Protein and Ayurveda: Do We Really Need More Protein as We Age?

Protein is having a moment. “High protein” is like the “fat-free” of yesteryear. It’s suddenly everywhere. Protein shakes. Protein bars. Protein cereal. Protein water. Foods that have always contained protein now shout about it from the front of the package. And if you’re over 40 or 50, there’s a good chance you’ve been told you need more of it to maintain muscle, support your bones, stabilize blood sugar, improve recovery, and age well. Wouldn’t it be so easy if all we had to do to age well was eat more protein?

Protein is essential. We need it to build and repair tissues, make enzymes and hormones, support immune function, and maintain muscle. And adequate protein becomes especially important as we get older and naturally begin to lose muscle mass. But adequate protein and more protein are not necessarily the same thing. From an Ayurvedic perspective, there’s another piece of the conversation that often gets overlooked: It doesn’t matter how much nourishment is on your plate if your body can’t digest and absorb it.

When More Isn’t the Answer

Modern healthcare has become entwined with profit. From what research gets funded to what drugs get approved to what insurance will cover - money influences the industry in ways that can shape how we think about health. The answer to our health woes is so often to take something new. Add this thing in. Consume more. Become a return customer. And in many ways, it’s the kind of answer we’re looking for. It’s convenient. It doesn’t require changing our habits much. It might add to our grocery bill, but it’s generally not breaking the bank. And these days, money is not likely our scarcest resource. Time and attention are.

​We’re kept so busy and overstimulated that it’s challenging to give the kind of time and attention that our precious bodies deserve. Ayurveda stems from a time long before medicine got into bed with profit. And quite often in Ayurveda, the path toward healing doesn’t involve buying a new thing. In fact, it’s more likely to ask us to subtract something from our lives rather than add more.
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Eat a little less. Stop eating when you’re not hungry. Go to bed earlier. Give your digestion time between meals. Cook your food. Sit down while you eat. Pay attention to what happens after you eat. Rest. Not nearly as sexy as a protein powder with a shiny label. But perhaps more useful.

An Ayurvedic Perspective on Protein Starts With Digestion

Ayurveda puts an enormous amount of emphasis on agni, our digestive capacity. You may have heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” Ayurveda would say you are what you can digest and assimilate. Many protein-rich foods, particularly meat and some dairy products, are considered heavier and more difficult to digest. Other protein sources, such as mung beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish, and other legumes, have different qualities and affect different people differently.
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When it comes to eating anything in Ayurveda, we consider whether you’re hungry for it first and foremost. If you are, we look at whether it’s a good fit for your gut type. We consider how to best prepare it to make sure it’s as easy to digest as possible. We want to be sure that you only eat until you’re satisfied - not stuffed. And we pay attention to how you feel after eating it - what’s your energy level like? Any digestive symptoms? What’s your next bowel movement like?  This is where the current conversation around protein and digestion can become overly simplistic when it focuses mostly on how many grams to consume.

Protein Needs as We Age

There is good reason for the increased attention to protein for older adults and healthy aging. We begin losing muscle as we get older, particularly when we aren’t regularly challenging our muscles. Maintaining muscle mass supports mobility, metabolism, bone health, balance, and our ability to remain independent as we age.

Some older adults also don’t eat enough protein. But recommending that older folks eat more and more protein without considering digestive strength may not always bring the intended results. Ayurveda teaches that our digestive capacity changes over the course of our lives. As we move into later life, vata naturally increases, and digestion generally becomes more variable and less robust.
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If digestion is weak, piling on large amounts of heavy, hard-to-digest food may weaken it further. Imagine a campfire that’s starting to go out. You wouldn’t throw giant logs on top of a tiny flame and expect the fire to be able to burn through them. You’d give it what it can handle. Ayurveda approaches food in much the same way.

What Happens When We Can't Digest What We Eat?

When digestion is strong, food is broken down and transformed into nourishment. When digestion is weak, Ayurveda says incompletely digested material can begin to accumulate. This is called ama. Ama is considered toxic in Ayurveda. It generally begins building up in the digestive tract, where it may be associated with symptoms like gas, bloating, sluggish digestion, irregular elimination, heaviness, or a coated tongue.

​If the pattern continues, Ayurveda describes ama moving beyond the digestive tract, entering circulation, and accumulating in vulnerable areas of the body. So from an Ayurvedic perspective, we aim to eat food that we can digest well enough to turn into healthy tissue.

Eating More Protein Alone Doesn't Build Muscle

This may be the most important point missing from a lot of the high-protein messaging. Eating protein alone does not build muscle. Your body needs protein to build and maintain muscle tissue, but you also have to give your body a reason to build that muscle. That means using it. Research on older adults consistently points toward the combination of adequate protein and resistance or strength training as important for preserving and building muscle.

​In one study of older men, simply increasing protein from 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight to 1.3 grams per kilogram did not produce significant improvements in lean body mass, muscle performance, or physical function. More protein was not enough. Movement and strength training must be paired with more protein. This is one of those places where modern research and an Ayurvedic perspective fit together well. We can’t isolate one nutrient from the entire way we live and expect it to do all the work.

Protein Doesn't Equal Meat

Another thing that’s gotten lost in our current protein obsession is the idea that protein equals meat. There are plenty of whole food protein sources beyond meat. Protein can come from:

• Beans and lentils
• Peas
• Nuts and seeds
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Soy foods
• Whole grains and other foods in smaller amounts​

And this is where Ayurveda considers your unique needs. Different gut types may do better with different types of protein.

• Fast gut types may tolerate denser proteins like eggs, dairy, fish, or meat more easily, though very rich or heating foods can still aggravate them.
• Slow gut types often do better with lighter, vegetarian proteins, smaller portions, and plenty of digestive spices.
• Variable gut types may need the most care with beans and other dry, rough foods, favoring well-cooked preparations with oil or ghee.

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​Someone with strong, fast digestion may tolerate foods that completely overwhelm someone with slower digestion. Someone with variable digestion and lots of gas may need legumes prepared very differently than someone whose digestion is hot, sharp, and intense. The preparation matters too.

Soaking, cooking foods until soft, eating them warm, adding appropriate spices, using a little fat, and choosing portion sizes that match your digestive capacity can all change how a meal digests and assimilates.

Maybe the Missing Nutrient Isn't Protein. It's Fiber.

While everyone's talking about protein, there’s another nutrient most Americans are actually falling short on. Fiber. Most of us are already getting enough protein, but our fiber intake is low. As you might expect, the conversation around fiber and Ayurveda is nuanced.

Fiber matters for a lot more than keeping us regular. It helps feed the gut microbiome, supports healthy blood sugar and cholesterol, and is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.

Ayurveda would add an important caveat here too. Fiber-rich foods tend to be plant foods: vegetables, fruits, beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. But how they are prepared is important. Different gut types need different preparations so that digestion can handle them.

Someone with strong digestion may feel great eating a big raw salad with chickpeas. Someone with variable digestion, lots of gas, bloating, dryness, or constipation may feel terrible afterward. That doesn’t necessarily mean they need less fiber. They may need a different kind of fiber in a different form. Cook the vegetables. Make the beans into soup or dal. Add oil or ghee. Use digestive spices. In Ayurveda - especially when vata is high - dry, rough, cold, raw foods can aggravate the digestive symptoms we’re trying to improve. So we have to consume our fiber in a way that’s optimal for our gut to digest and assimilate it.

What About Protein Powder?

Ayurveda almost always favors whole foods when whole foods are an option. That doesn’t mean there is never a reason to use a protein supplement. There may be circumstances in which someone isn’t able to meet their needs through food alone. But a protein powder is not nutritionally identical to eating food.

Protein powders are dietary supplements and are not regulated as strictly as food or medicine. Their ingredients vary considerably. Some contain significant amounts of added sugar, sugar substitutes, flavorings, gums, and other additives. Whey- and casein-based powders may also cause digestive discomfort in some people.

And perhaps most importantly, they’re highly processed foods. Ayurveda prefers whole foods that are freshly prepared and well spiced for our gut type. A bowl of dal contains not only protein, but fiber, minerals, carbohydrates, phytonutrients, and all sorts of compounds we haven’t isolated and turned into something with a marketing budget. Food is more than the sum of its macronutrients.

So How Much Protein Do You Actually Need?

There is no single protein target that makes sense for everyone. Protein needs depend on your age, body size, activity level, overall health, diet, and goals. The current Recommended Dietary Allowance for adults is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or about 0.36 grams per pound. Some older adults and people who strength train may benefit from more.

​But that doesn’t mean everyone needs 100, 150, or 200 grams of protein every day. And it certainly doesn’t mean that the more protein you can squeeze into your diet, the healthier you will become. The right amount is the amount that meets your needs and that you can digest well.

Maybe We Should Be Talking More About Digestion

Having strong digestion supports aging well. If you want to maintain muscle, you need to digest and assimilate the building blocks required to create healthy tissue. If you want strong bones, the nutrients on your plate need to become available to your body. The same is true for brain health, immunity, energy, and recovery. This is why Ayurveda gives digestive health so much time and attention.

Before you buy another tub of protein powder, it might be worth asking:

• Am I hungry for my meals?
• Do I feel light and energized after I eat, or heavy and tired?
• Do I experience gas, bloating, reflux, or sluggish digestion?
• Am I eliminating well?
• Am I eating whole foods most of the time?
• Am I strength training?​

Those questions generally tell us a lot more about how well we’re going to age than the number of grams printed on the front of a package.

Want to Strengthen Your Digestion?

My 10-Day Ayurvedic Cleanse focuses on strengthening digestion, clearing accumulated ama, alleviating inflammation, and settling the nervous system. All from the comfort of your home, where food and habits are the main medicine. The goal is to simplify what the body is processing, reinvigorate the digestive fire, support elimination, and encourage the body’s natural detoxification processes.