingent of people who believe animal protein is superior to plant protein in every way, shape, or form. So this result isn’t obvious to them.
Such people unfortunately won’t be reading science papers or understanding their significance.
Apparently the animal protein has less lead.
it also depends on the exercise and your goals. they aren’t equivalent.
I am a distance cyclist. animal protein works better for recovery for me than plant protein. I have tried both.
I am not trying to build muscle. I am trying to recover from endurance efforts. whey protein cuts my recovery time down by almost a full day vs plant protein.
I’m afraid you replied to the wrong comment, Comrade.
Depends. Price points can be vastly different. Plant based stuff is often novel pricing.
Thats because it is? 100g of chicken has around 21g of protein. To get the same amount of proteins from plant, you would need to consume around 1000g of plants(give or take). This is why people should be really be eating both. You know, to be healthy and shit.
The study is about grams of protein in a supplement, not grams of food eaten. This is the same thing as “What heavier: 1kg of steel or 1kg of wool?”
Also, you don’t need to eat 1000g of plants to get 21g of protein.
Peanuts have 26 grams of protein per 100g, that’s more than your example of chicken.Black pepper is about 10% protein by weight. So, if you want to be gross, that’s about 210g of black pepper.
When talking about supplements, grams of protein in relation to grams of food is irrelevant.
But one of them didn’t smell as bad as the other
More research isn’t a bad thing, but this really isn’t news. If you’re a nerd who’s into lifting you’d already know that soy protein is a top tier source of all the important amino acids for muscle gain. And it’s cheaper than whey.
It’s also not very popular because the manosphere tells men that consuming it will feminize them. Yes, really. They took the “soy boy” thing very literally and ran with it off the deep end.
I’m a nerd and into lifting, but I took a pause for oh very many years, so I’m currently still emptying my 2.something kilogram tub of Optimum Nutrition whey protein, which tastes decent enough. Do you have a recommendation on decent tasting soy protein, especially something available in Europe?
I pretty much look like a bear so it’s going to be very difficult to feminize me lol
Meat and dairy contains hormones that increase estrogen and reduce testosterone, not plants.
also your plastic bottles, and people dump so much birth control into the water system too.
That may be, I was just saying I’m not particularly concerned about it anyway.
Yeah I know, that’s why T levels in the USA has dropped by 20% in the last 20 years and obesity is rapidly increasing.
obesity, the fat produces eostrogen compounds, thats why it also reduces pregnancy chances too,. thats why its not safe for obese people to be pregnant.
Pretty sure obesity is increasing because people are sedentary and eat like shit.
Testosterone is known to go down in obese people so I think you have your cause and effect reversed there.
People continue parroting this soy estrogen myth even years after it’s been debunked too, it’s annoying as hell. The phytoestrogen in question is more of an anti-estrogen and may be protective against excess estrogen.
If soy actually caused boob growth, the supplement industry would be all over that.
bigger issue with these powders and shit (least in the US) is that damn near non-existent food/drug safety oversight means that your probably getting dosed with a bunch of lead or some other contaminate…
I remember about a decade ago talking about tofu recipes with a colleague who lifted and ate a protein heavy diet.
An older colleague heard us and warned us that eating tofu would cause you to have a surplus of estrogen and make you more feminine.
He was telling this to a guy built like a brick shithouse who had eaten tons of soy protein for the better part of a decade.
It’s that same old thing, something different comes along and some people just have to parrot anything that goes against that thing, even if it’s complete and utter horseshit
Ugh I had an older colleague, a PhD organic chemist, who was absolutely convinced that soy would make me (m) infertile. I ordered tofu once when out to lunch and he would not stop warning me to “be careful” and to be mindful of starting a family and “you know those studies.” When I mentioned that the consensus was at best inconclusive and most likely there is no such link, he said that no, “they” definitely showed that excess soy is bad and that he worried about my reproductive health. Like dude even if eating tofu did cause reproductive health issues, mine is none of your goddamn business. On the other hand, the same guy is also convinced that BPA (another estrogen mimic used esp. in certain plastics) concerns are a total hoax because “they did bad science because their sample containers had BPA in them and it leached into the urine samples giving false positive.” Also something about the only evidence of it binding like estrogen was that someone glanced at a crystal structure and halfassedly thought it looked like it might fit and rolled with it for career reasons. Like, I don’t know, man, maybe a couple studies used containers made with BPA, but most probably didn’t. I haven’t read them, but I know you didn’t, either. Also, you’re literally a petrochemist, you know BPA is mostly used in polycarbonates, and lab plastics, especially for analytical work, are mostly polypropylene or polyethylene designed to avoid exactly this kind of leaching. Honestly.
Misogyny is a helluva drug
As a human survival trait we need to find a way to shut down misinformation. Knowledge is our path to survival as an animal. Like ants have teamwork and building, wildebeest have speed, plants photosynthesise, humans learn.
By creating and spreading misinformation you’re chipping away at pretty much the only thing that keeps us in existence.
Bit of a broad-strokes extreme takeaway from your comment there, but it got to me.
Do they forget that estrogen is also a steroid?
Yes, yes they do. Or, more accurately, they didn’t know that in the first place. These people are often just running on what are essentially old wives’ tales of things to be afraid of because it will hurt their masculinity or something.
I recently decided to restart my routine after 8+ years of dickin’ around and this is blowing my mind right now. What else has changed? Is creatine and NO2 still a thing?
Creatine is still very much a thing, but I think everyone actually knows what it is and what it does and it’s not treated as a magic bullet any more.
Mainly what seems to have changed is that steroids and TRT have exploded in popularity, and a scary number of under 18s are doing it.
Apart from that I couldn’t tell you, it’s all happening on Insta and TikTok now and I don’t participate.
It does have some protoestrogens but to me that is a positive because I want to look fem. Most men have low estrogen and it makes them uglier and psychotic. The only time estrogen really feminizes you beyond giving you a better body shape and slightly healthier skin and stuff, is when you are taking a high amount of it.
Most men have too low of estrogen and this causes mental issues, depression, it gives them a lot of fat around their stomach while being lanky everywhere else. It causes all kinds of weird little issues.
Perhaps you mean phytoestrogen? Another commenter suggested that the applicable phytoestrogen found in soy may actually be protective against excess estrogen.
Shit man, I think I need to hop on this soy boy train myself!
It’s fitting too because I’ve been taking in a little extra protein and putting on some muscle for the past few months due to some hobby stuff that led to construction projects, lol.
Last time I checked what’s available on my grocery store shelf, the whey protein was still the cheapest by unit.
I get my protein from Canadian protein dot com. The vegan protein is the same price as the whey concentrate and a little cheaper than the whey isolate.
I’ve never gotten it before mostly because I’m a creature of habit but might get some to try the next time I order because the dairy has not been sitting well with my stomach lately.
It appears to be mostly pea, brown rice and hemp.
Where I live grocery stores are a terrible example, all the plant proteins are jacked up in price with marketing about how it’s organic and vegan and will cure cancer yada yada. And then the wheys they sell are blends with low actual protein content and/or poor aminos.
I buy my protein from a bulk supplements supplier, and soy is 75% of the cost of the cheapest whey, gram for gram of actual protein content.
That’s fine.
I’m a 40 year-old man and I’ll still post up next to a group of these Gen-Z pansies and put up 300 pounds on the bench with my gnarled, old man physique.
Oh my god, everyone look at how tough this tough guy is!
How to tell someone you’re jealous without saying it out loud. Cheers, friend.
Jealous of what exactly? Lol. Edit: Hahaha, holy fuck guys, read this guy’s bio if you want a good laugh.
My bad dude, I thought you were serious. Poes law in action.
Oh I know right bro, right? Bro?
I bet the lead count in their system changed.
Plants in general can contain more lead from soil whereas animals will filter it out before you consume their flesh, but the amounts they found were still well below what is recommended for other plant products such as fruit juice. After looking into it when I saw that study it kinda sucks how much lead is still in a lot of things. I’d be curious to see a bigger study comparing the lead found in people that use the plant-based powder or are vegetarian versus meat-eaters.
Wait till you learn what happens when you eat animals
Fairly certain it’s not lead poisoning
It’s shorter life, cardiac disease, and cancer.
Don’t forget diabetes.
You’re exposed to far more lead and other heavy metals living near a road than with this. So no, not a measurable amount.
Reposting my comment from another thread about this so people stop spreading this bullshit around:
I have a Garden of Life powder so I did a little digging and the powder I have and the Garden of Life powder tested in this report are both NSF certified. I trust NSF way more than I trust CR when it comes to contaminant levels, NSF is trusted by multiple countries for their public health standards. Also the “level of concern” used by CR is not the max level of safe consumption, it’s the minimum level to trigger a Prop 65 warning. Some agencies use 8.8 ug, the NSF used 10 ug, which are about ~15-20 times the 0.5 ug used by CR. This is also from one round of testing, NSF does yearly audits and re-tests products regularly to keep their NSF certification.
https://www.nsf.org/nutrition-wellness/product-and-ingredient-certification
That being said, it is healthier to get your protein from whole foods than from powders and most people wildly overestimate how much protein they actually need.
most people wildly overestimate how much protein they actually need.
Amen to that. It’s hilarious to watch the protein craze in action. I thought it might gradually die down decades ago, due to being able to find reliable information very easily. Instead it’s gotten remarkably worse over time.
Oh yeah, I forgot about this. It’s going to be tough to do anything about this with the current administration in office.
Also there’s arsenic is lots of brown rice. I think the stuff from California or India is pretty safe.
There’s no reason to panic if you’ve been using any of the products we tested, or if you take protein supplements generally. Many of these powders are fine to have occasionally…
I found this quote hilarious, I don’t know anyone who takes protein powder occasionally. They are either taking it mosts days out of the week or not at all in my experience.
I am one of that group. I only take it if I went to the gym and have a surplus in my daily calories. Doesn’t happen more frequently than once per week. Overdoing protein supplements can mess up your body, too.
Lead arsenate was a very common pesticides for decades.
you know…we can look back and make fun of the romans for using lead water pipes even though they knew lead caused all sorts of health problems.
then…to this day not only do we still have lead water pipes, we decided to spray it on all of our food.
it’s a wonder we survived as a species at all tbh
Wow! That’s awful. Funny how DDT was seen as an “improvement.”
Just to be clear, this is about supplements. It’s doesn’t say anything about differences in dietary protein.
The actual title:
Similar effects between animal-based and plant-based protein blend as complementary dietary protein on muscle adaptations to resistance training: findings from a randomized clinical trial
this is about supplements
And supplements are largely unnecessary, so this study says absolutely bupkis.
Right, for the average person, protein supplements are unnecessary as long as they are healthy and eat well.
Athletes (and people with body dysmorphia 😬) might struggle to get enough protein in their diet. But, far too many people think they’re in a position that would warrant supplements when just a little attention to diet is sufficient.
There are many other reasons to take protein supplements. High protein foods can be expensive (protein can be too but there are many options). It’s also a quick add to a meal vs prepping an entire meal.
You don’t need to be an athlete to workout 5 days a week and if you want to visually see some of the results protein supplements help. It can also help with recovery whether you’re strength, training or training your body in any other way. You don’t have to be an athlete to want to be physically fit. Protein can help.
beef cake. beef cake.
Were these subjects athletes or were they just people who were weight training?
Doesn’t matter. The point of the research was to determine if there was a difference between animal and plant based protein supplements for adding muscle. The results would apply to anyone.
And if neither has much effect, the study is pointless.
I hope there was a control group who had a placebo supplement.
That’s not how science works. You do experiments even to find out if it is pointless.
But, yes, they should have a control group.
So the research was pointless because we can’t tell the difference without a control group. Further research needed.
Edited the title to clarify
What was the original title, just to make some of the comments make sense? I can’t seem to find a way to lookup the history
I don’t understand the distinction you’re making.
Unless the study controlled for the subjects’ regular diet and non supplement protein, its conclusions don’t mean much.
For example, if I get 100+g of protein on a typical day then, a 19g protein bar is a nice addition, but it’s in the minority compared to the rest of my protein sources.
What relevance does that have? Plenty of studies in the past have already demonstrated dietary plant protein is just as good for you as animal protein.
Huh? It’s what the research is about.
The full article is linked right here in the post. It reviews the background of why they’re studying this
What relevance does that have?
Well, exposing the click bait in the title and providing context about the actual study involved is relevant because …it exposes the click bait in the title and provides context about the actual study involved.
Plenty of studies in the past have already demonstrated dietary plant protein is just as good for you as animal protein.
This is not relevant to the context of the article, and like the vegan at a party, it’s good information but not part of the discussion about protein supplements during strength training except as an adjacent fact about diet and not about strength training directly nor supplements.
Because meat lovers.

There was no control group doing the workouts without protein supplements?
There are already plenty of studies comparing results as a function of protein quantity.
You would still want it as a baseline comparison for the experimental groups.
What would you gain from that? We care about the difference between two interventions. We’re not looking to determine whether an intervention has an effect or not.
Well the plant guys
So when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, instead of changing your worldview you just reject reality? Most people grow out of that by age 3, but you do you.
These science dudes just want the tasty meats for themselfs
They are getting 9x times the lead according to a recent study… Which is horrifying. Not sure why it needs to have lead at all.
Plants have lead. So do animals, though apparently they can filter it a bit better.
But like we don’t have the ability to filter it or purify it? I mean product before consumption, not in our bodies.
I’m assuming companies just skip it either out of a lack of knowledge, or to save money. I’m basing this on the fact that some brands have less lead than others. But this is just me making an assumption.
Complete tangent, but I am always curious who downvotes these threads? Like there isn’t even anything controversial, did we piss off a supplement manufacturer or something?
Also FYI: if you are getting enough calories, you are almost certainly also getting enough protein. The RDA for protein is quite low, 0.8g per kg bodyweight, or about 10% of your caloric intake. You can meet this by eating just grains. However, as mentioned in the linked source, the RDA is intended to prevent nutrient deficiencies, not provide an optimal level of intake.
Yes. You don’t need to exceed protein requirements to be healthy.
You do need to exceed protein requirements if you’re trying to build muscle as fast as possible, which is what this article is about
To gain muscle you should be eating 1-1.4 grams of protein bet lb of bodyweight
The mix of metric and fantasy units is quite infuriating
On the face of it, yeah. But since we are talking about a ratio of nutrient to body weight, there’s no inherent benefit besides ideological purity to using the same units for both sides of the ratio.
In the states, nutritional info is universally listed in grams, and bodyweight is most commonly measured in pounds, so in that context g/lb is a perfectly logical way to describe recommended intake levels.
To an American, yes.
…as I explicitly stated in my comment?
Ah nooo converting units is so difficult for my widdle iddy biddy brain pwease stawwp im gonna pooooo
no. it’s just annoying that weirdos think that using an antiquated unit system on an international medium is fine.
Fucking americans with their fucking american world centrism
Let’s not get aggressive about it. The world knows that Americans have one of the least effective systems and are often viewed as inferior
Oh wow I finally get to meet the Main Character of the Universe! Can I have your autograph?
sure, please post your address
P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney, Australia
That’s a rather excessive amount unless you mean g protein/kg instead of g protein / lbs
People who exercise regularly also have higher needs, about 1.1-1.5 grams per kilogram. People who regularly lift weights or are training for a running or cycling event need 1.2-1.7 grams per kilogram. Excessive protein intake would be more than 2 grams per kilogram of body weight each day.
2g / kg = ~0.9g /lbs for reference
Yah but counterpoint: the current male obsession with protein and muscle gains is a bit of a commercialized farce. There are easier and more effective ways to make girls want to be with you.
edit: If you actually work out for yourself and your own goals, I don’t get how you would feel offended at this. Either you’re doing it for yourself and nothing anyone says matters, or your identity is tied up in a specific image and comments like mine (which is DELIBERATELY provocative you dunces) will make you feel attacked.
Found the obese American.
Some people work out to build muscle, not to make women like them. For that, eating lots of (plant based) protein helps
I don’t care if girls want to be with me. I want to be as stronger than I was last week. It’s something in my life I can work towards that I actually have control over.
That sounds…unsustainable.
I’ll worry about that when I get there.
Just checking in, you good?
No but I’m strong 💪
I’ve literally never had a serious partner tell me that me lifting was a reason they wanted to be with me, period. To me this just sounds like a bizarre fanfic scenario you read.
Going to the gym for an hour a few days a week and running a few miles on off days isn’t an “obsession”, it’s just general fitness. I get one go around this rock and one body to do it with. Being fit makes the experience much better, and makes ME feel good about my body and the progress I’ve made, damned be anyone else’s opinion.
Radical concept, but not everyone in the gym is a roided out manosphere moron trying to slay pussy because of brainwashing.
Everything about your comment would have been excellent, but by adding this:
To me this just sounds like a bizarre fanfic scenario you read.
That makes you come across as breathlessly offended and makes it all seem like defensiveness for being called out. Learn how to communicate as well as how to lift. The fact that you know the manosphere language while denying it’s a social trend that many people follow is also not lost on me.
Are you the kind of person I’m talking to/about? No? THEN CALM THE FUCK DOWN AND GO DO SOMETHING ELSE.
King, it is okay. Take a breath. No one here is attacking anyone, just dispelling potentially harmful opinions. I know for a lot of people getting into fitness and going to the gym is intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve had quite a few women and LGBT tell me that they read comments like yours online and don’t want to try working out, because they think everyone in the gym is Joe Rogan or Andrew Tate, and that they will be mocked or hurt. This is just not even close to reality.
Most people are just there for the love of the game or for the gains, that’s it. No one who takes their fitness seriously thinks it is just an easy way to trick women, I promise you.
Fitness is for everyone and should be made more accessible, not more intimidating or off-putting, its great and improves your life. There are plenty of people like me in the gym that would readily and happily help others at the drop of a hat, no strings attached.
100%. I don’t work out at the gym, but if there is one thing we don’t need in the world, it would be people gatekeeping others on exercise.
There are easier and more effective ways to make girls want to be with you.
This is indeed one of the main reasons people start, but it quickly switches over to working out for yourself. So while what you say is true, I don’t agree with messages of this nature because it takes away one of the strongest motivators for a lot of people to better themselves.
Actually we do it for ourselves and to look cute for each other. Wait… uh-oh.
Nobody said that was the reason.
But we all know it often is.
I think people who had that reason are the set of people who go for a few weeks in January and then stop lifting.
The ones who lift long term do it for themselves
Yeah but not everyone has the money
Where do you live where peanut butter and jugs of water are expensive?
Study does not say anything about the diet of the subjects. This would make more sense if it was 22 vegan men with plant-protein supplement and 22 carnivore diet men with animal-protein supplement and a control of typical diet with no supplement.
There are a lot of upvotes here. Why would this make more sense?
Agreed, this is a dumb comment that has no relation to the study being done, only some study they imagined in their mind.
People love to second guess scientific studies like they’re set up by complete fucking morons with no review or oversight. Truly their 10 seconds of amateur brilliance is going to see the trivial flaw no one among the team of people doing this as their actual job noticed. If something sounds obviously wrong in a science article, the source of that wrongness is almost certainly either the author of the article or you.
The author changed the title and the original seems to be what a lot of these comments are rallying against:
Making a comment about a supposed scientific error from post title alone is even stupider.
This would make more sense if it was 22 vegan men with plant-protein supplement and 22 carnivore diet men with animal-protein supplement and a control of typical diet with no supple
I read the “this” as the study too. I think the “this” is referring to the title so the comment is explaining how the title is an overreach and describing what sort of study you would need to justify a title like whatever overreach was made.
I’m guessing though
I think “this” refers to the posts original title, which was updated after some pushback from comments so now the comment I was replying to is a bit out of place
Even better is if they controlled for total protein intake, since we know that to be an important factor in muscle growth.
Hard, since basically everything has protein in it
It doesn’t look like they had a control group of people doing the strength training without any protein supplement. I would assume that group would also perform the same.
My assumption is the non-supplement group would actually perform better. Actual food has tons of other nutrients the body uses for countless other tasks that are directly and indirectly related to muscle building
Depends what they eat.
Typically protein supplements are in addition to regular food not a meal replacement when trying to build muscle.
Typically studies equate protein intake
The study participants were given protein supplements, not a dietary replacement.
Correct, and my assumption is they would perform even better if they were given that protein from food rather than from supplements
Notably, they would need to do that, otherwise the study would just be comparing higher/lower protein intake and not protein sources
That’s not what you said above, you said you thought a group with a regular diet would perform better than a group with a regular diet + protein supplements, which is why you’re getting argued with.
which is why you’re getting argued with
What an interesting way of phrasing why you personally felt the need to make it into an argument rather than simply a discussion of a point that may need clarification.
Also interesting that “what I said” is totally different from your summary. I stand by what I said. I don’t know why anyone would assume the researches comparing protein sources in this hypothetical would bafflingly allow the control group to consume less protein. Regardless, now that the clarification has been provided, do you have any interest in the topic? Or are you just in an arguing mood today?














