Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I am new to body building but have been a vegan since 2008 and have to ask. I just read this by renowned body builder who goes by the name of 'Scooby' who lead me to this site. He said the following:

"Now lets look at the problem that vegans face. The highest quality protein available to them is soy and it only has a quality of 117, nowhere near as good as chicken or eggs. They need to be experts on the amino acid profiles of everything they eat so they can combine food through out the day to get the all the essential amino acids they need. The second major obstacle vegans face is in getting enough protein without exceeding their daily caloric budget. All the proteins available to vegans also come with a healthy dose of carbohydrates so vegans need to be very, very strict about their nutrition in order to get sufficient protein with the amount of calories they have available."

Having found this great community, I would love to know what you guys are doing about this.

To learn more about the issue of protein quality, please visit the page cited below.

Thank you!


Why Vegans Are At A Disadvantage
http://scoobysworkshop.com/vegetarianism/#

Didn't Scooby end up going veggie/vegan too?
Either way, I really enjoy his videos, he's got a great personality.

Thanks for the reply

Scooby is a vegetarian but not a vegan in that he does allow things like milk and eggs into his diet.

He says on his website that he is not vegetarian

"As an aside, I do eat meat once or twice a week"

I see no real disadvantage, as far as I'm aware at any rate. Check out durianrider on YouTube, not a body builder but an impressive athlete non the less

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I think for bodybuilding there is a definite disadvantage, but the disadvantage is mostly in food options. You have very few things you can choose to eat because you have to constantly eat high protein foods.

For endurance athletics, I think the difference is minimal, if any.

I would think the advantage is just that meat eaters can get calories requirements much easier, where as we would have to eat much more.

I don't think their protein is "better".

I am not an expert by any means at all, and everything I know is really anecdotal. But, looking through the profiles on this website, you can see what people have achieved. None of them say "when I switched to veganism, things got much harder". So I find it unlikely that there is a disadvantage, of any significance.

The ratio of vegans to non-vegans is very, very low. Add to that, most vegans are actually not interested in fitness or bodybuilding (I think, primarily because the people who become vegan do it for ethical reasons, and are generally less concerned with what they look like, and more concerned with animal rights issues etc). So, there are going to be hardly any examples of vegan bodybuilders (in comparison to non-vegan bodybuilders). With such a difference in numbers, of course there will also be larger numbers of non-vegan bodybuilders who achieve larger size. I don't think that that indicates that it's harder for vegans, it's more likely to me that there are just less vegans who are aiming for that.

There may also be mistakes that people make when becoming vegan, but I don't think that means that veganism is "hard" to deal with. The changes needed (primarily, eating more of the right foods) are not complex.

Finally I want to add that it's not as clear cut as saying "non-veganism leads to better results than veganism". First of all, non-veganism and veganism are not black and white. It's not as though everyone who eats a non-vegan diet eats precisely the same meals as each other, and likewise, the same is not true of vegans. So it's impossible to compare. But even more importantly, just comparing the lifestyles on what they may do for your bodybuilding short-term (over a span of a few years), is ultimately irrelevant when you consider what high levels of animals products will do to you long term. I realise the following is a little extreme, but you could find a drug which pumps you up and makes your muscles huge for 10 years, then after that it kills you. You might say "people who don't take that drug are at a disadvantage in terms of bodybuilding" - but would you recommend people take it?

Until better vegan protein products were developed, yes, there was a very real disadvantage.

Now, I'm fairly confident you can be a beast and a vegan at the same time. The fact is that high achievement in anything is usually difficult and is rare by definition, so whether or not there's a disadvantage is immaterial - it's always hard.

There are guys on the site like Edward Goins who do great without supplements.

Scooby is great but he is a bit of a food nazi (he even admits this)
to be honest though, whether or not I am at a disadvantage being a vegan with an ambition to grow strength and size I don't mind at all, I certainly wouldn't quit being vegan just to make better gains.

spot on matey! +1

Seconded!

Well I have researched that sietan (wheat gluten) is the guest form of protein for a vegan. 16g per 100g
So how much Protien would I need to eat if my BF is 21 I want to be about 15 BF.

Thanks

Going vegan has its own advantages rather than disadvantages.