Meat Vs Beans – Protein, Real Costs, You’ll Be Surprised

Whenever I talk about nutrition to a client or in one of my classes, I always emphasize the importance of protein. In fact, I almost always say it’s the macronutrient that everyone needs to focus on at every single meal.

When I first started on my journey of health, I had no clue how important protein really was or that there was such a massive difference between animal protein and plant protein. I didn’t know what didn’t know the difference between complete and incomplete proteins, what that difference matters, or even how much protein I was supposed to be getting. 

I definitely didn’t understand nutrient bioavailability or protein digestibility, I had never even heard those terms before. So as a result, I had no idea how all of those things could be so impactful to my life, both in positive and negative ways.

I was recently teaching a class and was talking through these topics: essential amino acids, complete and incomplete proteins, and nutrient bioavailability. The most concerns that came up revolved around the actual cost of buying animal protein versus the cost of buying plant-based proteins.

• Can’t I get all the protein I need from beans or nuts?
• Isn’t soy, quinoa, or beans just as good for you as meat?
• Meat and eggs are so expensive, I can’t afford to eat mostly animal products

You can’t get all the protein that you need from beans or nuts because they are incomplete.

This means that they do not contain all of the essential amino acids in the right quantities that our bodies need to stay healthy.

Also, beans and nuts contain anti-nutrients that interfere with our ability to digest them appropriately or absorb nutrients present in them. 

While quinoa and soy actually are complete plant-based proteins, they come with big downsides.

Problem 1 – Good luck finishing that.

In order to get 25 grams of protein from quinoa, you would have to eat around 3 cups cooked, which is around 666 calories. 

And so in order to get 150 grams of protein to support, say, someone 150 pounds in weight in a day, that would be about 18 cups of quinoa. 

That’s a LOT of food. If you were grazing on it for two hours, you would struggle to do it.

Problem 2 – Toxic

Quinoa contains a lot of phytoestrogens. This mimics real estrogen produced in the body and can lead to a number of negative health issues. 

A serving of quinoa can provide upwards of 27,000,000ng of estrogen. As a point of reference, an average adult female produces only about 513,000ng of estrogen daily, and an adult male only 130,000ng daily.

So that’s over 50x the amount of estrogen your body makes.

Soy, though also a complete protein, has a very similar issue with this fake estrogen (not the kind in your body). Just 3 ounces of tofu provides 19,000,000ng of estrogen — or over 35x your body makes.

 Does your body really want that much estrogen? And does your body really expect to get that from food?

Would our ancestors from even as soon as a few hundred years ago, around the world, be downing that much quinoa? It would have been impossible. 

Estrogen overdose, man boobs, and feeling weak.

Consuming excess estrogen causes a number of negative health issues in both women and men. The estrogen that is found in plants is what’s known as a “xenoestrogen” or “phytoestrogen”. They are exogenous estrogens that we either consume or are exposed to through the environment.

For men, excess xenoestrogen exposure lowers testosterone, reduces sex drive, increases breast size (gynecomastia), and increases the risk of estrogen-dominant cancers such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, and thyroid cancer.

For women, excess xenoestrogen exposure can lead to an increased risk of estrogen-dominant cancers such as breast, uterine, ovarian, and thyroid cancers. It can also cause ovarian cysts, belly fat accumulation, weight gain, migraines, menstrual disturbances, fibroids, and even poor/inconsistent sleep.

When you think about protein, it’s critical to think about how much protein a person needs every single day, especially as they get older.

On average, especially after a person reaches the age of 40, the amount of protein that they need on a daily basis increases as the body’s ability to break down protein and then use the constituent amino acids efficiently and effectively, decreases.

To maintain lean muscle mass, which is critical as we age, people should be targeting .8-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body mass. 

Additionally, because the body’s ability to synthesize protein decreases, it’s important that the protein that is consumed is of the highest quality and most digestible, bioavailable protein possible. Also, that protein needs to be a complete protein. 

Complete proteins are those proteins that contain all nine essential amino acids, in the right percentages, that the body needs to create the remaining eleven amino acids that it needs to repair and build cell structures, create neurotransmitters, and every other part of the body and its systems that amino acids build.

All animal sources of protein are complete protein sources. This is what should go down the hatch.

It doesn’t matter if it’s pork, beef, poultry, dairy, fish, or shellfish, they are all complete proteins. They are nutrient-dense, highly digestible, and the most bioavailable sources of protein that humans can eat.

And they don’t come with massive amounts of estrogen, and they are what we (humans) would have been eating all around the world, easily, daily, happily.

So, if we compare beef to another protein source, one that’s plant-based and is widely touted as a great replacement for beef we can see the real importance of nutrient bioavailability.

In order to get 25 grams of protein, looking solely at the protein that is advertised on the nutrition facts label, you would need to eat 4 ounces of beef. That four ounces would cost about 180 calories from an energy perspective and, at right around $6-$10 per pound, $1.50-$2.50.

Kidney Beans, the so-called plant-based powerhouse. They make “fake meat” burgers from beans. But no one is making fake beans out of meat. Ummm …

In order to get the equivalent amount of protein from kidney beans, which are touted as a great source of plant-based protein that could be a wonderful replacement for beef, you would have to consume 3.5 cups of kidney beans. 

That’s 2 whole cans of kidney beans that a person would have to eat in order to get 25 grams of protein instead of 4 ounces of beef.

Imagine having 6 cans of beans in a day to reach 75g of protein in a day. That smells like trouble. But let’s run the $$ numbers $$.

Now, on average, a can of kidney beans can cost anywhere from $0.80-$1.50 per can. So, in order to get an equivalent amount of protein from kidney beans, you would be consuming 2 whole cans, which is around 385 calories, and will cost you somewhere between $1.60-$3.00.

But beans aren’t complete. But adding rice can help. But it’s still bad. Here’s that story …

Now, we need to look at something that’s even more important, something that plant-based proponents don’t talk enough about, and that is the fact that beans are not complete proteins and beef is one.

So, in order for you to consume 25 grams of complete protein using kidney beans, you have to eat rice with the beans. On average, a pound of rice is $1.25, and a serving size is half a cup. An average 1-pound bag has 10 servings, so the additional cost is at least another $0.13.

At a minimum, to get the same amount of protein in 4 ounces of beef, you would have to consume 4 cups of rice and kidney beans at a minimum. As a point of reference, that’s a quart of food.

So it’s either 4 cups of rice n’ beans, or four bites of meat for 25 grams of meat. 

But that still isn’t the whole story …

The other critical component that needs to be considered is the bioavailability of the protein that is eaten.

If you eat 4 ounces of beef, the 25 grams of protein that you might initially have reduces down to about 17 grams of usable protein for your body.

If you eat 3.5 cups of kidney beans only, you aren’t getting 25 grams of protein. Similar to beef, you get less than that due to digestibility. However, unlike beef, you won’t get 17 grams, you’ll actually only get 11 grams of usable protein. And again, that is 11 grams of incomplete protein instead of 17 grams of complete protein.

So, in order to match the total amount of protein that you would actually get eating just the 4 ounces of beef, you would have to eat closer to 5.25 cups of kidney beans. That’s 3 whole cans of kidney beans plus rice in order to make that protein complete.

Running The Numbers – Meat vs Beans – $$ vs Nutrition

When you think about cost, that brings the cost of a single meal of rice and kidney beans up from between, $1.73-$3.13, to between $2.53-$4.63.

When nutrient density, digestibility, and bioavailability are taken into account, beef is less expensive and, hands-down, the superior source of protein.

So, to get a complete protein that the body will access, it’s either …

• 5.25 cups of beans and rice for an average of $3.50
  You get a lot of estrogens, a tone of calories, and poorly digested plant protein
  
• 4 ounces of steak for $1.50-$2.50
  Bioavailable vitamins that you can only get from animal foods, like B6, B12, and heme iron

With the whole meat vs beans (and veggies, for that matter), it’s all about getting the most digestible, nutrient-dense, and bioavailable food you can eat.

Meat’s got you covered, providing healthy protein (and a lot more), while beans and rice, after grazing on it for hours, can get the poor-quality protein numbers up, but you’ll get a whole host of extra stuff you don’t want or need — pseudo-estrogens, excess calories, toxins, carb coma, and more.

And meat actually costs less. 

To sum it up, here’s meat vs beans …

So, if you’re after good nutrition, and healthy usable protein, and want to avoid toxins, bloatiness and save a few bucks. You’d be much better off getting that steak on the plate.