Even among some vegetarians there is a misconception that vegetarian diet on it’s own does not provide enough protein. Majority of plant foods contain protein. In fact some plant foods contain more protein than meat products.

There are several advantages to eating plant protein:

• Plant protein does not contain any cholesterol or saturated fats
• Plant protein is rich in antioxidants, calcium, zinc, and other minerals and vitamins
• Plant protein is high in fibre

The key to any healthy diet, vegetarian or not, is to eat a wide variety foods. This will guarantee that you get sufficient amount of protein and importantly all the other nutrients.

To meet one’s daily requirements, an adult leading “modern” sedentary lifestyle would need to consumes only 0.75g of protein per 1kg of body weight. It’s not surprising that many people eat more protein that they need.

Here’s my top 15 sources of protein. Unless you subsist on junk food only, you probably can see that these are the foods that you eat on a daily basis anyway.

The quantity of protein is given per 100g of food.

1. 75g - wheat gluten (seitan). Ready made products from wheat gluten can be bought ready made from Asian grocery stores. It can also be easily made either from gluten flour or wheat dough by washing out the starch. Read more about gluten here.
2. 60g - dried seaweed, spirulina. Spirulina is a seaweed that has been used for food in Africa and America for centuries. Apart from having high protein content, it is rich in beta carotene, iron, vitamin B-12 and other nutrients. Here’s more information on spirulina and it’s benefits.
3. 50g - Sesame seeds can be added as is or roasted to breakfast cereals. Here’s a very informative article about uses and nutritional value of sesame seeds.
4. 48g - Sunflower seeds can be eaten as a snack or part of a meal. They can be added to salads and breakfast cereals. Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of fiber, Vitamin E, magnesium and selenium. The also possess cholesterol-lowering properties.
5. 39g - Soybeans are one of the most popular sources of protein for vegetarians. They are used in preparation of many popular foods such as soy milk, tofu, textured vegetable protein and tempeh. For example, tofu and tempeh is used in Asian cooking and can be stewed, stir-fried, cooked in sauce or in soups. In Western cooking it’s used for preparing kebabs and mock meat dishes.
6. 33g - Pumpkin seeds can be either eaten as a snack or added to salads and other foods.
7. 27g - Peanuts, just like any other nuts is a good snack. They are mostly known in the form of peanut butter. Peanuts are a significant source of resveratrol, a chemical studied for potential anti-aging effects.
8. 19g - Chickpeas. Apart from being high in protein they are also a good source of zinc and folate.
9. 19g - Almonds can be eaten as a snack and also made into almond butter and almond milk. As almonds are very low in carbohydrates, almond flour can be used for cooking low-carb biscuits and cakes.
10. 17g - Oatbran. Oat protein is nearly equivalent in quality to soy protein, which has been shown to be the equal to animal protein.

If you’re not a vegan, you have a few more choices:

1. 25g - Cheddar cheese
2. 15g - Cottage cheese
3. 14g - Feta cheese
4. 13g - Eggs
5. 6g - Yogurt

It’s definitely not an exhaustive list, but merely an example that protein is easy to obtain by eating only vegetarian diet. Bookmark this page and next time you think you need more protein in your diet, you’ll know exactly where to look.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 10:48 am and is filed under Food, Vegan, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.