Can’t get enough protein
But you can’t get enough protein on a vegan diet!
A common misconception with non-vegans is that a vegan diet is that it’s difficult or impossible to get enough protein.
The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is a modest 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
- Harvard Health Publishing
So for a 70kg human, that would be a requirement of about 56 grams per day.
Daily Protein Illustration
An illustrative daily meal plan might look like the below
Breakfast - Peanut Butter Toast
- Peanut Butter - 189kcal - 32g - 7.68g of protein
- Slice of Brown Bread - 130kcal - 56g - 3g of protein
Meal Protein: 10.68
Meal Kcals: 319kcal
Lunch - Bean Burger
- Black Beans - 280kcal - 150g - 35.99g of protein
- Burger Bun - 160kcal - 64g - 6g of protein
Meal Protein: 41.99
Meal Kcals: 440kcals
Dinner
- Wild rice - 202kcal - 200g - 7.98g of protein
- Tofu - 405kcal - 150g - 28.23g of protein
- Chickpeas - 102kcal - 100g - 6.01g of protein
Meal Protein: 42.22g
Meal Kcals: 709kcal
Day Summary
Day Protein: 94.89g
Day Calories: 1468kcals
This example meal plan is not intended to be a balanced, complete, or even tasty (no oil or onions were included!) diet, merely illustrate that we have easily provided 1.67 times the RDA for a 70kg human being, with ~1,200 calories to spare of their 2680kcal limit .
What about complete proteins?
Protein is made from twenty-plus basic building blocks called amino acids. Because we don’t store amino acids, our bodies make them in two different ways: either from scratch, or by modifying others. Nine amino acids […] known as the essential amino acids, must come from food.
- Harvard School of Public Health
A concern sometimes levied against plant protein is that it’s not ‘complete’.
plant-based foods [..] often lack one or more essential amino acid. Those who abstain from eating animal-based foods can eat a variety of protein-containing plant foods each day in order to get all the amino acids needed to make new protein, and also choose to incorporate complete plant proteins like quinoa and chia seeds.
- Harvard School of Public Health
This means that variety is key in a vegan diet (as in any diet), to ensure you get a complete source of proteins.
The same (non-vegan) Harvard source even goes on to recommend plant protein sources over animal ones.
Get your protein from plants when possible. Eating legumes (beans and peas), nuts, seeds, whole grains, and other plant-based sources of protein is a win for your health and the health of the planet. If most of your protein comes from plants, make sure that you mix up your sources so no “essential” components of protein are missing. The good news is that the plant kingdom offers plenty of options to mix and match.
- Harvard School of Public Health
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