Brown Rice Protein

Have any of you tried Organic Brown Rice Protein by North Coast Naturals? How did you like it?

Thanks for all your help.

I have not tried exactly that but I have used rice protein a lot in the past (don't remember which brand now) and can say that worries about it being an "incomplete protein" are actually really not the issue at all that people think.

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Rice is considered by most nutritionists as being the least allergenic of all the proteins. If soy or milk upset your stomach, you are likely deficient in protein, and rice protein is likely the best route for those with allergies to soy or milk.

I don't agree though that someone is "likely deficient in protein" if they're not consuming milk or soy.

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Rice protein is best mixed with juice to add some flavour, as rice protein by itself is quite bland. Try adding strawberries and apple juice in a blender and adding 1 – 2 tablespoons of our organic rice protein powder!

I liked the kind I used to use with rice or almond milk, and frozen fruit, mostly blueberries and strawberries. Perhaps a bit of coconut milk and/or nuts also. Didn't like it so much with fruit juice.

I wouldn't overdo any protein powders as that would get in the way of eating a variety of foods. But having one rice protein shake each day should be OK I guess.

I think it is just about impossible to become deficient in protein if you are getting enough calories - ok maybe if you work at it & stick to very low protein foods that have high carbs or fats it could be possible I suppose, but you'd have to work at it. The real question is are you getting enough to optimise muscular growth or strength whichever is your goal.

I've not had that brand, but most of the non-sprouted rice proteins have a powdery taste (kind of like drinking very fine powder), it does not taste like rice. The taste is ok, but you wouldn't go out of your way to buy that flavour
If you have with fruit or similar flavouring then there's no issue at all. I do know a couple of people who can't stand it (but then I know more who can't stand soya protein & MANY more who can't stomach pea protein).
If you add it to something like like soya or other milk alternative it tends to go down a little more smoothly than in water, add that & some fruit & it can be pretty tasty.

I certainly haven't tried every vegan protein powder and I recall that in just going from one rice protein powder to another the difference in taste can be considerable. But generally my own personal tastes are that soy protein tastes best (but I personally couldn't tolerate a lot of soy in my diet), rice protein second, and then it's really hard to say if hemp or pea protein is the worst. Hemp made my stomach hurt. Pea protein literally caused my throat to hurt it tasted so awful. I could manage to drink it with orange juice though. Pea protein with rice or almond milk always left me on the edge of vomiting.

Of course others say pea protein tastes OK. How this is possible I do not know. But I've heard it claimed.

If you want to have your absolute best strength gains, have surgery for placement of a tube directly into your stomach and pump in 600 grams of protein a day. I've gone as high as 400 grams per day (by mouth unfortunately). Nowadays I get maybe 60 per day from peas, broccoli, brussel sprouts, legumes, hummus, etc and am much happier.

I eat whenever I happen to feel like it. No protein stuffing. And everything I eat tastes good!

There is a fare amount of research coming out that increasing protein above normal intakes does positively affect muscle size, I've not seen so much about strength as such. Guys like Dr. Lowery (who's also a bodybuilder) have done some interesting studies on various aspects of protein that seem to imply body composition benefits, so there is some science to back up higher levels of protein than the average, not so much evidence supporting the massive amounts taken by some bodybuilders though (I'll actually be buying his new book all about the current state of protein research once it comes out which should be interesting...well ok interesting to me )
I've found pea protein ok, I've tried a few rice brands & found them similar (which I suppose shows everyone is different ). That is assuming there are no added sweeteners or other ingredients to make it taste different.
I suppose taste is very personal thing so you'd have to try out the different types for yourself to decide if you actually like it (first off buy a small amount, if you like it buy in bulk to save some cash!).

Yes tastes vary of course.

About the protein I have come to pretty detailed conclusions based on my own experience which I suspect surely wouldn't vary the way tastes in foods do, but I could be wrong of course.

I'll mention them quickly this once:

First off I recall, last I heard, they would use nitrogen levels I think? to determine whether or not someone has adequate protein. And on this basis they say the hundreds of grams bodybuilders take is unnecessary. I would say in response that there must be something more to it than nitrogen levels.

I've also heard say that anything beyond 50 grams in a meal is just wasted. I really don't think this is true at all. If a person can get 100 grams in a meal I don't think it's going to waste at all. Perhaps much like this idea of the supposed need to food combine for incomplete proteins isn't actually true because the body stores amino acids for a day or more, perhaps along the same lines one actually can take a huge amount of protein in one setting and still benefit from it.

I have found that the more protein I consume certainly I do get stronger. But going from 50 to 100 grams I maybe get 5 to 10% stronger. From 100 to 200 grams maybe another 5 to 10%. And then from 200 to 300 maybe another 5%. But it really strongly seems to me though that all this protein above 50 grams doesn't have a long term effect. I mean to say that a few months after going back down to 50 grams of protein you'll be right where you would have been if you had just always only been getting 50 grams of protein per day.

And so I think protein stuffing certainly would be useful for athletes wanting to peak their performance, but for noncompetitive people just trying to be healthy and make long term gains it's maybe not so useful, taking into account the hassle that generally goes along with trying to get so much protein. It really can take the fun out of being vegan and going on vacation for example.

I find this place the cheapest when buying brown rice protein in bulk.
Powdery texture and not much of a taste to speak of but is fine mixed in a fruit juice.
http://www.myprotein.com/uk/pages/search?SearchTerm=brown rice protein powder

Interesting article on protein
http://www.healthpromoting.com/Articles/articles/protein.htm

personaly I have tried everything from 50g to 300g of protein per day, and find that as long as sufficiant calories are being taken in on a daily basis, neither the lower or higher protein intake made any difference in my strength or size

There is pretty much iron clad evidence that the amino acid leucine stimulates protein synthesis & encourages an anabolic state. For holding muscle while dieting I'd say it's pretty much a vital asset to hold maximum muscle & there is evidence that the leucine content of a protein powder seems to directly affect it's anabolic activity (there were studies comparing wheat, whey, soya & other proteins over the last few years & that seemed to be the case). The evidence for leucine is one of the reasons some people add leucine to protein shakes & have it between meals as it appears to keep you anabolic.
There is less evidence for high protein intake & humans - a lot on various other mammals, but not so much on humans. Also most of the studies on humans are short, say 6-12 weeks, so you could argue there may be an over-stimulation that could level off? Most protein researchers I've read up on seem to agree that higher than recommended protein intakes is a good idea to maximise muscle growth (along with resistance training of course), but not the stupidly high amounts some bodybuilders go up to.

I remember many many years ago when the late great Mike Mentzer was doing the rounds of the UK with his heavy duty seminars.
When talking to him about his then really different ideas on nutrition, he told me that when dieting for competition he would lower calories from every food group and would go as low as 60g of protein per day.

Yes he was taking steroids, but dont these increase the bodys use of proteins?

Anyway Im not trying to cause an argument here, but was just stating in my first post in the thread, that for me high protein makes no difference.
We should also remember that the whole very high protein advice generally comes from protein powder sellers, or from research funded by these companies.

from one of mikes books

Mike says that our muscles are 70% water, 22% Protein, 6% fat, and another 2% "Inorganic Material", fair enough. He also says that 1 pound of muscle contains 600 calories. So by Mikes reasoning in order to gain 10lbs of lean muscle a year one would need to take in 6000 calories above maintenance per year (600 calories per pound X 10lbs desired muscle gain). By continuing to divide that 6000 calories over the course of 365 days (number of days in a year), Mike says that we only need 16 extra calories above maintenance per day to gain 10lbs of muscle in a year. Furthermore, Mike states that since our muscles are only about 25% protein, then we only need 4 calories of that extra 16 to come from protein because 25% of 16 is 4 and 1 gram of protein equals 4 calories.

So according to Mike Mentzer, increasing your daily caloric needs by 16, with 4 of those calories coming from 1 gram of protein, results in 10lbs of muscle in one year. Or saying it another way; Increasing your protein intake by 1 gram above maintenance per day would result in 10lbs of muscle in one year

That has actually been proven to very, very wrong, the whole idea of adding tiny amounts like we are an exact machine has been proven incorrect. We are not machines, on different days we have different stress levels, different activity levels, different infections & pollutants have to be fought off by the body & immune system, different amounts of toxins have to be processed & excreted, we have different levels of assimilation. We also have homoeostasis which is the bodies wish to stay the same, so say you add an extra calorie or 2 to your body every day, rather than add muscle you may very slightly increase your heat production, for example, or slightly lessen your GI efficiency at assimilating or processing food. Basically many people have to ramp up calories to get an effect...conversely other do not need to go so much higher (but still several hundred calorie increase) to get gains. Bear in mind that no one can even control their calorie intake to within 16 calories (or 1 gram of protein) as food itself has slight variations in calories, so it would be impossible to keep such a tight rein on your calories.

A lot of Mike Menzer's ideas were aimed at the drug taking athlete -if you kept near to the same calorie intake, took drugs & kept training as hard as he did you would grow...for a drug-free athlete training that hard without large intakes of food to fuel recovery would lead to overtraining, possible rhabdomyolysis & other issues. For any athlete wishing to add muscle mass I would insist they increased calories well above maintenance.
For people wanting to try out the abbreviated style of training I'd probably recommend the training written by Stuart McRobert (although his dietary ideas suck), & the more modern HIT style writers like Ellington Darden (I've got his "The new Bodybuilding for old school results" book which is quite interesting & has quite a few training options in it) as these seem to consider the drug-free athlete a bit more.

I have just dug out an old video of me training back in 1994, when I was at my best with measurements of 28inch waist 45.5 inch chest, 16 inch arms at an 8% bodyfat level.
During this time I was following a mcrobert style routine, which I had stuck to religiously for over 2 years, adding weight in tiny amounts each week.[as low as 100g per workout increases]

At this time my diet would contain roughly 80g of protein per day.
My calories through these years would be around a hundred or so calories above maintanance, and I added mucle slowly without adding bodyfat
To tell the truth, watching this video has peed me off a bit about how I look now lol, but I was a lot younger so my natural hormone levels would have been higher etc.
I may try that same routine again, and stay away from the running, to see just what kind of shape I can get into as an old man lol.

Yes, it would be hard to maintain a decent size & run the kind of distances you are doing...something has to give...usually the muscle! You'd need a big amount of calories to keep any sort of size while running long distances.
Sounds like you were in good shape back in the day. There's no reason you can't regain (or improve upon) those results, but you would probably have to cut down the running to shorter distances (5/10K runs for example). Basically you just have to be work on improving your diet more than you would as a younger guy & being cautious about injury (as older guys take longer to heal), so if you listen to your body, avoid any move that causes issues, keep track of your diet & modify as you need to I predict you could surpass the results of your younger self with focus & a few years of solid work!
Remember these days 40 is the new 20

Well Ive made my mind up
I am going to go back to the old 1994 routine, stop running, and try to see if its possible to get back into my old shape.
My routine is going to be axactly the same,just a few basic excercises, each bodypart trained once a week.
Im going to start with low weights and build up slowly, but surely, aiming to get my old weights and size by my 50th birthday [26th jan 2011]
Its terrible to see just how much less weight Im using now than then, but its my fault for changing from that basic abbreviated routine and trying to do more.
Since then Ive done max ot, dog crap, 8X8 with just 15 seconds between sets, dorian yates type routine, 5x5, you name it ive tried it.
None however have come close to producing the results I had with the 1994 routine

WHAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
My birthday is Jan 26!!!!!!!!!!!! as you're older it looks like I stole your birthday

What's your routine? Maybe you could post an ongoing adventure in the training logs section, so we can follow your progress - it'd be good to see how you get on.

Why do you want to stop running?

because all my best building results came in my pre running days, and with running I really enjoy training for and running marathons.
marathon training and adding muscle to your frame are kind of opposite ends of the spectrum, and neither one helps the other .
Next time I watch a marathon on tv though I may well change my mind lol

I guess it might take away but then I know that most bodybuilders generally do a lot of cardio though.

Not too many modern bodybuilders run. I know earlier authors, even guys as late as the 1960's, early 1970's like John McCallum did rate running of a few miles - not really anything like marathon training, more like 5 miles if I remember what I read in The complete keys to progress (a collection of old magazine articles written by McCallum from that era).
I would suggest at least getting the size doing less running, then once you have regained the size maintaining will be easier than achieving it, so you may be able to increase running volume once you're there (bear in mind your calorific need for both running & building will be very, very high). Obviously no one can guarantee that you'll be able to keep the size & do marathon training. It's just something you'll have to try out & see how you get on.

No, they don't run but they do do a lot of cardio stuff. I don't know why they don't run. Probably because they lost mass when they ran.

I've just been on an extreme running kick lately. Really feeling good from running and if I had to choose between running a marathon in under 3 hours or being able to bench 400, I would definitely choose the marathon. But 5 years ago I strongly felt the opposite way.

As you say Jay goals are goals. Neither a big lift nor a fast run is 'better' (other than if you're being crushed or being chased!). They are just stuff we want to achieve. Obviously you can't be a your best at any if you're a powerlifting, sprinting, marathon runner..but you can probably become a reasonable runner who lifts pretty well..& could well be healthier than a specialist!

Well I wish that I could run a marathon in under 3 hours jay
My best marathon time is only a 3hr 27min 11 sec finish in this years mablethorpe marathon.
I have for years j trudged along quite happily doing both and being average in both the running and weights, but after me watching my old training video, I have decided that I would really like to try get into that kinda shape again, and if my running has to stop to try to get there, then thats what I will have to do .
However I may just change my mind later in the year lol

Morg I would take pictures & write down some stats now, before you start. Get those all written up, then also write down your goals. From there you can track your progress & really see the improvement in the physique over the next few months!

I had photo taken yesterday, and am keeping a training log to see exactly how things go.
My aims are to get to same strength levels and condition as I was back in 1994
I have posted my exact routine in training logs section of this forum
I am bound to get people seeing it and saying, thats no good, you arent doing anywhere near enough, as I used to get all the time in the gym I trained at, but as Ive said, this routine gave me more results than any other, probably more results than all the others Ive done put together