Protein in the Vegan Diet:: Eat Your Colors
Eat your vegetables so that you will grow up big and strong just like Popeye did.
How many of you heard that? I did.
How many of you believed and believe that? I did and I still do.
One of the big questions I get about being vegan is how I get my protein. My response: Protein shouldn’t be the concern; nutrients should be. That’s because there is plenty of protein to be had in the vegan diet and I’ll show you in a moment.
Sid Garza-Hillman in his book, ‘Approaching the Natural: A Health Manifesto’ - a must buy with its quirky humor,plethora of information and only $9.00. - talks about eating nutrient rich foods. We do not live in a place that isprotein deficient, we do live in a place that is nutrient deficient. He shares more techniques in an easy to follow and funny way to be more natural in health.
The bottom line is, vegetables are rich in nutrients. Most of us know that. They taste great as well. We’ll talk about that in future posts. Sometimes it’s a matter of habit. Once you start eating them more, you realize how much better you feel and you crave it.
Now, to allay the fear of protein deficiency, let me share with you what I had in my dinner salad tonight.
Salad
2 cups of Lettuce - 1 grams
½ cup cooked Braised Kale - 2.5 grams
Garlic
¼ cup of chickpeas - 10 grams
½ cup avocado - 1.5 grams
1 Tbs Hemp seeds - 5 grams
Nutritional Yeast- (well I probably have a 1 tsp and in 11/2 Tbs there is 8 grams!!!!!)
____________________________________
total: 20-21.5 grams of protein and thats just my salad.
According to Protein in the Vegan Diet by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, From Simply Vegan 5th Edition, http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.php “How much protein do we need? The RDA recommends that we take in 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram that we weigh (or about 0.36 grams of protein per pound that we weigh) 1.”
So, I need approximately 50.4 grams of protein a day and I just got about 20 in one part of one meal in one day.
Are you still worried about my protein? Are you worried I am missing other nutrients?
The rest of my dinner was ½ cup green lentils ( 9 grams of protein). I had strawberries today (1 gram), a banana (1.3 grams), and a raw nut granola with a date (10 grams).
I am now at 42.8 grams and I haven’t even had lunch yet or my snacks.
So I say, Eat your veggies; your COLORS so you can be big and strong.
From our family to yours,
Sanctuary Bistro
Check us out on Kickstarter.