Dhru Purohit Show - What You Need to Know About Lead and Other Heavy Metals In Your Protein Powder

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

This episode is brought to you by Birch Living, Our Place, Pique Life, and Fatty15. If you’ve been following this podcast, you know we’ve had several experts emphasize the importance of adequate protein intake, and sometimes that comes in the form of protein powder. But if you’ve seen the recent headlines, you might be wondering whether protein powder could actually be harmful to your health. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru breaks down the research behind a recent Consumer Reports investigation into lead found in protein powders. He shares the behind-the-scenes details of how the study was conducted, including which products were tested, the process used, and the standards applied to measure levels of concern. Dhru also discusses which products tested higher, provides practical ways to reduce exposure to heavy metals, and highlights what the article may have overlooked.  In this episode, Dhru dives into: Introduction: Why some people are rethinking their daily protein shake (00:00)  The truth behind the headlines (2:00) How products were tested, the testing process, and standards (4:00) What the report revealed (7:30) Why lead shows up in our food? (17:19) Best and worst options for reducing exposure (19:19) Why some proteins test cleaner (26:46) How to lower your daily exposure (33:36) What the article overlooked (36:16)  Why protein matters (39:16)  Final thoughts (42:16) *Correction: Equip Foods: No Natural Flavors in Chocolate Protein Powder Also mentioned in this episode: Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Solo Episode Community Survey The Truth About Lead Powder In Protein  Dhru’s Smoothie Recipe Try This: Nighttime Light Exposure Study Try This: They once called her crazy, but today she's celebrated as a hero This episode is brought to you by Birch Living, Our Place, Pique Life, and Fatty15. Birch is exclusively offering my community 27% off their Birch Living mattress and two Eco-Rest pillows with your mattress purchase. Just head to birchliving.com/dhru today to get this offer today.  Reduce your toxic load by upgrading your cookware! Go to fromourplace.com today and use promo code DHRU at checkout to receive 10% off any order. Ready for your healthiest glow? Get 20% off for life, a complimentary gift, and explore the clean, plant-powered essentials behind your favorite new routine at piquelife.com/DHRU. Fatty15 is offering an additional 15% off its 90-day subscription Starter Kit. Go to fatty15.com/dhru and use code DHRU to replenish your C15 levels for long-term health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone, Drew Prode here. I have a fun solo episode for you today about some things that I've been paying attention to. Starting off with something that's been making the headlines in the last few weeks that's been getting all the attention. And if you just believe the headlines and you did what they said, which was avoid all protein powders, it could harm your health. What am I talking about? I'm talking about five things you need to know about a viral report that talked about heavy metals in, our protein powders. And the reason I'm talking about this is because if you've been paying attention to this podcast for the last two, three, four years, we've been on like so many people, the protein train. Understanding that protein, as our friend Dr. Gabrielle Alliance says, is the fuel for muscle. And muscle is the building blocks of longevity. And it's the protective aspect of our entire body,

our bones. It's a metabolic sink. It burns glucose. When we have adequate muscle. muscle, we age better, and a big part of that is making sure we have appropriate amounts of protein in our diet. And one way that people have done that, including myself, over the past few years, is they've added in some supplemental protein. Because many people, including myself, I realized I just wasn't consuming enough for the goals that I had when it came to my longevity, my muscle mass, etc. And many of you are in that same boat. So when you came across the same headline that I came across, which was protein powders and shakes contained. high levels of lead, I'm sure you scratched your head and we're wondering, hey, is this true?

And do I need to start avoiding protein powder? I don't want any heavy metals in my body or any excessive amount of heavy metals. So, you know, the truth is this. Most people, they see these headlines and they walk away and they're just like, oh, you should be careful of protein and having too much protein because you may get higher levels of lead. But if we don't dig into the actual report, push back a little bit, understand what it's talking about, what it's not talking about. we will end up in a position where we'll have fear around something that could greatly benefit us.

So I'm sure you saw it, but Consumer Reports dropped a major investigation. They've done a few of these, but this was their most recent one, on heavy metals in protein powders. And there are some important things that I'm going to talk about in this first part of the episode, five things in particular. But first, I'm not trying to scare anyone heavy metals in our food supply. The truth is, when you dig into it, they're a fact of life. But here's the truth. These metals have compounding effects known as cumulative toxicity or toxic effects add up over time through repeated low dose exposure. In the case of lead, which is what this report was focusing on, there are really no safe levels of consumption.

And over time, chronic exposure, right? Chronic exposure can have serious health consequences or it can make health conditions that you're dealing with that much more worse. chronically and overtime. So what did this report say and what do you need to know to keep you and your family safe when it comes to these protein powders? Well, that's what I'm going to get into. Now, first off, I want to give a shout out to my team that I work with, my sisters, K. and Herschel, on my fantastic weekly newsletter. It's called Try This. And we covered this topic in depth in that newsletter. And this is the audio version of us talking about it and a couple other interesting studies that I've been paying attention to recently that I want to highlight for you.

You can sign up for free, completely free. There's no payment needed for Try This. If you want to subscribe and get it every Friday for free, just go to try this. Dot Drew Perrault.com. Honestly, it's so much easier if just click in the link in the show notes. It'll take you right there. But if you're typing it in, it's try this. Dot, Drew Perot, D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-I-T-com, and you can sign up for free.

All right, let's get into it. Number one. So how they tested the products inside of this report is super important. So here's a little background information on report. So consumer reports tested 23 popular protein powders and ready to drink protein powder shakes, including some that were dairy, beef, and plant sources, right? But plant proteins, which are very popular these days. Each product was tested independent by an accredited laboratory for a variety of heavy metals,

including lead, cadmium, and arsenic. And they were using multiple samples, which is considered standard and best practices. So two to three lots on average to ensure reliable results. And here's something super crucial to know. Because regulatory safe limits for many adults are lacking, they used California's Proposition 65

for the maximum allowable dose level of 0.5 micrograms of lead per day, as the informal benchmark. By the way, this is the strictest regulation on heavy metals in the United States. It's a good thing. It's from California Proposition 65, which I believe was passed sometime in the 80s.

And California, which is where I live, 1986 is when California Proposition 65 was voted in. California is one of very few states or maybe the only state where voters can actually put something on the ballot that they vote on in a special election. and have it enacted into law. It's a really interesting and unique thing as part of California.

So voters, because of environmental concerns around heavy metal exposure, environmental exposure, they ended up passing this Proposition 65. And because California is such a big state in the United States, and it's the fifth biggest economy in the world, right up there with Germany, California has a lot of sway in terms of how companies sell. So you might have even seen this before. Sometimes you go buy a product or a supplement or a greens powder on a website. And they'll have a little notification that might say, honestly, we're so used to it in this day and age that many of us ignore it.

But it'll say something like items inside this product are known to be harmful for human health, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's like a warning label that typically comes along with it. Again, you've probably seen this, but we see it all the time that we ignore it. And that's part of Proposition 65. You have to let consumers know that what they're buying may contain, you know, maybe cancer-causing ingredients or other types of ingredients that are there. In fact, if you've ever visited California, you have to look because almost every business has it.

You go into a Starbucks. If they're using certain regular cleaning products that they use in Texas and Tennessee and New York and other places, they'll have this warning sign that's there, you know, that they have to place in the corner. And it says, warning, this product contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects and other reproductive harm. It's scary when you read it, but the truth is a lot of us have gotten used to it. It's just that California is one of the only states that mandates it.

If this was a federal law, you'd see it in pretty much every store across America. But a lot of supplement stores online, when you buy from them, they have this warning that's there. So when that warning comes to lead, and that's what consumer reports was looking at. When it comes to lead, they use California's guidelines, which again are the strictest in the country, which says a maximum allowable dose level of 0.5 micrograms of lead per day. And that's what Consumer Reports was using. Okay. So that's the number one most important thing to realize is that they were measuring this,

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beautiful, and made for everyone to love. Okay, number two, here's what the report actually found. They found that about 70% roughly two-thirds of those products exceeded consumer reports level of concern, quote unquote, level of concern for lead per se. serving. And this is the big, big one that honestly was kind of buried inside of the leads of the different articles that were written about this. You know, there was an article on NBC and it said, warning, a new report found lead in some very popular protein powders, the New York Post, Fox News. They would make you think that this is every single protein powder that's out there.

And the truth is, the truth is most important, there's one particular type of protein. powder. Class of protein powder that's out there. And if you take away nothing from this episode, this is the major takeaway that's there. There's one category of protein powders that regularly end up having the highest levels of heavy metals, including lead. And that is, drum roll please, plant-based protein powders were the worst offenders. They averaged about nine times, nine times the level of lead of dairy-based protein powders and twice that of beef-based protein powders. They didn't test a ton of beef-based protein powders, but there were a few inside of there. So this is really important right away. We're seeing that plant-based powders

nine times the level of lead compared to dairy, which is usually way, and beef, which is usually like a beef isolate protein powder that's there. One plant-based powder, one of them in the test that consumer reports did, had 7.7 micrograms of lead in a single serving, which is 572% higher than the Prop 65 limit that was passed inside of California. 500%, almost 572% higher, 7.7 milligrams of lead. That is pretty scary and that's something that you absolutely want to avoid. I'm going to tell you which brand that was here in a second.

But zooming out for a minute, if they just were a little bit more accurate with the headlines, we know that's not the media's job because they're trying to get you to click. Listen, I try to get you to click on my podcast. So I'm, you know, trying to come up with creative titles, but I don't want to mislead anybody. And I hope that I'm not coming up with titles that are misleading. So I wish the media did a little bit of a better job on that. But the accurate title would have been plant-based protein powders test super high in lead. Do your best to avoid them, especially this particular flavor.

Can you guess what that flavor is? Well, I'm going to get into it in a second. So plant-based protein powders tested super high in lead, warning. But on average, weigh and animal-based protein powders were generally okay, right? but that doesn't get the headlines the same way that warning protein powders and shakes contain high levels of lead.

I'm going to read a little excerpt from the Consumer Report and I'm going to add Lib and give my thoughts on it. So just read the opening paragraph that they had inside of the report. Much has changed since Consumer Reports first tested protein powders and shakes. Over the past 15 years, America's obsession,

I like how they're talking about that, obsession with protein, not obsession with sugar, which we know that America has, right? not obsession with candy or pastries or, you know, toxic products, but obsession with protein has transformed what has been a niche product. Hey, protein should only be for some people here and there. What has transformed a niche product into the centerpiece of a billion dollar wellness craze.

So if you're into protein, not only are you obsessed? This is me talking, not the article. Not only are you obsessed, but you're part of a wellness craze, right? So we're crazy and we're obsessed if we're using protein. powders. So picking back up from the article, driving booming supplement sales and spawning a new crop of protein fortified foods that now saturate the supermarket shelves and the social media feeds. Next paragraph. Yet for all the industry's growth in rebranding, one thing hasn't changed. Protein powder still carry troubling levels of toxic heavy metals according to a new consumer

reports investigation. Immediately misleading, right? We know it's plant protein powders based on their own reporting. But nonetheless, I'm going to keep reading. Our latest test of 23 protein powders and ready to drink shakes from popular brands found that heavy metal contamination has become even more common among protein products raising concerns that the risks are growing alongside the industry shelf. So the article continues and they go into it, but it's not for a while into the article. You've got to dig into it. You got to go through a lot of what they're going through it's not for a while that they get into the fact that we're largely talking about plant protein and one particular flavor, which is chocolate.

Chocolate has much higher levels of lead than vanilla. And we can go into that in a little bit, but that's an important thing. So, you know, generally speaking, if you're consuming protein powders, already, if you're taking away just two important things from this episode, if you're avoiding plant protein, and I'm going to tell you the one plant protein that is super clean. I have no affiliation with them besides my friends started it, but I have no financial incentive to recommend it. And they're super trusted. And they did something very unique in the manufacturing process that helped them avoid having these high levels of lead and other heavy metals in their manufacturing process. I'll talk about that a little bit later.

But outside of that, if you generally just try to avoid plant-based protein powder and avoid chocolate flavor, you're in a much better position. And you're going to protect yourself and still be able to enjoy protein powder as part of a supplemental way of getting added protein into your diet. Okay, going back to what I was sharing. Okay, so as I mentioned, one plant-based powder had 572% higher than the limit of 0.5 micrograms. And here's the deal. Contextually, this is so important to understand because so many of us are asking, why the heck is there any amount of lead in protein, right? Sure, you're saying that weigh is a little bit better

and you're saying beef is a little bit better, but I don't want any lead in any of my stuff that I eat. But here's the honest truth. And you can look this up. You can read my article with the sources and everything like that. This is a fact. Anything grown in the ground

is going to have higher amounts of heavy metals and this includes whole vegetables. So if you go to Whole Foods and you buy a sweet potato, you go to Whole Foods, you buy broccoli. you grow to Whole Foods, you get anything that's grown in the ground, any single thing that's grown in the ground, even if it's organic, even if it's regeneratively grown or, you know, grown on some sort of magical farm with the best fairy dust posted on everything grown in the ground all around the world, but especially in America, has heavy metals inside of it. So

naturally, I'm going to ask everybody that's worried about heavy metals in our diet in general. That doesn't mean that we're going to give up eating vegetables, right? No. But it's good to have some around why plant proteins might have higher amounts of heavy metals on average. Of course, a big distinction is that plant proteins are much more concentrated than a typical whole vegetable grown in the ground. Like if you're going to make plant protein out of like, let's say, pea protein is a very common thing. If you're eating peas that are grown in the ground, their level of heavy metals is not

going to be the same as pea protein because you have to consolidate and process a lot of peas to get enough protein that somebody could get. let's say 20 grams of protein for like a scoop, which is a typical plant-based protein. Or a lot of proteins use rice. Well, rice is grown in the ground, right? A lot of proteins use brown rice. Brown rice has even more heavy metals in arsenic and lead than even white rice does. So anything grown in the ground, which is a common thing that these plant proteins use because they're plant-based.

They're not using a cow. They're not using dairy. That's not grown in the ground. They're not using beef isolate protein, right? That's not grown in the ground. But cows, of course, eat grass and use that to. to make their muscles and use that to make the dairy that they produce. I'll talk about that more in a second, but they're not grown in the ground themselves.

And their bodies have detoxification systems, which largely filter out a lot of those heavy metals, which is why whey and beef had way less amounts of heavy metals and managed to, on average, except for one brand they tested, managed to, on average, be under California's Proposition 65 safety limits. That's a huge distinction. Anything that's grown in the ground will have some, level of heavy metal exposure, but plant proteins in particular have higher levels of concentration of these heavy metals because you have to use so much of those peas or hemp or rice or whatever they're using in plant protein these days. You have to use so much of that to create protein. So that was

number two. Let's get into number three. Way in animal based proteins, as I mentioned, performed better. So this is the good news. High quality weigh protein consistently ranked the lowest and did not contain high amounts of lead. And beef protein performed better than plant protein. But beef protein tested equipped foods, which is one brand that sells beef protein, showed higher amounts of lead in their chocolate version. Their vanilla past, and this was a little bit sneaky. I think Equip is a great company, and they make some great products. I have no affiliation with them. I've talked to the founder a couple of times just to learn a little bit more about their brand, but they make a bunch of different types of products. And one of the products they make is they make a really

good chocolate beef protein, not the one that I consume daily, and they make a vanilla-based beef protein. They're vanilla one past, but their chocolate didn't. So this definitely tracks, considering that chocolate has unfortunately been shown to contain higher amounts of heavy metals. And when you're making a chocolate flavor of anything, but in particular, a protein powder, you have to add a lot of flavor. As somebody who's actually developed supplements in the past, almost to make something

taste really good with flavoring in it, if you're not just using natural sort of cacao, powder or cocoa powder, if you're adding like natural flavors into a product, you have to add a lot of flavoring to make sure that protein powder doesn't taste disgusting, is the truth. Sometimes you have just as much flavoring as you have protein powder to make sure that it tastes good. And if you remember this a few years ago, there was another consumer reports, I think it was consumer reports. They tested a bunch of chocolates that were out there. And they found something similar that a lot of chocolate, unfortunately, even if it's dark chocolate, even if it's organic, even if that's this, that, whatever. It had higher levels of lead and some brands were better than other brands.

I'll link to that report so you can check it out. And the industry as a whole was a little bit up in arms about it because they were saying, look, chocolate, which comes from the cacao plant and the cocoa bean. It has naturally containing lead that is part of just being in the soil, including that's why our broccoli and sweet potatoes and everything else, our peas, has a little bit of lead because there's naturally occurring lead that's inside of the soil. Now, what I'm not educated on that do we have more lead today because of our farming practices, even if they're organic, then compared to, let's say, like, 50 years ago or 100 years ago, I'm undereducated on that. That's something to look into and write about in the future.

But chocolate as a whole has naturally occurring lead, just like everything else in the ground. And they were saying, like, look, this is just a part of the process. But what these places like consumer labs or other places that they're not doing, they're not going out there and testing like a sweet potato and writing an article and saying, hey, sweet potato has lead. because if you would have tested a sweet potato or peas or if you had somebody make like a sweet potato mash, you'd find that it also has high levels of lead as well. So it's easy to take something that's packaged that companies are selling. And it is important to check these brands. Listen, I'm the first person to say, I want to know what the heck is in my food. It is important to check these brands.

But if we let the headlines drive the narrative, we'll start to just be afraid of everything and we'll be like, I just whatever, let me just eat junk food, which a lot of people do. If they're not in charge of digging in information and finding out what the truth is behind things. So again, equip their vanilla passed. Their vanilla beef protein passed. Their chocolate didn't. And they had a response to this, which I'll be reading a little bit later on, because I do think it adds some context for people.

Something else to consider is, as I mentioned earlier, switching to vanilla or non-flavored version of protein instead of chocolate is a good way to just lower your total amount of lead exposure that's there. It's the holiday season, which means a lot of parties, gatherings and food. And if you're looking for a way to support your skin and your health through the holiday season, you're going to want to hear about Peaks Radiant Skin Duo. This skin duo features some all-star ingredients like hyaluronic acid, green tea, and minerals like magnesium and potassium to support not only skin health, but hydration and cellular health too. Featuring Sun Goddess Macha

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So I personally don't use plant protein, and it's not that it's, you know, not a good source. I'm no longer vegetarian, and I typically don't like supplementing with added amino acids, even though many of the protein powders that are plant-based that are out there will say contains all essential. amino acids. But if you're a listener to this podcast, you know that one of the amino acids that's super key for muscle protein synthesis that we've learned from a lot of the experts that have come on here is leucine. So lucene is super key. So if you're having plant protein, plant

protein on average does not have a lot of leucine inside of it. You need on average about 2.5 grants. You can go back to my episode with Dr. Donald Lehman, where he talks about this in general to allow for that conversion. So that's the main reason I don't use plant-based protein powders anymore. But if I did, I would recommend, and I do recommend Truvani, which was started by Vani Hari, a friend of mine. They're not a sponsor of anything. I don't have any financial ties with them.

It's just a genuine recommendation. So here's why I would recommend Vani-Hari's Truvani protein powder, which actually you can find in a lot of places now, sprouts, whole foods, Costco. They've really blown up. And hats off to her and her team for the work they've done. become now a household brand in many stores. So based on the conversations that have had with Bonnie in the past, one of the reasons they test lower in all heavy metals, but especially lead, is that they source their pea protein in a completely different way. So first of all, they focus on sourcing

the highest quality peas, and they remove the outer layer of the skin. And that outer layer of the skin is important because when peas are grown, that's where most of the heavy metals are concentrated, which together results in a much cleaner product. In fact, their protein has consistently showed to test under Prop 65 safety levels. The other thing that they do, and they're really big on this, and I think the jury's personally out on this, but they don't use any natural flavoring. For their protein powders, they're going to use just straight cacao or cocoa powder.

They're not using any natural flavors. Now, here's the thing about it. You try Truvani's chocolate protein powder or vanilla powder. People feel like, hey, I just want the cleanest product. possible. And because they don't have natural flavors and a lot of people are used to something tasting very vanilla-y or very chocolatey, it doesn't pack that same punch. But the truth is, if many of you have been eating healthy for a while, you know your taste buds change. Your taste buds change and you're just like, hey, this tastes normal to me. In fact, when you go out and maybe your

kids are trick-or-treating on Halloween, we just passed Halloween, and you eat candy for the first time in a while, or you have a piece of cake that you haven't had in a while, you're like, damn, this just taste so sugary or this tastes so artificial if you have those foods every so often. So I do feel your taste buds change. And it's not that their product doesn't taste great. It's just as different because they're choosing to not use natural flavoring. So natural flavoring, especially when it comes to chocolate, is going to pack a lot of those additional heavy metals inside of there because you have to use so much of them. I have a link in the show notes. You can read a little bit about Truvani's commitment to high quality products. You can check it out there. But long story short, they test each

ingredient and product for heavy metals. And they even have this cool section on their website where they show you that a lot of the things, because Proposition 65 is so strict in California, and it comes with pros and cons with that, because it's so strict, you look at something like a Truvani protein powder. They saw that their lot on average tests at 0.319 microgams of lead, for example. And the California Prop 65 safety limits, if you remember from earlier, is 0.5. So they're 0.3 around rounding and California is saying anything under 0.5 for daily use is safe. And one thing that's really

cool is they included this chart which I put in my newsletter you can check it on the show notes below. They took their Truvani protein powder and they tried to contextualize how this larger idea I'm sharing for those that are saying I don't want any lead. Well guess what? Spinich. If Prop 65's safety standard is 0.5 MCGs and lower and the Truvani protein

powder measures in at 0.319, spinach is 0.54. So spinach, if you took a serving of spinach, you ground it up and you tested it into a lab. On average, you'd be around 0.54 MCGs, microgrance. Asparagus, 0.837, avocado, 0.9. And this is lead. This is the amount of lead that's contained inside. Green beans, 1.494. Strawberries grown in the ground. 2.205 MCG. So this is just an important thing that there is lead that's in the ground and it's in everything that we have. This is not the same thing as lead shavings or lead from, let's say, like paint or bullets. There's inorganic lead and organic lead. Inorganic would be coming through like the hardcore chemical process. And organic lead is the natural contamination that's inside of our soil. Doesn't mean that it's organic certified. It just means it's organic, organic from, you know, nature. So there's the natural contamination that ends up happening because it's in all of our soil.

So that's an important thing to remember about how lead is in all of our stuff. And yet still, we want to try to minimize our dosage, but nobody would ever tell you, don't eat vegetables because vegetables and fruits are so good for you. And your body does really good, as long as you're living a low-tox lifestyle and you're having things that naturally support your detoxification processes, your body does a pretty good job of excreting out a lot of these heavy metals. Now, when they come in inorganic forms, which is what I've heard from a lot of the functional medicine doctors I've talked about, kids eating paint chips from an old.

old house that contained lead, that is super dangerous. Or if you remember a few years ago, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and the whistleblower's there. At that point in time, you had large amounts of lead from old piping seeping into the water supply because of a whole complicated thing, but they had rerouted their water system and the water was very grainy. It was causing a degradation in the piping. And so you had all this lead that started flooding the system and babies were coming into the hospital and there was this Indian doctor. We wrote about this actually. We put in the show notes who was the whistleblower that said you should not see this level

of lead. You're not going to get that from eating a healthy whole food level of diet. As I understand, that's organic lead natural contamination, not inorganic lead that comes from chemical type of exposure, which we absolutely do not want that at all in our life. Okay, so this all leads me to number five on my five things you need. to know about heavy metals in your protein powder and why it's so important to go beyond the headlines. Number five, remember, as I mentioned before, anything grown in the ground will have natural contamination. That does not mean we should stop eating everything, especially whole foods and

vegetables. The best thing that we can do is stick to less concentrated forms of heavy metals and get the bulk of our calories from real whole foods as much as possible. Consider the frequency which were consuming these protein powders and these ready-made shakes. There was a few that they mentioned inside of there that are huge sellers in Costco. I told you I was going to mention a couple of the brands that scored crazy high, not to call them out, but this is the report, and these brands hopefully have to clean up their mess and get it together. One of them was a brand called Naked Nutrition, which is a top seller on Amazon.

So if you just go to Amazon, you type in Clean Protein. It's one of the first ones that comes up. but the naked nutrition vegan mask gainer vanilla tested really, really high. That was one of them. Another one that tested really high, which was a brand that I believe is out of the UK, is called Hewell, H-U-E-L, Huell Black Edition chocolate, tested super high as well. Interestingly enough, even though their bestsellers, probably not plant protein, a sponsor that's been on this podcast before and regularly sponsored by newsletter, Momentus,

Their plant protein chocolate flavor did test for higher levels of lead, not as bad as naked nutrition and hule. Their way protein powder, just because we're talking about Momentus, I want to make sure I give you the full story. Their way protein powder was well under the California levels that were being recommended for a daily basis. So hats off to Momentus for making great products. Sorry, one thing I was mentioning is that brands like insure and optimum nutrition and Quest, you can look at them, but they have ready to drink plant-based shakes. Those also tested a little high inside of this report as well. So buyer beware, especially if you're picking those up.

I've seen them often in Costco or Walmart. People try to sell them. And they're easy to try to get your protein that way. So a lot of people like to do that. So be careful of that. All right, one of the brands I wanted to mention because it was one of the animal-based brands that scored high on the consumer reports.

And first of all, I have to actually do a live correction. I was under the assumption that equipped foods prime protein, chocolate contain natural flavors. And I just looked and brought up their ingredients list and their chocolate does not actually contain natural flavors where you have higher levels of chocolate inside of that. It contains cocoa powder as part of the product. It does not contain natural flavors. So that's a correction. I'll make sure I include in the show notes because I think I misspoke earlier. But here's something interesting that equip ads, which is sort of is there a political motivation behind these consumer reports, are they feeling like too many of the plant-based ones are reporting

very high, so they need to show that animal-based ones report high too. So they have an article that have linked to in the show notes and has a section that says, what the article missed. So as I mentioned, they only tested the Quip's chocolate flavor, which contains real cocoa, a crop that naturally absorbs trace minerals like lead and cadmium from the soil. Meanwhile, and again, this is from the Equip website, meanwhile, other brands in the article were tested on unflavored or vanilla versions. That's an apples to oranges comparison that ignores the well-documented differences between cocoa and other ingredients. Number two, that they write in their article addressing this called Consumer Reports Protein Powder Testing. Number two on what the

article missed when it came to equip, they tested 24 lots, not our current production. Since then, we've continued to optimize sourcing and run competitive third-party testing through every lot. And they're using a service, which I'm a fan of, called Light Labs, which has an independent verification of the levels of heavy metals, toxicity, microplastics, and a lot of brands are putting that on their website, which is really, really cool to see. That's their side of the story, and they post their sort of safety limits, and they go into it a little bit further. But I just thought that was worthwhile mentioning because that's weird. Like, why would you test other brands vanilla version and not their chocolate version? It's almost like they wanted to single out equip

foods and show that a beef protein can also test very high. So a little bit shady. I'm not going to imagine ill intent, but that's why it's so important to get beyond the headlines and dig into what's actually going on here. So a couple of concluding thoughts as we wrap up here. If you rely heavily on protein powders, like multiple times a day or at least a couple servings a day, I do. Try adding in Whole Foods protein back into your diet, eggs, meat, legumes. That's one way, or obviously shoot for vanilla. I right now, I try all different protein powders. I might even make one in the future myself, but right now I'm trying a Kelly Levec protein powder. It's vanilla. I haven't seen the testing on it, but I would imagine it'd probably be similar to like a quips vanilla because it's a very similar sort of profile

that's there. I think it's generally got low levels of lead because beef has low levels of lead, unless if it's chocolate flavoring. And you know, you can check out this report, but most importantly, the thing that I want to share with you is find resources and find people that you trust online who will take a report like this, consumer reports, warning, protein powders and shakes contain high levels of lead, and they can talk about the good, the bad, because this report is not all bad. There's some things to take away from here that were really excessively high. They can talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. And the ugly means just the messy.

The parts that are tricky that you have to piece through and contextualize within all the things that you're trying to prioritize in your diet, right? If many people walk away from this article, even if they read the whole entire consumer reports article without listening to an episode like this, they would have said, okay, I need to avoid protein powders, or at least I should not consume them more than two to three times a week. I am eating 160 grams of protein a day for my particular goals that I have of adding lean muscle mass, which I got serious about when I turned forenay. I realized I was super undermuscled from having conversations with people on this podcast, and I needed to improve my body fat percentage and

use this opportunity to build on as much as muscle as I can through resistance training. that's number one, but also making sure that I have enough protein. So if I'm shooting for 160 grams of protein for my particular goal or anywhere between 140 to 160 grams a day, it's kind of tough to do that just through whole foods. And the reason why is I end up eating a lot more calories than I want to and I'll end up putting on more weight than what I want to put on at a level that makes sense for me. So I'll have every day, pretty much like clockwork. And I've featured this in my newsletter before.

Maybe we'll link to in the show notes. I have a protein shake in the morning. that's not just high protein, right? It's got 40 grams because I put two scoops of beef protein inside of that. Vanilla, that's my favorite. But it's also high fiber inside of there. I'll throw in some cillium husk. I'll vary the fibers up a little bit.

Sometimes I'll put some Garden of Life fiber in there. Sometimes I'll throw in a farmer's juice fiber. Transparently, I'm an advisor and investor in the company. I'm a huge fan of them. And I'll have often like 40 grams of protein. And I'll have with the fruits and other stuff and the added fiber in it, I'll have almost like 25 to 30 grams of fiber, 25, maybe 20 to 25 grams of fiber inside of that. And I feel freaking amazing.

It keeps me going. I don't have a crash later in the day. I feel like super fueled. I have incredible bowel movements, TMI, because I'm having great fiber. And I'm feeding my gut microbiome. And I'm fueling my muscle protein synthesis goals as well, too. What I was getting to, as we conclude over here, is that if I read this article, and I was under-informed, I would have said, okay, let me cut down an amount of protein.

And all right, so now you're just having less protein if you don't have a protein powder. And you're either eating a lot more calories or you're just not having as much protein your diet. So for me to hit 140 to 160 grams of protein a day, if I don't add a shake, I track those weeks and I don't get enough protein. So that's why find people that you trust that can take the headlines, contextualize it, talk about the good, bad, and ugly. And the most beautiful thing is, I'm not tooting my own horn that I'm one of those individuals, because I actually am undereducated on a lot of these things. I don't have a PhD. I'm not a doctor.

I'm not a research scientist, but I pay attention to a lot of the coolest ones that are out there that I've vetted over 20 years in the space. And I feature their work and their studies and what they're highlighting regularly in my newsletter. Try this, which I put out for free, every single week. So if you have not signed up yet, and you're at this point in time of the episode,

please go to drewpiroa.com, d-h-R-U-P-U-R-O-A-H-A-H. H-I-T, and it's super easy. You can just click on the tab that says, try this newsletter, and you can sign up for free, and you'll get my newsletter starting every Friday, and you'll see a lot of the people that I highlight, and then you can follow them.

These are people that I trust, and you can make up your own mind if you trust them too. I'm going to show you their work and show you what they're talking about, and you can decide if they're doing a good job and what they're up to. As a little bit of a preview, we covered something super fascinating,

and I wrote about in my newsletter, I'll link to in the show notes. We covered a major study of news, nearly 89,000 adults. You would have thought this would have been all over the headlines. And it just came out. The study just came out.

And I didn't really see it on the big headlines that were out there, published in JAMA, one of the most prestigious journals that's out there on October 23rd. I'm recording this on November 5th. This was just recently, 89,000 adults over 9.5 years.

That's almost 10 years. And the researchers found that brighter light at night time. So bright light at night, overhead lights, light exposure, chronically that people tracked through using a wristband sensor, was associated with, get this, higher risks of coronary artery disease, heart attack, heart failure, and a fibrile fibrillation, and stroke, and even this was after accounting for lifestyle, sleep, genetic risk, and more. This study was crazy, and you're going to have to check it out in the full link, and you can kind of read all about

it. People in the top 10% of nighttime light exposure had 1.3 to 1.6 times the risk of these cardiovascular outcomes compared with those in the lower half. What does this mean? I get into that into the newsletter and you can read all about it when you sign up for the newsletter in the link below. Again, that's completely free. But if you are not protecting yourself from long term, this is not like one or two nights or even a few weeks here or there, long term bright light exposure, at night, if you're not taking that seriously, this study will get you to take it seriously. And also, too, if you're a person where you have somebody in your family, who's a shift worker, you know, hats off to first responders, nurses, firefighters, police officers, I have many in my family,

hats off to these individuals, doctors who have to work the night shift to take care of our population here in America and the rest of the world. There's even tips inside of the newsletter that I've taken from some of the experts that have had on a podcast like Dr. Such and Panda, one of the premier experts on circadian rhythm that I've included inside of there as well. So check that out. The title for that newsletter is three shares for your week. And that section in particular is called Longterm Bright Light.

At night, damages the heart. Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women. A lot of people don't realize that. And so we want to protect ourselves. And when you come across a really good quality study like this, it's good to put it into action into our own life. And the newsletter shows you how. And you can sign up in the show notes below.

Guys, this was fun. I want to know, actually. Like, what do you think about these so. podcast. Do you like them? Do you want me to do them more frequently? We'll put a link to a little survey in the show notes below and you can tell me you loved it. It was okay. Or nah, you weren't a fan. So be honest. Share your thoughts. I'm not looking for praise. I want your honesty. That would mean the world. And thank you for tuning in to the Drew Perot podcast.