23: Ayurveda on Protein: Bottom Line - It’s Not About the Grams

Welcome, welcome, my pod pal today in this solo cast, I'm answering one of

your questions, which is about protein, how much protein is the right amount.

And I feel like culturally we've been talking about hearing about

protein for a really long time.

So what I'd like to do is.

Let's talk about this question through the Ayurvedic lens.

So we'll be using a different language that maybe will

simplify and help you understand.

And also, I think a lot of us potentially here are maybe in

our thirties, forties and beyond.

And the question of what kinds of foods to use nourish the

body as we get older changes.

So that's a part of our conversation as well.

How to manage sort of changing.

Needs of the body as we age and in relation to our exercise and very

important question, whether a person is currently healthy or is

currently working with an imbalance.

And that's a really big.

Difference in how we're going to approach this question.

So stay with me today to talk about protein from the Ayurvedic perspective.

All right, so as with anything food related in Ayurveda, we don't make

these sweeping generalizations.

Like, you know, everyone should have this amount of protein.

It's the utility of food depends on so many factors, such as the time

of day that you're eating the food, how much of the food you are having,

the current state of your diet.

Digestion will govern what kinds of food digest well and what kind

ultimately turn into toxins in your body.

Also your time of life.

So are you young?

Are you middle aged?

Are you older?

And how much activity are you doing?

What are your stress levels like?

So we're gonna look at all this and.

What I like about using the ayurvedic lens for this conversation

is that I'm so sick of everyone talking about protein consumption.

I feel like my entire life.

I have heard this conversation and in part, I think it has to do with

an imbalance that's been created in many bodies due to the added sugars

and carbs in everything, right?

I mean, I've been on planes a lot recently, so I'm around, uh, soda.

You know, I don't even see soda usually in my life.

But I'm looking at the, or even like I order a cranberry juice, right?

And they give me this minute made can has, what is it like 50 grams of

sugar or something, and that's crazy.

The amount of sugar that humans consume in a day is 50 times what it was.

50 years ago.

So we've kind of created this like super sweet, right?

But with the refinement of sugar cane products and also we refine

sugar from beets, from coconuts.

I mean, there's sugar from everywhere.

thing, right?

That, that we different kinds of sugar that we can see in our products.

Corn syrup is the big one.

That's what's in all the sodas.

And, you know, sugar cane products in Ayurveda are actually beloved.

sugar has a lot of minerals in it.

For example, back in the day, some of you might remember your

parents making you take a spoonful of molasses periodically, right?

Black strap molasses for the iron content.

And a lot of women still find that really helpful.

for especially those who are in the bleeding time of life.

So the problem is what we've done to sugar, right?

And that's what that refined sugar that doesn't really have any opposing

fiber or minerals present that just kind of goes directly into the Rasa

or directly into the bloodstream and the nutritive factor in the body.

And then imagine that these excess amounts of highly refined sugar is

washing through your tissues, right?

That's going to cause.

pain.

One thing I notice, is excess amounts of refined sugars cause pain in

my body the next day, whether it's coming from alcohol or cake, right?

And, you know, alcohol is definitely one of those, those simple sugars.

That we take too much of so it's kind of, you know, even the other thing is

like Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, again, the amount of sugar in one drink can

be like 60 grams, like your pumpkin spice latte, 60 grams of sugar.

I mean, that's like three days worth of sugar that you.

suck down through a straw and it's gone in like 15 minutes, right?

So obviously, you know, I think our question about how much protein also begs

the question of how much sugar, right?

And so the way we look at food substances and Ayurvedas is due to their tastes

and the elements that compose the foods.

And the idea is that we want to bring.

A balanced plate of elements into the body, and there's five different

elements now on any given plate.

We want more earth and water elements and smaller amounts of things that are

fiery, salty things that are bitter things that are astringent, and that's

going to bring in , the air element and the space element, and those are

the lighter elements, which we want to balance heavy foods with smaller

amounts of light things, right?

So proteins are primarily earth element.

Especially like flesh foods.

Meats are primarily earth element.

You're basically eating the earth element from the creature, and

that's a direct line to feed the earth element in your body.

And that's your muscle tissue.

Also, any solid structure in your body.

So, right, uh, anything you can grab ahold of and squeeze in your body

has a, an earth element component.

And as you've probably heard me say by now, if you go down to the beach to

build a sand castle and you have sand without water, it won't hold together.

So there's a certain amount of water element necessary in The

tissue building process in the body.

So we're generally looking at our building foods as a combination of

earth and water elements, right?

So something like dairy is a great example.

It's a liquid like milk.

It's a liquid, but it's also unctuous, uh, When you look at it, it's like

fatty, collagen is another example.

And.

You're going to find that that combination of moisture along with the earth element.

that's how you build the tissues.

And we want our tissues to have the right amount of moisture in them.

So when we talk about protein, we're talking about earth and water.

Elements and the building tastes, the building tastes in the body that bring

us tissue as opposed to taste that cleanse and reduce the body, like things

that are astringent, like the skins of fruits and vegetables, things that

are bitter, like all of your greens.

So we have smaller amounts of those to balance our basically grains.

And proteins right so whole grains are totally different than refined grains

as you're probably aware of by now you want to take in all your food with it's

naturally occurring fiber and that's.

Awesome, right?

You can make, puree it into a soup.

A lot of my recipes in my books are soups, I'm sure you've noticed.

And that makes it easier to break down that fiber, right?

So it goes in in a smooth way.

So soups are just a great way to get building taste.

And if you're eating meats, soup is the way.

The Ayurvedic way to take meat is in a soup.

So instead of like a big slab of a flesh, it's a smaller amount, like

say four ounces or something gets in like a bowl with vegetables,

potentially with some grain or a whole grain noodle and a broth, right?

That's the ideal way to improve the digestibility proteins, of meats.

And we do the same with legumes.

We have them in these water Water based, you know, preparations, whether

it's like a black bean soup or a lentil doll, those kind of things.

Those are great protein sources and spices are absolutely essential when

you come to eating the earthy foods.

You do want to make sure that there's some warming spices in there, which will

improve your body's ability to break down these heavier items and render them

into that liquid nutritive juice that we call ahara rasa, the juice of the food.

And that's what then washes through the tissues and As it's

washing through or irrigating your tissues that nutritive juice, which

is the result of your food is.

in a state of balance because you've balanced the tastes in your food.

So that's moving through in a state of balance.

Then your tissues are all going to get what they need.

All the different tissues.

Some of them like more earth.

Some of them need a little more fire.

Some of them need lots of water, right?

So all the elements from your plate with the help of your digestive

spices, they sort of break that down.

Get that into that nutritive precursor that washes through your body.

And it's just like, just visualize that, you know, your food's

washing through your body.

This is a totally different conversation friend than eating X number of grams

of protein in a day and just like shoving it in your face no matter what,

because it's a certain number, right?

We don't do that here.

We don't do that here.

Everything is a result of the sensations, the stories that your body's telling you,

the messages that it's giving to you.

So, I think a lot of people, women especially as we're aging, are

noticing some feelings that Lead us to the question of how much protein.

I think that's why you are asking How much protein should I have you because

you don't feel good right because you feel exhausted tired Your resiliency

distress is down you're maybe feeling constipated you're bloated or hanging

on to water or hanging on to fat tissue and You're wondering where's

the imbalance coming from, right?

And, um, I think the conversation in the space right now keeps going

towards protein protein, especially for women and perimenopause and menopause.

So let me just break that down through the Ayurvedic lens for you, uh, why that

might, you know, why that might be and how that makes sense according to Ayurveda.

When do you transition into perimenopause menopause, uh, this

period of time in your life where maybe you're in your forties, fifties.

It's a transition from the Pitta time of life into the Bhatta time of life.

So the Pitta time is that time that's really governed

by fire element and activity.

. Getting stuff done, having responsibilities, , being most active,

you know, so you're running a business, you're having a family, raising that

family, providing for them, you know, trying to pay off your mortgage, like

all these things are happening during that time of life, and your metabolism

likely is going to have an easier time of it when there's more activity and

more fire present, um, In the body, you know, as well as in the life.

But as we move into the Vata time of life, which menopause is that transition for

women and men, it's happening as well, but maybe on less of a tight curve, right?

More of a slow, gentle, movement in this direction of aging and

into the vata time of life.

And vata is that combination of space and air elements.

It is characterized by cold, dry, light, hard, rough qualities.

So imagine coldness, Lightness, hardness, right?

That sounds like pain to me.

That sounds a little bit like some joint pain.

it sounds like the coldness in the digestion is going to give

you the gas and the bloating.

Maybe some sluggishness of the stool.

Your lightness, that it's when, so your body, you feel less grounded in your body

as the body is like transitioning into lighter elements and that can make you

feel more prone to the effects of stress.

It can make you feel, less grounded emotionally and mood wise, like you might

feel there's more swinging happening.

And this is because, think about air, the nature of air.

It is a mover, right?

It's going, woohoo, it's expanding, it's moving and shaking, you

know, think about the weather.

Like, I'm on a, kind of an island right now, so it's like, oh, the weather is just

like, it's doing this, it's doing that.

And you might feel like your energy levels, your moods, your

emotions, your ability to cope with life is doing that, right?

Is moving like a, like a maelstrom in the sky.

And the great news for you, my friend, is that that.

Makes sense, doesn't mean you're crazy or that you're doing something wrong.

It is the increase of Vata.

So how do we balance that is to take in more earth and water elements.

So here we arrive at the protein story.

So Ayurveda would say, as we transition into more Vata,

we need more grounding foods.

So the amount of flesh food, if you take it, or dairy or root vegetables, sweet

potatoes, tubers of any kind, those are a great way to really ground the body down.

You might enjoy more seeds.

Nuts.

If you digest them well and not butters.

I'm a huge fan of seeds.

I'm always toasting them and adding them to things.

I grind them into butters and slather them on sourdough bread.

If you could get good quality sourdough.

Heirloom wheat bread, which I know some of you can and some of you can't.

If you can get that, there's actually a decent amount of

protein in that, in wheat.

It's a building food.

It's a stabilizing food.

It really sticks there and holds energy in your body.

Builds the tissues in your body.

So it gets harder to be a vegetarian, I'll tell you that.

That is true.

It gets harder.

I will, divulge that I am an addict of grass fed whey protein powder.

I think, and everyone's like, what kind, right?

I always just look for the one that doesn't have any other ingredients,

but grass fed whey, and It'll be kind of yellow in the same way that your

butter or your ghee when it's grass fed will have that like deeper color to it.

, Lifespa.

com I think is one of the most trusted sources that I recommend for finding.

, Dr. Dilliard has really done a ton of work to source that protein, but

my story around that is that this happened to me early on in my thirties.

I've been an athlete.

I've been super athletic my entire life basically, since I was like 15.

So I've been a vegetarian also that whole time.

What I started to notice is, and this was actually something that Dr.

DuYard, I think he had a blog or something about like the dangers

of low protein, you know, and I was having joint pain and exhaustion.

And I mean, I was having difficulty keeping up with my, I had a

job that was a manual labor.

And I was having a hard time keeping up and so he had suggested at that

time to try to have this grass fed whey protein like three days a week, right?

And I'm like, oh no, Ayurveda doesn't like protein powders, you know, but

here I am a vegetarian just kind of eating legumes like they're going out of

style and still, struggling, you know?

So I did that.

I had it, uh, three days a week for two weeks and my nails changed.

My nails changed.

They went from brittle to strong and, , like they look juicier.

Right.

And I thought, oh my goodness, this is something big because in Ayurveda,

your, your nails are an upadhatu.

They're an auxiliary tissue of your bones.

So your nails give you information about the health of your bones.

And I thought, wow, I mean, I am too young to be worrying about my bones here.

So that was a big aha for me.

And to this day, was it 10 years later?

I still notice that if I'm not using the whey protein that I don't have to use it,

you know, regularly, but if I come off it, I just like don't use it for a month

or something, I'll notice a difference in the nails and then I get back on it.

I have it just a couple times a week, two or three times a week,

and My nails get strong again.

So that says something to me, right?

That is undeniable.

So, , I know that my body digests it.

I think the question with protein powders in Ayurveda is are we digesting them?

They're light and dry, right?

You've sort of powdered this thing that was milk, right?

For me, if I were to just drink the grass fed milk and eat the ghee, unfortunately,

it It does sit a bit heavy in my digestion, so I can't, I don't notice

the same thing with the nails, uh, when I increase my ghee or, uh, drink, I do

notice it when I drink more milk, I will tell you that, I do notice it when I

drink more milk, like I'll make hot milk, turmeric milk on the regular, so I'll,

I'll cycle in of sort of doing that, especially in colder weather, I'll just

do that with, good quality milk, and then I can be fine without the whey protein.

In the summer is when I move into it more, I'll say because I start to feel

like hot milk doesn't sound as great and I kind of want a smoothie, right?

I love smoothies.

They're like my guilty pleasure because again, smoothies

are really hard to digest.

They're like kind of cold and damp.

So what I've learned to do is not put bananas in smoothies.

So if you are using a protein powder and you're putting a banana in there,

that's a very hard to digest thing.

So if you have a super high metabolism and your stomach runs

hot, maybe it's working for you.

For me, I can't, uh, I can't do that.

I'll just burp bananas all day long for like six hours.

So I don't put bananas in there anymore.

I'll use, water.

I used to put like almond milk or peanut butter, all sorts of crazy stuff in there.

Now I just use a cup of water, a scoop of the whey protein, and some spices.

I'll use cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon.

My sweet spice mix from the Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook, which many of

you are probably familiar with.

That sprinkles right in there.

And that's it.

I don't put ice in it, you know.

Oh, yes.

The other thing I put in is chia seed.

So I'll put in two tablespoons of soaked chia seed.

I just soak them in water for a couple minutes and then I throw them in there.

And the chia seeds, they have fat in them.

So I'm getting a little bit of the good fats there and it also makes it thicker.

So I get more of like a shake kind of a thing.

So I'm not like throwing a bunch of fruit in there along with.

the other digestibles.

I really just want the cleanest kind of protein experience that I can get.

And if I start buying one of the fancy sort of vegan ones, I mean, I've

experiment spent a long time since I have, but I have experimented with some

of those fancy ones that have the really long list of ingredients and all the

thises and the that's, and I just, I don't notice the same thing in my nails.

When I'm using like a pea protein, you know, a lot of those vegan ones are pea.

I did used to use NutriBiotic brand rice protein and Again, I can't say

it did the same thing for my nails.

I do think the dairy base has a certain, has some certain amino acids

that are making a difference for me.

Uh, and I think putting it with the chia seed, mixing it with

fat also is, it's good for me.

And there's fiber in there.

So I have that, um, sort of shake, you know, a couple

days a week as my breakfast.

And instead of having, say, oatmeal or in warmer weather, I might get

into, like, the Refresherama recipe, which is going up on social media.

Month at Kate O'Donnell dot IR beta.

Don't miss that one.

It's like a grapefruit base thing I do in the springtime.

So there's other breakfast, but twice a week three times a week.

I'm doing this protein thing For the love of my bones.

I do it and I'm trying to trying to eat meat I still don't digest beef.

I just, I don't know.

I think I'm 80 percent Hindu at this point after spending so much

time in India in the last 25 years.

So I just don't, I don't digest the reds.

, I'll try to make a chicken soup like once a month, you know, where you boil

the whole chicken and the whole thing.

And it's still not easy for me.

but I also am looking at longevity of this body, health

of this body, and I do get pain.

I do get pain, as I know a lot of you also do in the, joints and in

the tissues at large, and I really am keeping an eye on that, but know

my friend that you can watch the hair and nails to get a lot of information

about how your deep tissues are doing.

And they're, they're right there in your face, you know, so like the luster

of , the hair and the nails, and the moisture that's present there is, is

going to give you , a lot of info.

So if you're doing like a, chicken soup and you're making a bone broth.

With the bones, you know, I'll, I'll sort of use that as a base for all sorts of

suits and dolls and things like that.

And I know I have friends who have gotten to the point where they're doing that

once a week instead of once a month.

And, these are women in their late forties.

They're feeling great from, from doing that for sure.

Fish.

I do less of because I don't love what's happening to our oceans.

I don't love the industries of fishing.

Uh, I feel that poultry is less problematic.

If I can get my hands on wild game, I feel like that's actually the

best thing and the way to go.

And I do live in a part of the country where there's more hunting.

There's more of that kind of thing available.

But I know a lot of, Women in later life are looking at this, at this question

and the thing about this movement into the Vata time of life, this

perimenopause and menopause time is that everything is going to hit you harder.

Everything is going to show up in your face more and it

won't be like that forever.

So it's like, we're in this time of change.

So the way that you are eating begins to just not work for you.

And that's not fun.

You know, you want to think, Hey, I've got this figured out, but you'll never

have it figured out because your body and your environment are always changing.

Right, so there are things that worked that won't work anymore, or you

just start to realize, Oh, I need to make sure I get more grounding food.

I would say in this protein question, the way I think about it, I don't think

protein protein, I think grounding foods.

I think, did I have stabilizing foods today?

twice, right?

Two times.

And the whey protein is something that it's a crutch for me, right?

Like I have to really lean on that because I don't eat meat very often.

And if I am eating meat for whatever reason, more like say I'm staying

with somebody who cooks it, then I don't do the whey protein, you know,

I just, I feel like I don't need it.

So I am always toasting pumpkin seeds.

I love tahini, uh, sesame tahini.

It's got high mineral content.

It's really easy to work with.

It tastes good with sweet stuff.

It tastes good with savory stuff.

So that's always, I'm making a sauce with lemon and tahini.

I'm putting it on things.

I just eat it straight.

I mix it with a little maple syrup and just eat it with a spoon.

So I put some cinnamon.

So it's like it's my, it's my sweet treat.

It's also like a spread and it's also a sauce.

So there is always tahini in the fridge and that is a really.

Great food to keep around better than say peanut butter.

Peanuts are very heating, so especially if you're in perimenopause where you've

got a lot of heat ranging around, I would lay off the peanut butter and

go more for almond butter or tahini, you know, sunflower butter is fun,

but you got to watch the ingredients.

Sometimes there's weird oils added to it, and I mean, I like to make

nut butters, but man, is it messy?

Right?

So I do, but it's like a whole production to clean the, uh, the food processor

after I'm not always in the mood.

So I would say I go back and forth between making and buying like every other batch.

Right?

So I think the thing about proteins is you, you want to find what the

things are, you know, what are the grounding foods that feel like they

digest well for you and make sure you have them, make sure you have them.

I know that greek yogurt is one that a lot of people lean on because if you

look at the label it's like an absurd amount of protein in this tiny little

cup that you can like eat in your car while you wait for your kids, right?

I totally get that.

The thing about the greek yogurt is it is heavy, sticky, slimy, hard to digest.

So don't mix it with a bunch of other stuff.

I treat the Greek yogurt the same way that I treat my whey protein.

If I'm going to have it, I'm having it because I need that

heavy dense earth water hit.

Right.

And I, it's something, especially when I travel, I'll buy a couple of those

little yogurts because if I get caught, you know, in a pinch or whatever,

I know it's something I can have.

it can go in my bag and I can eat it because One thing I noticed that

I'm sure you notice now too, if you're older, is you can't not eat.

If you don't eat, I think the body goes into a catabolic mode, and it's

harder when you're in a BATA stage of life, it's harder to get out.

It's like you get an imbalance of BATA by moving into that very light space

where there's not enough calorie in your body, or not enough dense, dense calorie.

In your body, like if you just eat sugary stuff, right?

There's no density to it.

It's like fluff, marshmallow fluff, you know?

So if I get enough density in my food and Greek yogurt's a great

example of something very dense, you know, if I get enough of that,

I don't move into that imbalance.

And this is what is different about now that wasn't there

five years ago, 10 years ago.

Right.

For me and for any of us who are getting older is that our need for

density in our food is greater and it needs to happen with a regularity.

You can't like skip it for a day or two because your body will go

literally into a stress response.

It'll start tweaking out, right?

It'll feel uncomfortable, ungrounded, and then your body does all sorts

of weird things to try to balance that feeling of ungroundedness.

So while baby greek yogurt is really hard to digest, if we have it without

a bunch of granola and a bunch of sprinkles on it and a bunch of fruit,

right, if we just eat the yogurt, then it's going to digest better and I'll put

cinnamon on it or my little spice mix.

I always put ginger powder or cinnamon In the yogurt, right?

And that makes it easier to digest.

So I'll often buy just a whole milk plain when I'm traveling.

And that's like the thing that I will eat when I'm in a pinch.

And it's definitely a lifesaver, right?

So if it's something you depend on, I would just consider how many

things are we mixing that with?

And then look at how does it feel in your gut?

Are you having like burps, you know, Right.

For a long time after you eat it, that kind of a thing is telling you that

it's, creating byproducts in your belly.

Right.

We want everything to just be as smooth as, as possible.

So I'm a fan of the food thermos.

You know, I put my, my dolls in there.

I put my soups in there.

I bring those with me and honestly, it's just as easy, to

eat that as it is to eat a yogurt.

And.

Preparation being prepared right becomes really becomes really of the of the

moment here knowing what the dense.

grounding foods are that support your body that digest well and always adding some

warming spices cumin, ginger, turmeric.

again, the cinnamon, if it's a sweet tasting thing, that

is always going to help.

Yes.

Always going to help you break it down.

Even just black pepper and a garnish with lemon.

Lemon's another one that really aids the digestion.

So keeping the spicing around and knowing what nourishes you, and maybe

you're in this process right now trying to figure that out, so I hope some of

these ideas are things you can try, and you want to move into it like an

experiment, where you're like, okay, Kate talked about, you know, boiling

the chicken and making the broth and then using that as a Base for doll.

Let me do that.

You know, let me do that for a week or two and see how I feel.

Or let me try the whey protein and see if it does the thing to my hair and

my nails like, like Kate talked about.

And you, you got full permission here friend to do the experiment, right?

I think a lot of the way the conversation about food goes for us is.

This is right and this is wrong, you know, and if you feel like crap,

it's because you're doing it wrong.

And here's the I've got the answer for you.

I will never tell you that I have the answer for you.

I'll give you some options and I'll invite you to experiment and sort of

make suggestions of what are the signs of

good health and what are the signs of deteriorating health, right?

So we talked about sort of the hair and the nails, even the skin,

seeing a dryness in the skin or allergic reactions in the skin.

Not always, but sometimes that's coming from digestion.

Also, the joint pain, the stress, the exhaustion, right?

All of these things can be signs that we're not getting enough

of those dense grounding foods.

So rather than look at the number of grams, we want to look at the signs.

In the body, and usually that's going to take a week or two for you to see

a difference in your digestion or your skin or your nails, for example.

So a great thing to do is to just jot down, jot it down, especially

if you're busy, jot down, you know, week one, this is what I'm doing.

This is how I feel starting out and then come back to it two weeks later.

And just how are those symptoms?

Have you noticed any changes?

And let the experiments continue, my friend, and I hope to You find

this helpful and then it gives you a larger context in which to

explore your grounding food story.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

Everyday Ayurveda with Kate.

I'll be here again with you next week.