Categories: NutritionSupplements

Animal Protein vs. Plant Protein: Which Is Best For Building Muscle?

Vegans vs. Meat Eaters Bodybuilders

Many people ask themselves which protein source is better - Animal or Plant protein. You’ll get different answers to that question depending on who you ask. Vegetarians and hardcore vegans will tell you that plant protein is better than animal protein whereas hardcore bodybuilders will tell you that animal protein is better than plant protein. This can make everyone easily confused.

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Who’s right - vegans or meat-eaters? Is it true that plant proteins are unsustainable to building muscle? Is it true that plant proteins are an inadequate alternative to animal proteins?

What type of protein should you eat to gain that desired muscle?

Well, we’ll give you answers to those important questions in this article so keep on with reading.

Let’s find everything about animal and plant protein in this article!

What’s Protein and Its Importance

Protein is basically a nutrient that is composed of large chains of amino acids. The amino acids which form proteins are the building blocks of our bodies. When you eat foods that are abundant in proteins, your organism breaks down those proteins into amino acids which in turn create new proteins within your body.

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The proteins that were synthesized within your body serve as raw materials for creating new ligaments, hairs, skin, enzymes, muscles, and hormones. To form new muscles, hormones, enzymes, and other things, your body needs 21 amino acids. Out of that number, your body needs 9 amino acids which can’t be synthesized in your body.

Those Essential Amino Acids Include:

  • Isoleucine
  • Leucine
  • Histidine
  • Lysine
  • Valine
  • Methionine
  • Phenylalanine
  • Tryptophan
  • Threonine

These amino acids are so important that you would die from not consuming them for several days.

Click Here to Know More About Amino Acid

The Difference Between Animal Protein and Plant Protein

There are several important differences between animal protein and plant protein that we must mention. First of all, there’s something called amino acid profile. These amino acid profiles express how much of amino acids are contained in vegetables and in meat side by side.

Here’s an example of an amino acid profile:

As you can see for yourself, 275 calories of steak contain much more amino acids than 277 calories of broccoli. By looking at the amino acid profile above, we can easily conclude that you would need to eat more than 15 cups of broccoli to get the same amount of amino acids that 275 calories of steak contain.

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The same goes for other plant proteins. There are much more amino acids in animal proteins than in plant proteins. You must remember this fact if you want to build muscle. You simply won’t be able to build muscle if you are going to base your diet on plant protein.

You will interrupt the process of muscle building if you only base your diet on plant protein. I know there will be many vegan muscle tanks that will tell me I am wrong - but again, it's my personal opinion here and if you won't just write your comment below.

There’s also another important advantage of animal protein over plant protein and that’s animal protein’s better protein digestibility than animal protein’s digestibility. Your organism will digest animal protein better than plant protein.

Which is Better - Animal or Plant Protein?

If you’ve read the last paragraph, we believe that you have concluded that animal protein is way much better than plant protein. If you concluded like that, you were right, animal protein is hundreds of thousands of times better than plant protein.

However, we don’t discriminate this way plant protein but the truth is that you would need enormous amounts of vegetables to get those essential amino acids. Moreover, studies have also shown that people who only eat plant protein have a hard time building muscle than people who eat plant-based protein. I know this is not good for the planet 🙂 but try to meatless meat if you don't want to become a prof. bodybuilder or just take your supplements on time. 🙂

The Bottom Line:

In conclusion, we can say that you will need to base your protein intake on animal protein if you want to build muscle. Plant protein can work for that purpose as well, but you will have to make extra efforts.

Must Read: 4 Meals with Most Protein to Take If You are Body Builder

F Kyle

The "GYMRAT" of this blog, Pro-blogger and Fitness Instructor since 2008

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