The Protein Question

So being vegetarian everyone always asks about protein.

1. It is easy to get protein on a vegetarian or vegan diet.

2. Protein needs depend on age, body-type, physical activity, growth, health, etc.  So it's important to consult your doctor to determine the correct amount. But if you have a healthy vegetarian or vegan diet you're probably getting the amount you need without even thinking too much about it.

3. With those two points the question is where do vegetarians and vegans get protein?:

• Plants!

This does not mean that all vegetarians and vegans only eat salad all day.  If that was the case I would look anorexic.  What makes this lifestyle healthy is that the food intake is full of variety.  Beans, seeds and nuts come from plants.  This might seem very elementary of me to say, but I have had many people confront me about this issue. It is easy to get protein from a variety of sources while being vegan or vegetarian and it is not all based on soy products, like tofu. Here's a tiny list of plant based protein just to get an idea: chia seeds, quinoa, peanut butter, almond butter, hemp seeds, almonds, walnuts, cashews, pine nuts, oats, beans, lentils, avocados, nutritional yeast, kefir, greek yogurt, brazilian nuts, chic peas, peas, etc.

Now on to the question of complete proteins:

Many people are worried about the combination of foods to get a complete protein, it just happens when you're a vegetarian or vegan.  The lifestyle is compiled of such a variety of foods that it just naturally happens.  Look at a typical vegetarian or vegan recipe for example and you'll see what I am trying to explain.

Complete proteins = all eight amino acids are present and in correct portion
Incomplete proteins = deficient in one of the amino acids

"Although protein is certainly an essential nutrient which plays many key roles in the way our bodies function, we do not need huge quantities of it. In reality, we need small amounts of protein. Only one calorie out of every ten we take needs to come from protein. Athletes do not need much more protein than the general public. Protein supplements are expensive, unnecessary, and even harmful for some people" (Mangels, Ph.D., R.D., "Protein in the Vegan Diet", VRG.org).