Does Vegan Protein Powder Have Lectins?

You may be wondering if vegan protein powder has lectins. The answer is, it depends!

Arguably the best lectin-free protein powder isn’t vegan, but there are some things you can know about vegan protein powder and lectins.

You need to look at the ingredients on the packaging. Vegan protein powders can often contain a mix of different ingredients.

When it comes to lectins, lectins are actually proteins. Therefore, any food ingredient that is high in lectins, is reasonable to think it could contain lectins in the protein powder.

High Lectin Ingredients In Vegan Protein Powders

Beans for example, contain large amount of lectins, and have perhaps the most research done on them compared to any other food with regards to lectins.

The amount of lectins upon cooking decreases, however, it is plausible to think that bean protein powder contains lectins.

Beans are fairly commonly used in vegan protein powders, although perhaps not as much as other foods.

Peas are perhaps the most common ingredient in vegan protein powder, or rather, pea protein powder is.

Peas are another food that has a lot of research on it of being high in lectins. Peas are legumes, and legumes in general have from what we have seen by far the most research regarding lectins in foods.

Beans, of course, are also legumes. Different varieties of peas seem to have different levels of lectins, just as many foods can and do, as has been seen in research.

That being said, peas have shown pretty consistently high lectin quantities at least compared to other research we have seen.

Again, the quantity of lectins can reduce with cooking and other methods, however, it is reasonable to assume that because lectins are proteins, that pea protein powder contains lectins.

Another fairly common food in vegan protein powders is rice protein powder. It could be white rice protein powder, brown rice protein powder, or even sprouted rice protein powder. While it seems that white rice generally has the least lectins, then sprouted rice, then brown rice, we aren’t sure exactly how this translates over to protein powders. It seems reasonable to say that the same would hold true.

In research, rice seems to have varying amounts of lectins, some cultivars even showing no lectin activity. Furthermore, grains seem to generally have less lectins than legumes which have been shown to generally be high in lectins as mentioned before. We generally believe that rice would have less lectins, however exact quantities we are unsure of.

Is rice therefore better than peas or beans in a vegan protein powder?

It’s hard to say, however, there are animal-based lectin-free protein powders such as mentioned here.

Low Lectin & Lectin-Free Ingredients In Vegan Protein Powders

There are of course some plant-based foods which seem to be lectin-free or low in lectins.

Chia seeds are one such ingredient. They are occasionally seen in vegan protein powders, although fairly rarely. The limited research we have seen has shown chia seeds to not contain lectins.

Another ingredient is hemp seeds. Hemp seed protein powder is another fairly rare ingredient in vegan protein powders. Again, while we have seen limited research on it, the little research that we have seen has shown hemp seeds not to contain lectins.

Should You Eat Vegan Protein Powder On A Lectin-Free Diet?

It’s hard to say. First of all, there are many vegan protein powders that contain peas, rice, or beans as mentioned above. These all seem reasonably likely to contain lectins, given the research on these foods in particular, and lectins being a protein.

There are other foods that are said to be lectin-free, such as chia seeds and hemp seeds, however, we have only seen one piece of research on each indicating this. There have been foods that we have seen that vary in lectin quantity, based on type, etc. Other research has indicated that even within the same type there seems to be variation in quantity.

Of course, we could say that since the limited data has shown it, and they are not legumes or grains, they are likely to be low in lectins or at least, not high in lectins.

With any vegan protein powder, it is worth mentioning that again, lectins are a protein, and so getting a protein powder version of a food may end up getting more lectins than if you had some of that food normally, if it had less protein in what you ate.

There are of course benefits to eating plant-based foods!

If you’d like to check out an animal-based protein powder that is considered by some to be the healthiest protein powder you can get, check out this type of lectin-free protein powder.