There are plenty of benefits to vegan protein powder.
Whether it’s to help you lose weight or build muscle, vegan protein powder helps you get the most out of your body.
Vegan protein powder, in my opinion, is the best option out there when it comes down to supplementing protein in your diet.
While the list of benefits goes on and on, I’ll try to keep it readable!
Now, without further ado, here they are,
The 7 Benefits Of Vegan Protein Powder
Benefit #1: Animal-free
Being animal-free ranks as the best overall benefit of vegan protein powder for me.
By eliminating animals from the process, there are several benefits that come into play, making it that much easier to go vegan with your protein powder.
Odds are, if you’re not using vegan protein powder, you’re buying whey protein. If you’re not familiar with what whey made of, it’s essentially the curdled aftermath of the dairy industry.
With plant-based powders, you won’t have to deal with any of the side effects that come with consuming the milk-based whey, which is known to make people gassy and bloated.
Aside from the digestion issues, you’ll avoid by going animal-free, you will also be helping the environment. The dairy and farming industries play a major role in pollution on both a local and global level.
Antibiotics actually tie in with the pollution brought on by the dairy industry. Since the animals are all pumped full of antibiotics, some of those antibiotics have been known to leak into nearby water and soil.
Human resistance to antibiotics remains constant, and animal consumption plays a role in that.
Since the food we eat is full of these medications, in turn the people who eat them are too. This builds a resistance to antibiotics which poses a major threat to healthcare in the future.
I’ll touch on this a little bit more later.
I admit I haven’t made the jump to being completely vegan, but I do my best to steer clear of animal products whenever I can, especially with protein powder.
I like to think of myself as some who works their diet around more plant-based food.
It’s smart to avoid consuming animal products if you can, the link to long-term health issues is undeniable.
Benefit #2: Builds Muscle
Contrary to popular belief, vegan protein powder is capable of providing you with the same amount of protein as whey.
While the protein content itself may be slightly lower, it’s still easy to meet your daily protein goals.
Two common proteins known for increased muscle building are leucine and lysine.
You can find protein powders that are rich in both amino acids with things like soy protein, pea protein as well as sunflower and sesame seeds.
Protein powder such as Vivo Life becomes an easy choice when your bottom line is building muscle.
It’s rich in amino acids that build muscle and tastes great.
Benefit #3: Weight Loss
Using vegan protein powder won’t make you lose weight on your own, but it certainly helps.
If you’re using vegan protein powder to replace entire meals, this serves as an effective way to fill you up and cut down on your total consumption throughout the day.
Since you can hand-pick which protein powder you’re going with, you can also cater to your total calorie consumption, as well as your protein consumption. That way you can manage your weight easily, and keep your meals simple.
It also helps that the plant-based alternatives are almost always lower in calories than their whey/animal counterparts.
Soy protein has also been shown to decrease your appetite, making those protein shakes even more effective.
It’s still recommended to eat whole food meals like vegetables, beans, or meat substitutes like tofu or tempeh at least once or twice a day.
Benefit #4: Rich in Nutrients
Another added benefit of vegan protein powder that whey does not have is the additional nutrients you’ll find alongside your plant-based options.
While they may be rich in nutrients, vegan diets are notorious for lacking a sufficient amount of Vitamin B-12. Make sure you supplement that in your diet with vitamins from the store or other foods rich in Vitamin B-12.
Most protein powders will vary greatly in the nutrients they provide.
My go-to vegan protein powder has all sorts of added nutrients like digestive enzymes including gelatinised maca powder, Lucuma fruit powder, freeze dried Acai berry and more.
It’s made using yellow pea protein, which is one of the highest vegetable-based protein sources. Not only that, but it’s mixed along with cold pressed hemp protein, which highlights how important it is to ensure you’re getting protein from multiple different sources.
Additional nutrients that can be found in Vivo Life Protein are turmeric, Reishi mushroom fruiting extract, and pink Himalayan salt.
Check out my review for Vivo Life Protein here – it’s one of my favorites, and tastes excellent too.
Benefit #5: Great Taste
As I highlighted above, Vivo Life Protein tastes incredible. It has a rich, organic flavor that’s not overbearing in sugar or sweetness.
I love the flavor profile of this one, it tastes hearty and natural. It lacks that chemical and metallic taste I tend to find in so many protein powders.
The options are endless when it comes to changing up the taste. There’s an entire catalog of popular vegan flavors such as these:
- Madagascan Vanilla
- Acai & Blueberry
- Salted Maca Caramel
- Raw Cacao
- Banana & Cinnamon
I love the Madagascan vanilla and Raw Cacao when I’m looking for protein shake as a snack.
That rich, organic flavor never becomes too much for me!
Benefit #6: Helps with Digestion
The fiber-rich and nutrient-filled vegan protein powders improve your digestive system in many different ways.
The fiber helps by allowing your body to absorb more nutrients, making your protein powder that much more effective.
That isn’t the only way fiber helps though, it also builds up your immune system and helps it stay in tact.
Along with the fiber, they also have various nutrients included in them that can help your body’s digestive system.
Some powders might contain antioxidants which cleanse your body.
The limitations are nearly endless with vegan protein powder, you can choose from different plant sources for the base of your protein powder, and then look for brands that include the certain vitamins, nutrients, or supplements you need in your diet.
Benefit #7: No hormones or antibiotics
This is another added benefit of being animal-free, and I felt like this one was so important it deserves its own spot on this list.
The animals that make up the dairy industry, which is where whey protein and most other common protein brands come from, are constantly pumped with antibiotics to ensure they stay alive longer and don’t get sick in their poor conditions.
When this happens, there can be residual amounts of those same antibiotics in the animal products you consume. That includes things like whey protein, or even milk from the supermarket.
Not only that, but those antibiotics also find their way into the local ecosystems, getting into the soil and damaging local crops and food sources for animals, as well as leaking into the water systems, polluting things like lakes and rivers and causing damage to local wildlife.
Research shows the added hormones in animal products can lead to things like breast and prostate cancer.
You should be cautious of these effects around puberty age, as studies show that even at very low doses these hormones may have significant biological effects.
In Conclusion
Now you have it, these are the 7 benefits of vegan protein powder.
I don’t doubt I could come up with hundreds more, but these are the most important to me.
While whey protein may have been popular in the past, the days of plant-based options have been here for a while!
The options are endless, it tastes great, it’s nutritious, and most importantly, it’s animal-free.
Removing animal products from your daily life, especially your diet, will be greatly beneficial to both you and the environment!
What vegan protein powder offers whey protein doesn’t, you can read about that here in my Plant Vs Whey protein powder article, there’s more to protein powder than being cheap and helping you build muscle.
With plant-based options, you can do all of that and so much more!
