So I say “consider how some people actually do have a single source of protein per day, they’re not combining it with other food sources, but they should be aware of this” and your reply is “oh but you see they’re combining it with other food sources so that’s not important” flawless logic.

My point is that it effectively happens anyway without even having to think about it in 99% of cases. It’s not really a large issue in the slightest. It just makes things sound scarier and more complex than it needs to be. People have finite ability to focus on various health things, and this just isn’t something 99% of people need to be worried about

If someone is eating the exact identical source exclusively, every single day with no variation in anything, they are likely going to end up deficient in other things way before this, regardless of which thing they are eating (unless it’s something like Huel or Soylent which is designed to include everything). This is not at the level of “someone has beans a lot”. This is at the level of “virtually all of your calories come from beans” to be some larger issue

Many people use it as a lever to attack plant-based diets in situation that it just doesn’t apply at all by making it sound like it’s something you’re needing some spreadsheet for. It’s really not the case. Plus things like soy, chia, hemp, and more are also already complete too

I never said that. You mentioned it, I said I agreed, and you mentioned it again to reinforce a point I never made. Trying to pad out the comment or something?

I was not saying that you said this. I should have worded that better. I was trying to add some more context for relevant statements from authors talking about both complete proteins and protein combining. I did a poor job of that though

because your body will absolutely not fully digest the 2g of protein in your 100g plate of white rice.

You don’t need to digest all of it, it’s just about a specific amino acid (Methionine in this case which beans already have some of). It’s just a little bit to make it complete. For instance, one of the studies you linked with rice + lentils found the two together rose the DIASS to overall be 100% (122% for infants and kids, 143% for older adults)

I should also note protein quality metrics are also often based on some faulty assumptions for plants in particular. For instance, the DIASS has some flaws that make it undervalue the quality of plant proteins

While multiple strengths characterize the DIAAS, substantial limitations remain, many of which are accentuated in the context of a plant-based dietary pattern. Some of these limitations include a failure to translate differences in nitrogen-to-protein conversion factors between plant- and animal-based foods, limited representation of commonly consumed plant-based foods within the scoring framework, inadequate recognition of the increased digestibility of commonly consumed heat-treated and processed plant-based foods, its formulation centered on fast-growing animal models rather than humans, and a focus on individual isolated foods vs the food matrix. The DIAAS is also increasingly being used out of context where its application could produce erroneous results such as exercise settings. When investigating protein quality, particularly in a plant-based dietary context, the DIAAS should ideally be avoided.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13668-020-00348-8.pdf

Many researchers argue the exact opposite - that it is way overemphasized. Especially because thing you might not think of as protein sources can add the missing other amino acids. Things like wheat, rice, etc. also have protein that can complement others. It’s extremely unlikely for a bean heavy diet to actually have beans as the sole source of all protein even if is the main source

Combining does not need to happen for every single meal: so long as the diet is varied and meets caloric needs, even vegans and vegetarians – people who tend to have more “incomplete protein” in their diet – can easily meet their amino acid needs. In other words, most people do not need to consider the completeness of proteins of single foods.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_protein

Especially the false idea that it has to be done at each meal

Protein combining has drawn criticism as an unnecessary complicating factor in nutrition.

In 1981, Frances Moore Lappé changed her position on protein combining from a decade prior in a revised edition of Diet for a Small Planet in which she wrote:

"In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get enough protein … was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable care was needed in choosing foods. Actually, it is much easier than I thought.

“With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food diet. The exceptions are diets very heavily dependent on [1] fruit or on [2] some tubers, such as sweet potatoes or cassava, or on [3] junk food (refined flours, sugars, and fat). Fortunately, relatively few people in the world try to survive on diets in which these foods are virtually the sole source of calories. In all other diets, if people are getting enough calories, they are virtually certain of getting enough protein.”[13]: 162

The American Dietetic Association reversed itself in its 1988 position paper on vegetarianism. Suzanne Havala, the primary author of the paper, recalls the research process:

There was no basis for [protein combining] that I could see… I began calling around and talking to people and asking them what the justification was for saying that you had to complement proteins, and there was none. And what I got instead was some interesting insight from people who were knowledgeable and actually felt that there was probably no need to complement proteins. So we went ahead and made that change in the paper. [Note: The paper was approved by peer review and by a delegation vote before becoming official.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_combining#Criticism

Focusing on complete proteins is largely unhelpful 99.9% of cases. Unless you are eating a exclusively singular source of protein for all meals and snacks it’s going to be not practically relevant. You don’t need to get all the amino acids at the same meal - just at some point in the day. And even thing you don’t think of as protein sources can be enough to make something complete. For instance, just adding rice is enough to make beans complete

It’s also not the case that the beans don’t have all the amino acids, they do, it’s just less on certain ones. Which is why it can often take so little to make something complete protein. Complete is just a bar of “does it have this specific threshold of the amino acids”, not does it contain them at all

Incorrect, you can always have more beans

Source: I love beans

Very fitting username for this post. I wish I could be so clever. Alas, they are tricky to come up with

That is ignoring the vast majority of usage. Read about what professors, teachers, etc. are saying about its use and you will not hear it being used as tool as the major use. Everyone claims they are using it as a tool, but most people are using them to outsource thinking, unfortunately. Which is highly problematic when the outputs of LLMs are highly wrong much of the time. You need to use the same skills to evaluate the output that people are outsourcing away. Tools like calculators at least do their tasks correctly as long as your inputs are correct. The same is not true of LLMs. Moreover, people are blindly trusting the LLMs to a point where they are completely stuck whenever the LLM can’t do something or are wrong

Tools like calculators do not take away your ability to think logically, just to do route computation. Research is still emerging, but suggests long term negative effects on cognitive abilities from high LLM use

Also: Regardless of if this graph is caused by schools getting out or not, it’s still very highly used in schools.

The US government uses taxes to buy up dairy and meat that was not purchased based on demand, nullifying individual vegan boycotts and artificially propping up those industries.

That’s taking a really short term view of it. As demand has stayed low enough for long enough, they have cut back on the amount and paid dairy farmers to not operate. These kinds of programs can only prop something up for so long

but instead has found the greatest successes from lobbying governments to pass animal welfare laws and organizing protests to generate pressure and support for those laws

Animal welfare laws do not fix the fundamental issue with these systems. As long as the industry exists in a large scale capacity, it will find the cruelest ways to operate. As long as meat, dairy, etc. are consumed in mass, factory farming will exist

For instance, US beef consumption cannot be supplied by a pasture-based system. There is only enough land to support 27% of the consumption, and that still raises methane emissions by 8% so we would need to be consuming even less if we wanted to avoid emission reductions from a move like that

Various laws and larger action can be effective though. Like putting plant-based options by default has been tested in some places, has substantially reduced demand and still kept satisfaction high. Or things like prohibiting the production of Fur, Foie Gras, etc.

Leagues already had rules on their own without the government getting involved. Now instead it’s outright bans being enforced by the state. The largest and loudest voices pushing for the government to do this have openly said they are doing this to attack trans rights in other areas. It’s not about sports

Plus beef is a large emitter to climate change. They’ve spread tons of disinformation on this to keep its consumption and production up. The industry is reaping what they’ve sowed

The US beef industry is creating an army of influencers and citizen activists to help amplify a message that will be key to its future success: that you shouldn’t be too worried about the growing attention around the environmental impacts of its production.

In particular, it would like you not to be especially concerned about how meat consumption needs to be reduced if we are to avoid the most violently disruptive forms of planetary heating (even if all fossil fuel use ended tomorrow).

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/03/beef-industry-public-relations-messaging-machine

You’ve heard of toxic negativity, get ready for toxic positivity

Cheesemaking uses even more dairy than it being in liquid form. Varies depending on what you’re looking at but it can be around a 10:1 ratio. Butter from dairy milk has an even worse conversion

Have to make up for the lost water when turning it into a solid and other stuff you strip from the milk and that’s going to be from even more dairy going into it

This graph is normalized per kg. Graphs look similarly per kcal as well

It’s enough to make it difficult to keep to 2C climate targets on its own. Its not something we should ignore - especially since much of it comes in methane emissions which means reduction in it can be felt quicker and reduce chance of hitting feedback loops. We must tackle all sources

To have any hope of meeting the central goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to limit global warming to 2°C or less, our carbon emissions must be reduced considerably, including those coming from agriculture. Clark et al. show that even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target. Thus, major changes in how food is produced are needed if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357

That’s also on top of other environmental issues that it contributes to besides just climate change. Land usage, water usage, waste runoff

Transitioning to plant-based diets (PBDs) has the potential to reduce diet-related land use by 76%, diet-related greenhouse gas emissions by 49%, eutrophication by 49%, and green and blue water use by 21% and 14%, respectively, whilst garnering substantial health co-benefits

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/html

And pesticide and fertilizer usage is lower

Thus, shifting from animal to plant sources of protein can substantially reduce fertilizer requirements, even with maximal use of animal manure

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528

The diet containing more animal products required an additional 10 252 litres of water, 9910 kJ of energy, 186 g of fertilizer and 6 g of pesticides per week in comparison to the diet containing less animal products

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/comparing-the-water-energy-pesticide-and-fertilizer-usage-for-the-production-of-foods-consumed-by-different-dietary-types-in-california/14283C0D55AB613D11E098A7D9B546EA

For agriculture at least, the differences are often quite categorical. The best cast production will not get you the same differences as reducing meat consumption

Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/html

It’s an even larger difference than eliminating all food waste (which we should also work to reduce)

we show that plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1713820115

If we assume that’s the case, half of revenue is still not a byproduct, it’s a coproduct. The other half is still pretty relevant to its value and usage. If 50% of your revenue disappears from something, you’re going to be making a lot less of it

It’s worth noting that soybean meal is not a byproduct. When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal is still the driver of demand

However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues

[…]

soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010

This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used

Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87

Good news is that overall arable farmland usage goes down the less meat you eat. Don’t need to use all the same land, you have flexibility to move around production

we show that plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1713820115

Yes, though that doesn’t mean it can’t be stopped. That it can be reduced in some countries is a sign we can make progress on it

Much of the global growth is occurring in developing countries right now who often view increased meat consumption as a symbol of wealth and status (in part due to seeing it highly consumed in the west). Changing expectations and consumption in the west can have a ripple effect outward

To an extent, yes it would likely do that. Though on the other hand running into the maximum capacity limitations would not look pretty. Even countries that have a just bit higher grass-fed production than others have a fair number of issues (and still use plenty of supplemental grain)

For instance, in New Zealand, they use a massive amount of synthetic fertilizer on grasslands to try to make it keep up for dairy production

The large footprint for milk in Canterbury indicates just how far the capacity of the environment has been overshot. To maintain that level of production and have healthy water would require either 12 times more rainfall in the region or a 12-fold reduction in cows.

[…]

The “grass-fed” marketing line overlooks the huge amounts of fossil-fuel-derived fertiliser used to make the extra grass that supports New Zealand’s very high animal stock rates.

https://theconversation.com/11-000-litres-of-water-to-make-one-litre-of-milk-new-questions-about-the-freshwater-impact-of-nz-dairy-farming-183806

Or in the UK and Ireland where grass-fed production leads to deforestation and they still need additional grain on top of it

Most of the UK and Ireland’s grass-fed cows and sheep are on land that might otherwise be temperate rainforest – arable crops tend to prefer drier conditions. However, even if there were no livestock grazing in the rainforest zone – and these areas were threatened by other crops instead – livestock would still pose an indirect threat due to their huge land footprint

[…]

Furthermore, most British grass-fed cows are still fed crops on top of their staple grass

https://theconversation.com/livestock-grazing-is-preventing-the-return-of-rainforests-to-the-uk-and-ireland-198014

We should push for large institutional change, but don’t ignore individual change either. Problem is how will you get said governments to act if people aren’t also stepping up and they expect backlash to acting? The more people expect it to be cheap and highly consumed, the harder it will be for them to act. Moving people away from meat individually makes it easier. Movements that succeed usually have both individual and institutional change

Institutional change that is achievable at the current moment is smaller. There’s been some success with things like changing the defaults to be plant-based (which is good and we should continuing to push for that), but cutting subsides is going to be an uphill battle until a larger number of people change their consumption patterns