Welcome to healthy Ish, your podcast from body and Soul. How are you hope you are feeling healthish? Of course I am your host, Felicity Harley for some extra media inspiration. This week, we're dropping the most popular Healthyish episodes from the past six months, and this one, my friends, was at the top. Dietitian and podcast host Susie Burrell joined me to discuss how much protein you really need and
the best foods to eat to boost your quota. Now, as you know, we keep our Healthish episodes really short, so if you want to hear more, listening to Extra healthy Ish, where she discussed where the protein powders actually work. Search for that wherever you get your podcasts. Susie, Welcome back New year. I think we haven't have you on this year yet.
Always so nice to see you. And we've always got so much to talk about in the world of nutrition.
Always we do, and I can't believe we haven't even talked. Actually, you know what, in my three years on the podcast, we have never done an episode about protein, So go figure.
I think that because I talk about it all day every day. It's like anything, you just take it for granted, but it's probably the like one of the if not the most important dietary areas we can focus on for overall nutritional intake to promote optimal body composition for weight control. So and certainly online it goes gang bus because people are very interested. It's got a very positive association. But it's like all areas of nutrition, it's not just black
and white. Just because you see protein plastered on a product doesn't mean it's actually good for you. So there's lots of intricacies I think we can discuss and hopefully share some practical tips.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, because in terms of the macros, you know, we've had so much focus on carbs, and then fat or fat fat came perhaps in carbs, I don't know, And now I feel like protein is really picking up in terms of people wanting to know about it before we kick off. What is protein?
Protein is one of thos you described the three macronutrients. So whenever we consume food, it's usually a mix of carbohydrate, protein, and fat to different proportions. But protein's a little bit different from carbohydrate and fat because protein has a really functional role in the body and we have a requirement for it, so it builds all the other tissue. It's involved in hormone production, it is involved in muscle growth and repair in the body. You know, it's got a
huge range of functional functions. But because it's not used as energy per se, it's digested after carbohydrates, so it helps to keep us full. So the interest for many people is when you're looking at overall diet quality, not only are protein rich foods tending to be the ones also rich in key micronutrients things like iron, zinc, amega, three fats, calcium, which are of course particular interest to women,
often needing more of those at certain times. But it also helps to regulate blood glucose levels in the body. So we are learning more about it, and what we're coming to understand is if you're not getting an optimal amount, or specifically the right amount spread through the day, it can impact your food intake because if you don't get enough, there's a hypothesis called a protein leverage hypothesis, and it basically means you keep eating until you get enough protein.
So when it comes to weight control and appetite control, getting enough protein is really really important, and particularly for women, if weights on your mind now.
I feel like a lot of headlines and studies say that women don't get enough. I mean, how do we know if we're getting enough?
I think the interesting thing with protein, particularly in Australia is the way we consume it. So it's not necessarily we don't get enough overall, but we don't necessarily consume it in the right way. So we tend to have
quite low amounts through the morning. So you might grab a coffee and if your preference is plant based milk, you're not getting a lot of protein, or you might have a birch amusee, or you might just grab sour dough and then lunch on the go is often things like sushi or a quick salad, so that first three quarters of the day we're not getting anywhere near enough, and then we get to the second half of the day and have a huge piece of steak or chicken
and absolutely we've had enough, but it hasn't been spread. So for optimal absorption and to get those glucose regulation benefits and appetite control, it needs to be spread evenly throughout the day to promote optimal absorption hence better blood glucose control.
So talk to us about spreading it throughout the day. I mean, obviously different depending on your age group, what you're doing in terms of exercise dictates will dictate how much protein you actually should be getting. But for the general guidelines of how much we should be getting talked to us through perhaps what we should be eating every day, like a bit of a menu.
At an absolute minimum, adults near a gram percular of body weight. Now that can go up to as high as one point four grams per kilo, particularly if you want to gain lin tissue or if you're losing weight. You might have come from a high starting weight. So for the average female that's about at least at at eighty up to one hundred grams per day, maybe as low as sixty if you're tiny, but most of us need a bit more muscle mass, so I usually stay
between eighty and one hundred grams. So the key for women is to spread that out through the day in about twenty gram increments. So when we're talking grams, it's not the absolute amount, so it's not twenty grams of chicken, but for example, one hundred grams of chicken has got about twenty grams of protein, so you basically want to protein rich food at each meal and snacks. So for example, in the morning for breakfast, you want a protein greek
yogurt or some eggs for breakfast. When you have your lunch, you want some tofu. If you're vegetarian, you want some chicken breast, you want some tuna, you want some salmon. And that's just as important as snacks because a lot of my women have nowhere near enough for snacks because they're grabbing hommus or rice, crackers or a bar and it might have five grams of protein. So you really got to try and get that twenty grain when you
have a snack. So that's like tuna on crackers, salmon, cottage, cheese, a slice of protein, toast of protein shape. So really bumping up the snack amounts will help to even out your glucose control through the day, so you're getting not only enough protein, but enough protein at the right time.
What about if you're on a plant predominant diet, I mean, what should you what's some plants that are high in protein? How do we get more rather than reaching for the chicken.
Yeah, it's a little bit tricky, but there are a range of plant based foods that do contain protein. The key is to often combine it to get what we call well absorbed protein. So foods plant bated foods are particularly rich, are things like our tofu at a marmai and soy products. If you're using any plant based meats, you'll notice now there's a lot more in the minces or the faux chicken that are much higher at sort
of fifteen twenty grams of protein. So if you look at the ingredient list, you're looking at products that have got a soy or a textured vegetable protein based care can get a vegan based protein powder, so that can be very handy to sort of supplement or make your own snacks, things like protein balls or additions that are still plant based that have that bit of extra protein. Or you can find so your alm and milk, sometimes your soy milk, and then you can find protein in
rich versions of that. So it is a little bit more tricky because it's often assumed things like nuts a high protein. They have some, but they have a lot more fat, so you do have to be quite specific and making sure that you're getting it from a plant based diet. So it requires a little bit more focused, but there's some of the superfoods I tend to kind of reach for pumpkins. Seeds is another trick we use often snap foods that have got pumpkin seed based is
one of my gohs for plant based diets. And yeah, making your own protein balls with a vegan plant based protein can be a good way too.
Oh protein balls. Yeah, Now, I saw a stat that one in ten people now consume protein bars and powders for all different reasons, whether it we weight loss, muscle banish cravings. What do you see with your clients when they need to take a powder? I mean, what's your thoughts around this?
Well, as a dietitian, We've just designed a protein powder designed by dietitians because we do use it to supplement people's diets up. So the way I use it if I have a client who is a plant based has a plant based preference, and for example using a coconut yogurt in the morning, I will then use a protein powder at time to increase the amount of protein in that.
I have a lot of clients who are very busy, so they might be using a shaker, a smoothie on the run, to create that balance and then adding the protein to bump it up a little bit there, or as I said, in baking, or if you like pancakes, you can just get a little bit more by adding
that to a product. So that's a very functional food because protein powder is basically just concentrated milk protein in most cases, or in the case of a plant based protein, concentrated soil and rice powder normally, So it's just a convenient way to get a lot. You know, a heap tablespoon of protein powder will have about fifteen twenty grams
of protein. That's a very convenient way to add it to food rather than sitting down to a chicken breast, particularly for busy people on the So they are the two times I would use it most with clients. Either is it a shake on the go or a recovery shake after training, or adding it to foods just to bump that protein up a little bit, particularly if they're certain foods they're not overly fond of.
Yeah, Susie, thank you for coming on healthy anytime. Well, there you go, just add pumpkin seats to every meal, or perhaps that might give you too much protein. Well, add a few here and there enjoy them as a snack. Thanks for listening to this chat with Susie. If you did enjoy it, make sure you rate and review it,
or you can subscribe to this podcast. Anything else, head to Body and soul dot com dot you follows on socials, Grab our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper, and until tomorrow, stay healthy.