Joey Thurman:
Welcome back to Talking Plant Protein. I'm Joey Thurman.

Nicole Astra:
And I'm Nicole Astra.

Joey Thurman:
The alternative protein market is growing exponentially with multiple sources estimating it has a potential to reach $30 billion. I said billion, Nicole, in the near future. Many of the products you're from familiar with contains soy or pea protein. And while we certainly think they're here to stay, we're excited to highlight a few sources that you may not be familiar with.

Nicole Astra:
Of all the things we know about plants, truthfully, we know very little. So I get excited when we talk about the dark matter of plants. First up is Meaty Foods and the work they're doing with mycelium, the root structure of the mushroom. Here's their co-founder Tyler Huggins.

Tyler Huggins:
The market is demanding alternatives to animal-based meat, but they don't want to do it in a way that sacrifices taste and the eating experience. And they want it to be healthy and deliver quality nutrition for them. I think the advantage of mushrooms or in particular mycelium, the roots of the mushroom, is that it's just super nutrient packed. Again, providing all the same protein content that you would find in a beef steak. And in a whole food and I think that's super important. I think people are looking for something that is from the earth, that's all natural. And that's what mycelium is able to offer.

Joey Thurman:
Yeah. You're a mushroom fan?

Nicole Astra:
I'm a mushroom fan.

Joey Thurman:
I know she likes the mushroom.

Nicole Astra:
Yes. They are a powerhouse. They have the potential to heal the world, Joey.

Joey Thurman:
I like them. I do reishi and lions main and put it in smoothies and stuff because I'm a texture dude. So give me a powder, I'm good to go.

Nicole Astra:
Texture. We were just talking to one of our techs about how Illinois is known for foraging, in fact. So this spring we'll take you guys along on a little tour of foraging for mushrooms.

Joey Thurman:
We're going to forage away.

Nicole Astra:
Let's do it.

Joey Thurman:
Now as a nutrition specialist, I see the concept of you are what you eat playing out in the health of our bodies every day. Shadia Al Hili is the founder of Cuzena. She is a self-proclaimed foodie with a passion for bringing ancient Arabic recipes to the mainstream. Along the way, she learned about the incredible medicinal properties of fava beans, my favorite.

Nicole Astra:
Always the dad jokes. Check her out.

Shadia Al Hili:
I came in to this arena, if you like, largely just with a recipe and enjoying food. And it was only going through the nutrients and the added value that this fava bean could give in a really simple format. And understanding it has minerals, one being levodopa, which probably excites me the most. Levodopa is a mineral amino acid that is largely found in the medication of Parkinson's, dementia, autoimmune. So I'm like, okay, okay. And contacting Parkinson's and dementia societies and looking at different parts of the world where that is lower, if you like. And trying to understand, okay, it's on the front of medical science, but they're not things we can scream about. So I suppose that very line of you are what you eat and thinking, okay, if levodopa is in the fava bean and it's also used in medication, if you consume more of this, this can help.

Nicole Astra:
Head to talkingplantprotein.com to hear her full story. She's all about bringing people to the table. That's why she loves food, the community of it all. And I have to say her stuff looks amazing. I can't wait for it to be available in states. But if I'm being honest, I get a little nervous when we have to taste things on camera. I'm too picky.

Joey Thurman:
I'm okay. I'll eat it. And it's fine. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Right?

Nicole Astra:
Well, I did taste the next product that you're going to see, Cool Beans Wraps. And I have to be honest, they were delicious.

Joey Thurman:
They were cool beans?

Nicole Astra:
They were cool beans, baby.

Joey Thurman:
Dad joke number two.

Nicole Astra:
You can see the ingredients just by cutting it open. So whole ingredients. Delicious. Let's take a look.

Nicole Astra:
Tell me about that drive that created Cool Beans.

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah. I'm all about sustainable food and agriculture and trying to move our food system forward. And so as a private equity investor, I saw some of the evils of the food system and I was trying to fix that both with Cool Beans, as well as with the impact investing that I do.

Nicole Astra:
And really this was birthed out of you creating food for yourself as a new plant-based eater.

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah, absolutely. I went vegan five, five and a half years ago. And when I did, I went vegan for climate change, but ultimately started to learn about the health benefits of plant-based food. And so came up with the concept because I was starting to make food, freeze it, wrap it into wraps and then take it to work. And thought, why isn't there good food like this available? Everything in a grocery store was kind of vegan junk food. And so we really wanted to create something that was whole food ingredients.

Nicole Astra:
Okay. So let's stay there for a second because not only do we have some of your ingredients displayed and they're whole, they're colorful, this is what I want my kids to be eating. I don't really always have time for that. But when we go for the easier options, it's not always healthy. Not all foods are processed the same. Right?

Tyler Mayoras:
Right.

Nicole Astra:
I've watched you cook these now in the studio and what strikes me is I can see the ingredients. I mean, first of all, these do not look like a microwaved wrap. This is a microwave wrap.

Tyler Mayoras:
Thank you. Thank you for that.

Nicole Astra:
It does not look like that at all. This is a gluten free wrap.

Tyler Mayoras:
Yes.

Nicole Astra:
It doesn't even feel like that. It's not mushy. And we tell the truth here in Talking Plant Protein. So I'm going to be honest with you, but that's what struck me first as you were plating these up was I can see all of the ingredients listed.

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah. Everything is whole food ingredients. So, and we just have beans, veggies, whole grains, and spices and the spices bring the flavor.

Nicole Astra:
Okay. Tell me what I'm about to taste. And then your other-

Tyler Mayoras:
This is sesame ginger, which is our Asian flavor. And so obviously that's sesame and ginger and it has edamame and a few other.

Nicole Astra:
And it's sweet.

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's going to be probably our best seller in the future. That's a new flavor that we just introduced. Our current bests seller is tikka masala, which is an Indian flavoring and has chickpeas and cauliflower. And then Tuscan basil is another new flavor and that's spinach and tomato and basil. Then we have Moroccan gold, which is kind of a sweet potato, kind of sweet and savory. It's a Moroccan tagine. Has millet and navy beans. And then lastly is spicy chipotle. That's my favorite. It's very smoky and spicy.

Nicole Astra:
And how do you settle on these flavors? The mix of spices that go in?

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah, so we knew that younger and younger people have more international taste and are interested in more international flavors. So that's really kind of where we started the center. And then we really just tried a lot of different things. So we had our food scientists create lots of different flavors, and then we tried them and figured out what ones did we like the best.

Nicole Astra:
Are you going to stay within wraps do you think? Or what's next for Cool Beans?

Tyler Mayoras:
Ultimately, we want to have a whole family of whole food, plant-based products. So we've started with burritos, but in the future, we'll probably have bowls and breakfast items and other things as well.

Nicole Astra:
Okay. And you have distribution across the US?

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah. We are in 1,300 stores now, Sprouts, Wegmans, Safeway, Northern California, but expanding that and hope to be. Growing we're just about a year and a half in so far.

Nicole Astra:
So it might be easier to ask this question and reverse about the nutritional content. Maybe we should start with what is not in these?

Tyler Mayoras:
Yeah. We have no fake meat, no fake cheese. None of those analogs. We're zero saturated fat for the most part. Tikka has a little bit because of coconut milk, but really we didn't want any of that stuff, the fake stuff that really causes a lot of the nutritional issues with most vegan food.

Nicole Astra:
Well, it tastes fantastic. It is sustainable.

Tyler Mayoras:
Yes.

Nicole Astra:
It is passionately driven, which we also love here on Talking Plant Protein. So I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.

Joey Thurman:
And their slogan is peace, love and legumes. I don't have a hand gesture for legumes, but there it is. You got to love that.

Nicole Astra:
You got to love that. The real test for me is would I buy this and would my kids eat it? So for Cool Beans, it's a hundred percent. Dr. Mario hosts the Health, Spice, and Life show. He gave us his top go-to protein sources that you might not be familiar with, but they are also family friendly.

Dr. Mario:
I love this one because being Latino, I love rices. While this one has a little bit of a rice flavor, the texture is different and is actually a fun dish that you can actually even bring to your breakfast. I would never consider actually having rice and beans for my breakfast. Although in some countries like Costa Rica, they do it. And this one is quinoa.

Nicole Astra:
Quinoa.

Dr. Mario:
And quinoa, which is a whole grain people think of this such, but in fact, it's actually a seed. This is a very interesting distinction. Many people may not know that. It's considered a seed. It actually has the richest protein content per weight out of any seed that we can think of. For example, you can actually have eight grams in every cup compared to, let's say five grams if you're thinking about maybe a cup of brown rice, or maybe you're thinking about a cup of oatmeal.

Dr. Mario:
So this is incredibly rich. And something that I love about this powerhouse is the fact that it can take flavors so well. So it's really flexible, if you will, for your habits in terms of what you like to season things with, because it's really moldable to that. It really loves to take whatever you put on it. And like I said, here's a clincher. Let's say that you want to have something a little bit crunchier, maybe just a little bit different that you can put your cinnamon on it. Maybe you like to put some dry fruits. Maybe you like to put some nuts, or even if you like to sweeten it with some organic maple syrup, just a little drizzle. Somehow now quinoa has become part of your breakfast for your family. So love that one. The second one, this is actually a great one.

Dr. Mario:
And I remember when I started doing this over 20 years ago, and there has been as you know, Nicole, such an evolution in the products in this category. And it's the milk. Now, obviously we're now talking about dairy-based milk. We're talking about the unsweetened plant-based milks, such as the ones that we can actually make, or we can buy them already made with almonds, or we can actually have that with cashews. Or in some cases, and this is one of my favorite, macadamia nut base milk.

Nicole Astra:
Oh, I haven't tried that one before.

Dr. Mario:
Oh, it's so great. And this area has actually exponentially grown in terms of how accessible it is. The flavors they're really there. And when you actually look at the containers, essentially what you're going to have is purified water in some cases, Himalayan salt, which is super healthy. And then the organic based nuts that are being used to produce the unsweetened plant based milk. So this is a super powerhouse. Absolutely love it.

Dr. Mario:
The third one, which is actually another unsweetened one and I love that again because we have tremendous challenges with glycemic indices or sugar indices here in the United States. And some other developed nations as well, is actually almond butter. Let's say that, our audience, they like peanut butter, which some of them are actually very healthy as well. Almond butter has a fantastic rich taste and you can really spread it in so many different things. It doesn't take away from the flavor. It actually enhances it. And you're taking all the nutritional value with it. In our home for our kids and even for the not so kids I have to confess, we absolutely love the unsweetened almond butter products.

Dr. Mario:
And lastly, this is another one that I absolutely love, and this is going to be a bit of a bonus if you will in this conversation, Nicole. And it's actually the plant-based meats. This is an area that has been poo-pooed by many people like, oh, please don't tell me that we can actually have a plant-based meat that doesn't really taste great. The fact of the matter is there has been tremendous developments in the flavor of these "meats" that are plant protein based sort of meats. And in 2021, what a great opportunity, especially now that we've been dealing with a pandemic and eating a lot at home to give something a different spin, a different try, and to bring it into your kitchen and treat it as such we're actually really cooking anything else that is a meat based product.

Dr. Mario:
Because the flavor, the natural flavors are there. But most importantly, as we had discussed in other segments here in the channel, you can actually have all the benefits of consuming the protein without the negative effects that can come from the animal-based proteins. So those are my actual go-tos. And I think, like I said, that probably as you're watching this, you're thinking, well, that was actually fun. And the idea of just thinking of spinach and kale completely went away with this powerhouses.

Joey Thurman:
Did you know it was a seed? Quinoa?

Nicole Astra:
I actually didn't know. And I ate it all the time.

Joey Thurman:
Yeah.

Nicole Astra:
Yeah.

Joey Thurman:
Mostly little kind of crunchy, if you don't cook it enough. I like it. You like it softer or crunchier?

Nicole Astra:
I like it al dente, I guess, right there in the middle, but I never thought of it for breakfast so I love that tip. Yeah.

Joey Thurman:
I'm a fan too. All right. Last topic of the day whey versus plant protein. Does plant protein have the same benefits as whey? Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan from University of North Carolina explains how science has helped answer that question.

Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan:
Yeah. So I think the important thing to realize is that protein is important and we can get that through lots of different sources. When we look at the data, whey is still the best quality of protein, but there's a lot of reasons we might not take whey for intolerances and animal rights. There's lots of different reasons. And so the science and the technology has caught up with plant proteins in that if formulated correctly, we can get all of our essential amino acids in a plant-based protein and still get a lot of the healthy fibers and phytonutrients that you would get from a plant that aren't always in a whey.

Joey Thurman:
Now it's really interesting from the consumer side, I think the people are really confused with whey versus plant. And whey basically, if you've got the Greek yogurt, the liquid on top, that's whey or a derivative of the cheese making process. Plants are just made from beans or quinoa or anything else. And I think the main thing to point out is it's kind of like splitting hairs. Now she works with the top athletes in the world. So whey protein after workout, things like for her specific demographic makes sense. But if you're average individual, I think it doesn't matter.

Nicole Astra:
Yeah. When you need it for performance value, that's a different thing. But wouldn't you say in your research and who you've talked to that they're kind of inching align with each other for animal derivative and alternative protein?

Joey Thurman:
Yeah. They're very close because the plant-based now they're adding the different BCAs and essential amino acids that you need in there. And it is going towards more of an overall throughout the day what you're getting in your system besides each additional meal. But athletes are a little bit different.

Nicole Astra:
And I'm smiling because anytime I can get him to kind of admit that we don't need animal protein, I'm happy.

Joey Thurman:
I'm a fan. I like the plant protein. Thanks for joining us today on Talking Plant Protein. I'm Joey Thurman.

Nicole Astra:
And I'm Nicole Astra. We'll see you next time.

Joey Thurman:
My favorite TPP so far.