Many prominent doctors and scientists would say yes. Plant protein comes packaged with fiber and phytonutrients that animal protein lacks.
Another very important distinction between animal and plant-derived protein is that animal proteins contain very large amounts of the basic element sulfur. This sulfur is found in two of the amino acids, methionine and cysteine. Your body makes other sulfur-containing amino acids from these two primary sulfur-containing amino acids, including keto-methionine, cystine, homocysteine, cystathionine, taurine, and cysteic acid.
Meat, dairy, and eggs provide an excess of these sulfur-containing amino acids beyond your needs, which places a burden on your body and detracts from your health.
Vegetable protein protects your health in several ways:
- Vegetable protein protects your bones. Vegetable protein is alkaline. It neutralizes acid and prevents osteoporosis and kidney stones. Amino acids, as the name implies, are acids. The sulfur-containing amino acids, which are abundant in meat, dairy, and eggs, are the strongest acids of all, because they break down into powerful sulfuric acid. This acid must be neutralized by your body. Calcium and other minerals are released from your bones to neutralize the acids, leading to osteoporosis and kidney stones. Eating animal protein results in a large amount of waste products in your blood. In an effort to remove this overabundance of waste protein, the flow of blood through your kidneys increases, and calcium is filtered out of your body. While your kidneys attempt to return much of this filtered calcium back to your bones, the acid and sulfur-containing amino acids from the animal foods thwart your body's attempts to conserve calcium. In fact, the calcium in your kidneys can form into solid kidney stones. Every 10 grams of animal protein in excess of 30 grams daily increases urinary calcium loss by 16 mg. Doubling animal protein intake increases the loss of calcium in your urine by 50%. Plant protein does not have a detrimental effect on calcium, bone loss, or kidney stones.
- Vegetable protein reduces your risk for heart attack, stroke, vascular disease and blood clots in your legs, cognitive impairment, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and depression. Vegetable protein lowers the levels of homocysteine in your blood. Your body metabolizes the abundant methionine from meat into homocysteine. The more meat in your diet, the higher your blood level of homocysteine, and the higher your risk for all those diseases.
- Vegetable protein lowers your risk of cancer.Normal cells can grow without high levels of methionine in your diet, whereas cancer cells, especially those that cause breast, lung, colon, kidney, skin, and brain cancers, depend on high levels of methionine being in your diet in the form of meat and dairy products. Meat and dairy products also raise the levels of a powerful growth stimulating hormone, called insulin-like growth factor - 1 (IGF-1), which promotes the growth of cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, and lung.
- Vegetable protein helps prevent a life-threatening inflammatory bowel disease called ulcerative colitis. Sulfur from diet of high-methionine (animal) foods is toxic to the tissues of your intestines, even at low levels.
- Vegetable protein prolongs life by changing the rate at which you age. Restriction of methionine in their diets has prolonged the life of animals. A diet based on plant foods is inherently lower in both calories and methionine than a diet dependent on meat, dairy, and eggs, and is the easiest and most effective way to live a long and healthy life.
- Vegetable protein makes you smell better. Methionine-rich animal protein creates foul-smelling odors. Bad breath, body odor, and flatulence that smells of rotten eggs are a direct results of the sulfur (animal protein) you eat.
Others would say: There is no difference. Protein is protein. However there are CRITICAL nutrients you need that come along with both plant and animal protein that cannot be gotten otherwise.
