So...where do get your protein?
- plantfulhabit
- Dec 26, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 20
Ah, protein. THE buzzword in health and wellness circles these days. But think about it…do you know anyone in the Western world who is protein deficient? We don’t. And we’re kind of betting you don’t either. (This is usually linked to extreme underconsumption of calories.)
Protein is a necessary macronutrient in everyone’s diet, alongside fat and carbohydrates, that the body uses as a source of energy. All food falls into one or a combination of those categories. And though we tend to lump certain foods like nuts into a single category (protein), the fact is that most foods are a combination of two macros. Nuts are high fat but also contain a lot of protein, for example. Meat is widely considered just a protein, when in reality it’s a combination of protein and fat, sometimes more fat than protein in a single cut.
In 2023, I (Heather) was doing a workout program online where the participants were encouraged to use My Fitness Pal to calculate protein needs as we tried to lose weight. We then proceeded to track every bite of food that went in our mouths, aiming to get our macros on par every single day with our requirements. My protein intake was supposed to be 165 grams. ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE GRAMS. That’s a substantial amount of protein and I was not training to be a body builder. But is that much protein actually necessary?
There are varying calculations about how much protein is necessary, with the US government saying the recommended amount is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. The World Health Organization recommends less: 0.66 grams per kilogram of body weight. So for a 150 pound person, that is either 55 grams protein according to the US’s RDA, or 45 grams according to the WHO. Either one of those recommendations is radically different from the 165 grams I was being recommended to consume daily.
Even though I’d experimented with plant-based eating in the past, I wasn’t really clued in to an important fact: all protein comes from plants. Read that again. All protein comes from plants! Eating plants to get your protein simply cuts out the middle man. Remember how meat is not simply protein, but a package of both protein and fat?
Eating a wide variety of whole grains (quinoa, oats, rice, barley, etc.), beans, vegetables, and fruits means that you can easily get the amount of protein you need, whether you’re 150 pounds and need 55 grams or 200 pounds and need 73 grams. Consider that 0.5 cup (83 grams) of black beans has 7.5 grams of protein and 0.5 grams of fat, while the same weight of ground beef has 22 grams of protein (obviously much more) but also has 14 grams of fat. The black beans have 114 calories and 7.5 grams of fiber, while the beef has 226 calories and 0 g fiber. There are so many ways to easily get to your needed amount of protein, which we’ll dig into in a future blog post, but that comparison shows you that a simple half cup of black beans has so much of the good stuff (protein and fiber) while minimizing the fat and calories. When you realize that you don’t need near as much protein as the influencers are telling you and you realize that the protein is easily available in plant sources that fill you up while minimizing your calories, you’ve unlocked the secret to plant-based eating.
Think about cows and how large they are able to grow. What do they eat? Plants. These herbivores, regularly consumed by the majority of the US population, are able to grow large muscles simply by eating grass (and at times, grains). You, too, can maintain muscle and grow muscle with plant protein! And while it’s super mainstream right now to think that the more protein you eat, the better, that’s not really true. Excess protein can accelerate aging, so maybe we should reconsider chugging protein shakes left and right. The links below share more on these topics!
Some further reading/watching about plant protein and its benefits are:
The Game Changers documentary
Peace, love, and plants,
John & Heather
