3.

5 Soy protein Arguably the greatest contender of whey protein, and a gift from the heavens for vegan body builders: soy protein. Soy protein comes in 3 different forms: isola te, concentrate and textured. First off the bat Id just like to point out that so y is believed to have a few detrimental effects. The most notable of which is ho rmonal imbalances. The phytoestrogens contained in soy (such as isoflavones) are thought to upset the testosterone balances, and cause thyroid problems. This is a pretty contentious issue. The better view appears to be that soy doesnt so muc h affect testosterone levels, as much as it does raise oestrogen levels in very high levels. Ill cover soy isolate and concentrate, and weigh it against whey. 3.5.1 Soy Isolate Soy isolate is made from de-fatted soybean flakes to remove sugars and dietary f iber. It contains a minimum 90% protein by weight (much like whey isolate). Soy fans will be happy to receive this piece of information: soy-isolate has been fo und to have a fantastic PDCAAS. What the deuce is this? It means Protein Digesti bility Corrected Amino Acid Score it is how protein quality is measured (well, o ne of the ways). The highest possible PDCAAS is 1.0. Guess what a study showed s oy-isolate to have a score of? Yep 1.0. The exact same as egg whites, whey and c asein. Higher than beef with a .92 rating. Further, as you may or may not be awa re (I sure wasnt before I did research for this), muscle growth occurs when your muscles are in a positive nitrogen balance. Soy-protein isolate has been shown to keep you in a positive nitrogen balance to help facilitate muscle growth. Soy is olates contain very high concentrations of the amino acids glutamine and arginin e, which are important in the role of releasing growth hormone, aiding muscle ce ll recovery and aiding your immune system. Research has shown that soy protein i solate contains more glutamine than its whey competitors. As for L-arginine, soy isolate contains more of this than just about any other protein source, and it is a very important amino acid for releasing growth hormone. Other benefits incl ude: Improving kidney function Lower LDL cholesterol Aids in preventing osteoporosis 3.5.2 Soy concentrate Soy concentrates are at least 65% protein by weight. It is slightly higher in fi ber than its isolate sibling. As for the PDCAAS I mentioned above, soy concentra te is on-par with beef with a score of .92. Hardly a bad option. 3.5.3 PDCAAS vs. BV Ok, before I get to my comparison on whey vs. soy, I should just clarify what I was talking about with PDCAAS. There are two conflicting scoring systems for pro tein - Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score and Biological Availabil ity. The PDCAAS is a method of evaluating the protein quality of a food based on the amino acid requirements of humans and their ability to digest that food. Ho w does it work? Well basically, it measures the quality of the food against the amino acid requirements of children aged between 2 and 5 years old (who are cons idered to be the most protein-requiring age group). The amino acids in a particu lar food is calculated, then it is compared to the needs of those children. If a certain food (e.g. kidney beans) matches the amino acid requirements of these c hildren closely, it is given a higher PDCAAS so a basic way of thinking of it is if its good for your kid, its good for you. It is not a flawless system, but it is the preferred system of measurement. So, what then is BV? It means Biological Availability. It measures how much protei n is incorporated into your body tissue by measuring how much of the nitrogen in the protein you consume is absorbed by the body, and then how much is excreted. It is basically how well your body can use the protein you consume, and how qui ckly it is consumed. The BV system of measurements main drawback is that BV varie s greatly depending on how food is prepared and according to what other foods we re eaten by the person that could alter nitrogen measurements. It is not the pre ferred system of measurement, but is still used nonetheless. weakness is that BV varies greatly depending on how food is prepared and accordi ng to what other foods were eaten in the recent diet that can alter nitrogen mea

surements. So to sum up PDCAAS is how good the food is for you in terms of the amino acids it contains, and BV is how well your body can use these amino acids. Though BV i snt 100%, I will be looking at it when I compare whey and soy (as well as things like NPU, but I focused this bit on PDCAAS and BV because those seem to be the t wo main conflicting ones). 4.0 Whey or Soy? People will disagree with me on this, no doubt, but dont shoot the messenger here , Im doing research and trying my best to explain everything clearly, provide sou rces (see end of this post) and rely on science. I have found an excellent artic le that I will be relying heavily on for this section, so a lot of this will be regurgitated information from it, so if you want to read it yourself, here you g o: http://www.build-muscle-and-burn-fat.com/soy-versus-whey-protein.html. Note: I will not only be relying on this article, but a lot of it does come from here. Ok, so main points of discussion will be focusing on: 1. Biological Availabiliti es of the two sources of protein. 2. The Net Protein Utilisation. 3. Protein Eff iciency Ratio .4. Amino Acid Score .5. Protein Digestibility Amino Acid Score .6 . Protein Digestibility Percentage .7. How much Glutamine each have per 100g .8. Essential Amino Acids per gram .9. How much Arginine there is per gram. 4.1 Biological Availability See above for what BV is. In short, it is how digestible the protein is and how available it is for the body. Soy protein concentrate and isolate have a BV of 7 4, whilst whey protein has a BV of 100. So whey has the higher BV. 4.2 Net Protein Utilization (NPU) NPU is the amount of amino acids the food allows you to convert to protein, weig hed against the amount of amino acids you actually consumed. So, a food that has a high NPU is one that allows you to convert a high percentage of the amino aci ds you consumed. Soy has an NPU rating of 61, whilst whey has an NPU of 92. So t he victor is whey. 4.3 Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) PER is a rating determined by dividing the weight of a person who has been given a specific food/foods over the intake of that particular protein during that pe riod of consuming the foods. Essentially it is making someone gain weight, then taking that weight (in grams) is divided by the amount of the specific protein t hey consumed (again, in grams). Admittedly it is not the best measure of the qua lity of protein for people attempting to lose weight. Soy concentrate has a PER of 2.2, whilst whey has a PER of 3.2. So whey has the greater PER. 4.4 Amino Acid Score (AAS) This is basically the simple version of the PDCAAS (mentioned above and directly below). It is like the PDCAAS in that it measures the essential amino acids con tained in protein from one food, and compares it to a reference protein (which I b elieve you will find means, as I was talking about before, a protein that meets the amino acid requirements of a child aged 2 5). It differs from the PDCAAS in that it does not take into account the digestibility of the protein. A score of 100+ indicates a higher quality protein, and a score below 100 indicates a lower quality protein. So, how do soy and whey match up? Soy has a rating of 0.99 whi lst whey has a rating of 1.14. Interesting to contrast this result with the PDCA AS result directly below. 4.5 Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score and Biological Availability (PDCAAS) Ive already got a whole paragraph up at 3.5.3 dedicated to explaining this, go ch eck that out if you dont remember. This measuring system is basically an expansio n on the AAS (directly above). This is one of the better systems of measurement, albeit not perfect. Both soy and whey have a PDCAAS of 1.0. P.S. for the people who are actually reading this that are die hard into knowing everything, the formula for calculating the PDCAAS percentage is: (mg of limiti ng amino acid in 1 g of test protein / mg of same amino acid in 1 g of reference protein) x fecal true digestibility percentage. 4.6 Protein Digestibility Percentage (PD%) PD% is simply a measurement of how much of the protein from a certain food sourc

e (i.e. soy or whey protein powder) is actually being absorbed by the body. Its a ctually part of the equation for working out the PDCAAS above. Whey has a PD% of 99%, whilst soy has a PD% of 95%. So the victor, again, is whey (but really not by much). 4.7 Amount of Glutamine What the deuce is Glutamine? (Im sick of using all these technical words too). Gl utamine is an amino acid. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, rememb er? What does this amino acid do? Well it does a number of things: it transports nitrogen to your tissues, increases cellular hydration which in turn increase m uscle cell volume and also increases growth hormone levels (which makes the musc le use fatty acids for fuel, rather than blood sugar). So as you can see, it is one of the most important amino acids for body building. Well, how do soy and wh ey stack up? For every 100g of soy protein, you get 10.5g Glutamine, whilst for every 100g whey protein, you get a far more meagre 4.9g. The clear victor is soy protein. Also, just note that if youre looking to build muscle, you should consume about 3 -5 grams of glutamine, 3 times a day. 4.8 Essential Amino Acids At the very start of this never ending post, I talked about the essential amino acids, well, which one has more? Im basically just going to screenshot you guys a table here. Find it at: http://www.build-muscle-and-burn-fat.com/soy-versus-whe y-protein.html#Soy%20Versus%20Whey%205. The victor is whey protein. 4.9 Arginine Like glutamine, arginine is a non-essential amino acid. It has a number of benef its, including fighting mental and physical fatigue, increasing the release of g rowth hormone and insulin. It has also been found to increase delivery of nutrie nts to muscles, promoting growth, by producing nitric oxide which increases bloo d flow. Further, it lowers LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream. For every 100g of soy protein you get, you get 7.6g of arginine, whilst for every 100g of whey pr otein, you get a more modest 2.9g arginine. It is clear that soy is the winner h ere. Concluding Soy v Whey debate This is the table from the article I was using a lot. As you can see, whey beats soy in most categories, but not by a whole heap. If you had to choose between t he two, Id personally say it wouldnt matter that much. Take into account cost and all that jazz and if it fits into your macros, go for which ever one you please. 5.0 Your post is way too long and you are kidding if you think Im going to read i t Fair point, I wouldnt want to read this either, so let me give you the brief poin ts that you want to know. 1. Do I need protein supplements? No. Theyre helpful, but you most certainly do not need any protein supplements 2. If I do get protein supplements, how should I take them? Take your whey whenever you want really, but as far as post workout goes, get enough whey in yo u to get .015-0.25 grams of protein per pound of body weight. You also want some thing like honey or chocolate milk. Avoid complex carbs and lots of fat if youre really dedicated to your post workout nutrition. Take your casein before bed. 3. Do I want whey concentrate, isolate or casein? Isolate is more expensive and isnt all too different from concentrate. If youve got the money, go for isola te if you want, but concentrate is more than acceptable. Casein serves a slightl y different role, but you really dont need to buy the powder to get sufficient am ounts, eat cottage cheese, its loaded with the stuff. 4. Is soy protein any good? Yes, its your gift from vegan Jesus. 5. Do I want soy protein or whey? Either. Theyre both good. Whey has receive d higher scores for things like BV and what not though, but the difference isnt t oo dramatic.