 They have heard about meat made out of wheat protein, meat made out of soybean protein, and meats made out of pea protein. But mycoprotein is a relatively new addition. Meat made from the mushroom kingdom popular in Europe commercialized as corn, which makes not just meat-free beef, but chicken-free chicken, fishless fish, and pig-free pork, just in case someone would like to eat plant-based, but can't give up their cocktail weenies. Environmental impact-wise, corned beef has at least a 10 times smaller carbon footprint than beef. Corned chicken at least four times better than chicken and chicken. And health-wise, it's high in protein and fiber, low in fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar, as one would expect. But most importantly, there have been clinical trials showing it may help people control cholesterol, blood sugar on insulin levels, and improve satiety. No surprise, given that not only the fiber, but the mycoprotein itself is fermentable by our good gut bugs, so can also act as a prebiotic for our friendly flora. There have been rare authenticated reports of people with mycoprotein allergies, and even more with unvalidated complaints. But given how many billions of packages have been sold, the rate of allergic reactions may be on the order of like 1 in 9 million. Here's the cholesterol data converted into U.S. numbers. Also significant drops in total in LDL cholesterol, more than 30 points within 8 weeks. In terms of satiety, as I noted in my evidence-based weight loss presentation, both tofu and corn have been found to have satiating qualities that are stronger than chicken, for corn among both lean subjects, and overweight and obese individuals. Cutting down a subsequent meal intake hours later. You know, it's funny when the meat industry funds obesity studies on chicken. They choose for their head-to-head comparison foods like cookies and sugar-coated chocolates. This is a classic drug industry trick where you make your product look better by comparing it against something worse. Apparently just regular chocolate wasn't enough to make chicken look better. But what happens when chicken is pitted against a real control like chicken without the actual chicken? Chicken chickens out. For example, feed people a chicken and rice lunch and four and a half hours later, they eat 18% more of a dinner buffet than those instead who got a corn and rice lunch, cutting about 200 calories on average. Part of the reason plant-based meats may be less fattening is that they cause less of an insulin spike. A meat-free chicken like corn causes up to 41% less of an immediate insulin reaction. It turns out animal protein causes almost exactly as much insulin release as pure sugar. Just adding some egg whites to your diet can increase insulin output at 60% within four days, and fish may be even worse. Why would adding tuna to mashed potatoes spike up insulin levels? But adding broccoli instead dropped the insulin response by about 40%. It's not the fiber. Since giving the same amount of broccoli fiber alone provided no significant benefit. So why does animal protein make things worse, but plant protein make things better? Plant proteins tend to be lower in the branched chain amino acids, which are associated with insulin resistance, the cause of type 2 diabetes. You can show this experiment, like give some vegans branched chain amino acids. You make them as insulin resistant as omnivores, or take omnivores and put them through even a 48-hour vegan diet challenge and within two days. You can see the opposite significant improvements in metabolic signatures. Why? Because decreased consumption of branched chain amino acids improves metabolic health. Check this out. Those randomized to restrict their protein intake were averaging literally hundreds more calories per day. So they should have become fatter, right? But no, they actually lost more body fat. Restricting their protein enabled them to eat more calories. Well, at the same time they lost more calories, yet a loss of body fat. And this magic protein restriction? They were just having people eating the recommended amount of protein. So maybe they should have called this the normal protein group, or the recommended protein group and the group that was eating the more typical American protein levels and suffering because of it, the excess protein group. Given the restoration of metabolic health by decreased consumption of branched chain amino acids, leaders in the field have suggested the invention of drugs to block their absorption, to promote metabolic health and treat diabetes and obesity without reducing caloric intake. Therefore, we can just try not to eat so many branched chain amino acids in the first place. They are found mostly in meat, including chicken and fish, dairy products, and eggs, perhaps explaining why animal protein has been associated with higher diabetes risk, whereas plant protein appears protected. So defining the appropriate upper limits of animal protein intake may offer a great chance for the prevention of type 2 diabetes and obesity.