Dr. Luc (Luke) van Loon

And, of course, if you start using plant-based protein isolates or plant-derived proteins, I should say, it gets easier.

So basically years ago, we looked at all the commercially available protein extracts, so plant-derived proteins.

And then you see that some of them are actually low in leucine, but some, just as corn, is actually higher in leucine than most animal-derived proteins.

So not all plant-based proteins are the same.

The deficiencies in lysine and methionine is also one protein can be very deficient in methionine.

The other one is actually deficient in lysine but not in methionine.

So there's not one specific protein that I would say that one is the best.

But you can mix up and blend different plant-based proteins that actually together have a very nice protein, balanced amino acid protein.

So combinations are great.

What we expected from our studies with the individual proteins, that they would actually show a lesser response, and that by adding some milk protein, we would actually compensate for that.

But in all those proteins, like the pea protein, we actually did not find a lesser muscle protein synthetic response.

But I do need to note that we did that with 30 grams of a protein extract, so you don't have the digestibility issue.

Yeah, so one of the things, I mean, some amino acids may have stronger signaling properties, but of course, if you're trying to build a protein, you need all the building blocks, all the different building blocks, and that includes methionine and lysine, of course.

So you need sufficient of all the amino acids.

Now, you can actually take blends with, and we used a blend with three different plant-based proteins, and that worked fine.

But you also see that some combinations, for example, one's low in methionine and the other one low in lysine, they actually make nice blends.

And funny enough, if you start looking at those proteins, then you suddenly realize that all over the world, people are consuming meals that actually have proteins that are very nicely compensatory or matching.

And so when I saw those data the first time, I suddenly realized why a fajita actually has beans in it.

So the wheat and the beans is actually a nice complementary amino acid mix.

So it's really funny if you see that.