As a vegan, I always get the question, “but where do you get your protein?”, which is nonsense. People believe that eating meat is the best way to get your protein intake and without eating meat you will have a protein deficiency. Actually, there is a reason that people have a belief in this. The old food pyramid consisted of meat, poultry, and fish as a group. Thus, people had a idea that meat, poultry, fish are an important part of our daily food intake. However, the new food pyramid that was published by Harvard University includes whole grains, vegetables, fruits and healthy protein. Thus, we can choose what protein we want to it. The healthy proteins for vegans are legumes and grains. They are rich in fiber, nutrients, vitamins and proteins.
“All protein is made by plants…any protein you get from an animal is simply recycled plant protein” — Dr. Milton Mills. 100 calories of chopped, raw broccoli has 8.29 grams of protein. So if you only ate broccoli for a day, you would get 165.8 grams of protein, based on a 2000 calorie per day diet. PROTEIN IS ALL AROUND US!
The best protein sources for vegans are lentils, chickpeas, beans, nutritional yeast, spirulina, hemp seed, almonds, nuts, nut butters, chia seeds, oats, oatmeal, tofu, tempeh, edamame, quinoa, buckwheat…etc. These are not only high-quality protein, but also they are rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber.The easiest and most affordable source is lentils. 1 cup (240 mL) of lentils has 18 grams of protein. Being rich in protein, they are also slowly digested. A single cup of lentils provide approximately 16 grams of fiber, which makes 60% of your daily fiber intake. Also, these fibers feed the good bacteria in your gut. We all know that your gut is the second brain.
Don’t worry about the protein amount! They are everywhere, you eat them all the time. Be happy because you are changing the world and making a better, cleaner future!