Where do vegetarians get protein? Every once in a while when thinking up topics for No Meat Athlete posts, I hit on one that’s so obvious, it’s a joke that I haven’t already written it. We’ve had protein posts before, like the primer from vegan R. D. Matt Ruscigno. And I’ve written a few articles about protein myself, but the main one wasn’t a blog post; it’s a lesson in my e- course for newsletter subscribers (join here if you haven’t yet). But have I really not written a post about where to get your protein? The question that vegetarians get asked more than any other? Apparently, not yet. So here it is. First, my standard answer to the question, Where do you get your protein?: You don’t need as much protein as most people think, and it’s easy to get what you do need from beans, nuts, seeds, grains, soy, and even greens. So how much protein do you really need? Not as much as people would have you believe. Somehow, everyone got the idea that we need exorbitant amounts of protein, way more than is even recommended. ![]()
Nutrition Recommendations and Interventions for Diabetes A position statement of the American Diabetes Association. Transcript: Caloric Restriction vs. Hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States every year are attributed to obesity, now overtaking. What's New and Beneficial About Soybeans. We recognize that soybean consumption is a matter of much current debate. There has been much written about it on the. Low-carbohydrate diets or low-carb diets are dietary programs that restrict carbohydrate consumption, often for the treatment of obesity or diabetes. I know, it’s fun to blame government agencies and cry conspiracy, but if you actually look at the recommendations, they’re not that high at all. For example, the U. S. But how much more protein do we need as athletes? Several sources I looked at cited a study which concluded that endurance athletes benefit most from 1. In pounds, that’s . A simple example. Let’s take a typical No Meat Athlete reader and see what this means for her, let’s a say a 1. We’ll split the daily protein range for endurance athletes in the middle and aim for . Keep in mind that’s for a 1. But really, only 8. All of this protein fuss — the incessant inquisition about where we get protein — is over 8. Colin Campbell says that you need 8 to 1. How does our 8. 3 grams of protein, for a 1. Well, the first thing to note is that a gram of protein contains four calories. I plugged my imaginary friend’s stats (5’3. Based on all of this, aiming to get 1. And by the way, I find using percentages to be a much easier way to evaluate a food’s protein content than grams. See a post I wrote about using protein percentages.)Where do vegetarians get their protein? There’s no shortage of lists of high- protein vegan foods floating around. As you might expect, they’re topped by soy products (tempeh is much higher in protein than tofu), seitan, and legumes. My personal favorite vegan foods for protein, in rough, descending order of how often I eat them, are: Lentils (red are my favorites), 1. Chickpeas, 1. 2 grams/cup. Tempeh (locally made in Asheville!), 4. Black beans, 1. 5 grams per cup. Nuts and nut butters (I eat a good mix, usually without peanuts), varied. Tofu, 1. 1 grams per 4 ounces. Quinoa, 9 grams per cup. Other legumes, varied. Grains, varied. These protein content numbers come from the Vegetarian Resource Group’s excellent article on vegetarian protein. I also add a protein supplement to my smoothie each morning, which gets me about 2. I also throw in there. Heads up, you can get a free jar of Justin’s Classic Almond Butter through Thrive Market here. I like the Vega Sport protein blend of hemp, rice, and pea, but often to save money I use this one, which also includes protein from chia seeds. Protein is made up of amino acids, and there are certain ones, called “essential,” which your body cannot produce on its own and must get through food. As long as you’re eating a wide variety of whole foods — a good practice to follow for many reasons — you’re probably getting a nice mix of amino acids. One, though, that’s particularly tough for vegetarians to get, is lysine, as explained in this article on protein from Vegan Health. Only a few vegan foods contain lysine in large amounts, but fortunately, they’re staples in many of our diets: tempeh, tofu, and legumes. If you don’t eat beans or soy, because of allergies or some other reason, you’ll need to pay special attention to lysine, and it might be worth considering an amino acid supplement. See an old No Meat Athlete article for a breakdown of which foods contain which amino acids. My easy way to get enough protein every day. As it turns out, I weigh around 1. I aim for. It’s as easy as adding nuts or beans to your salad, protein powder to your smoothie, almond butter on your bagel, or beans to your pasta dish (actually not an inauthentic thing to do in Italy). For snacks, eat a handful of nuts, spread some sunflower butter on your apple, make roasted chickpeas, dip a pita in some hummus . Instead, you can just explain that we don’t need all that much protein, and it’s easy to get what we do need from a half dozen, common foods, eaten just a little bit at a time throughout the day.
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