Meat eaters can promote protein recycling via autophagy by incorporating periods with lower branched-chain amino acid levels, such as by eating more plant-based foods.

“So, what I think people could do is to, if they want to eat meat, go for it, but try to focus on plant-based food more often so that there are periods during the week when there aren't as many, leucine, isoleucine, valine molecules floating around in your body. So that you have a chance for your mTOR downregulation to recycle proteins.”