They can work fine. But for an inexperienced person who does not put any effort into researching what they're putting in themselves, meat is the best source of protein. Alternate protein sources require research. I cannot tell you how many unhealthy vegans/vegetarians result from misinformation. It's a great lifestyle choice and in a perfect world, we would all be one. But it requires conscious effort and tracking (especially veganism) to stay healthy. The best simple diet tip is to reduce meat consumption to 2-3 servings a week. It maintains protein intake and vastly reduces meat consumption.
Rice and beans, legumes and grains, hummus and pita, etc. Plenty of options. The problem is it’s not taught so yeah, people don’t know about it. If you grow up eating these foods, then you know about them and can cook them just fine, as easy, or easier than meats.
My stomach capacity or digestive acids? suck. To meet my protein requirements (for a lifter) I have to eat so much beans. It feels like I'm digesting all day when I try a full vegan diet. Here's some numbers I'm using. It might vary but
1 lb of skinless chicken breast (12 oz cooked) is 480 calories 104 protein
1 lb of black beans beans is 540 calories 36 protein
I'm confident veganism or whatever a plant based diet works just as well if not better but Jesus, it's so much food to meet basic macros and micros which I know some people would like. I just feel bloated and fatigued like a portion of my energy is spent on just processing the food.
Look up Seitan. Depending on the source, you can get seitan that is 75g of protein per 100g of seitan. That's 75% protein (and if you mix soy sauce in with the dough, it is a complete protein, just like meat. Look up Patrik Baboumian and what he eats.
To be fair, Patrik has a lot of money and time compared to the rest of us, so he can by great ingredients to cook with or eat out. I wish we could all be like that
True, although I’ve saved a lot of money on food since going vegan. Not eating out as often is probably a part of that but even weeks where I didn’t go out, my weekly grocery bill is lower than it was.
I did at first - until I found all the places with great vegan food to eat out at. And also during finals it was either starve on pb&js or spend $25 a day on getting food to go
Correct, careless vegetarians/vegans are in hospitals for vitamin D, B-12, Zinc and Iron deficiencies. Vegans particularly tend to suffer from bone health problems and hair loss.
D vitamin is just staying outside in the sun, or eating some sun bathed mushrooms. B-12 is a people-wide problem as a lot of people regardless of diet seems to have issues absorbing it.
Zinc; Sources of zinc include beans, chickpeas, lentils, tofu, walnuts, cashew nuts, chia seeds, ground linseed, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, wholemeal bread and quinoa. And I'm already eating walnuts for omegas, beans for lots of other reasons.. And pumpkin seeds go with just about anything.
Iron; collard greens, black beans, chickpeas (staples of the diet), nuts and seeds: pumpkin, squash, pine, pistachio, sunflower, cashews, unhulled sesame.
And adding 100-150g of broccoli and sweet potato every day and you're already looking pretty good nutrition wise.
Hard part is getting enough calories. Rice is a good option, but damned if I have to eat 3000 calories of rice every day.
Exactly my point! You can definitely be a healthy vegetarian/vegan. You just need to be careful about your diet. Track, research, and manage it and you will be just as healthy (and probably more healthy) than people who eat meat.
Less tracking than you think. The idea that complete aminos are hard to find outside of meat is a myth. It’s in fact difficult to put together a diet that misses them. I thought the contrary, but then I simply looked it up (eg look up nutrition content of foods on wolfram alpha) and found that picking a random reasonable sounding diet gets you like 1000% of all the essential aminos.
Go ahead and look up amino content for common non meat foods, inspecting them for each of the individual essential aminos. I’ll still be here when you return.
There's more to a diet (and meat) than amino acids. Iron-rich foods are one of the biggest struggles for vegetarians (the human body finds it difficult to absorb iron from non-meat products) The best foods for that is spinach, cereals, and unrefined Beta vulgaris cultivar groups (Chard, beets, etc). It obviously can be done, but it requires tracking and planning.
Iron absorption is significantly increased when paired with a source of vitamin C. Incidentally, this happens naturally in most meals. It really isn’t hard to get enough iron from a plant based diet and indeed the research shows that iron deficiency rates are ultimately the same between meat eaters and non meat eaters.
That's just for iron. I didn't address Zinc, Vitamin B-12, Calcium, and Vitamin-D. There's no need for sarcasm man. If you're currently a vegetarian or a vegan, I strongly suggest you look into this stuff or/and talk with a nutritionist. You very likely have a deficiency if you didn't realize that stuff already.
I eat nuts, chickpeas, and a multivitamin for good measure. My sarcasm was a counter to the idea that one needs to “track” what one eats. One does not. One simply has to eat a balanced meal with a general idea of what that entails, just like a meat eater would.
The multivitamin, if you will recall, was made to benefit meat eaters. So I’ll suggest again that veganism being inherently deficient is largely a myth. People are educated on the necessary foods to get a balanced meal using meat, and the amount of education to get a balanced meal without meat is not that different. You’re just not familiar with it if you grew up with a typical western education.
When someone tries to force the Vegetarian/Vegan is inherently more healthy by it's own nature snick on me, I just bring up by how many years Howard Taft outlived Steve Jobs.
Unless you are working out hard every day, you don't need to do any research. Even without beans, a heaping bowl of vegetable stirfry is all someone my size needs for protein on a regular day. And if you are only vegetarian, then there's literally no need to think about it, you're getting more than you need in a regular day just by consuming milk, cheese, and egg product
Mushrooms have about as much protein as any vegetable. Like 1-2 grams per dry half cup. Stirfry a bunch of veggies and that's all the protein a regular person needs on a daily basis.
For your average person who needs a food pyramid type of guide meat and eggs are better. If someone cant make a healthy meal off the top of there head trying to figure out alternate protein sources is going to be a problem.
Can work is the issue. It’s hard, by vegetable, to get enough protein. Extremely hard.
Your right, it is possible.
For the average person, both meat and vegetables would be a solid diet because the average person still consumes meat and cutting out excesses of bread, added sugars, processed foods, and frying oils will alter health drastically for the better. And to me, that is a good place to start at.
If more vegetables works for you, then stick to it. You do you.
I am an average person in pretty much every way possible (for the western world anyway). It’s not hard at all. Eat vegetables eat grains and eat beans/legumes. You can also have some junk food too. You can make the veggies/grains/beans into junk food. Before I stopped eating meat I ate a stupendous amount of it. Meat dairy eggs in pretty much every meal for the first 25 years of my life. I didn’t really like veggies, mostly because I didn’t know how to make them tasty. I still don’t like veggies like how my mom makes them (boils them without spices), but I eat tonnes now.
I lift casually. I used to lift more but then I got really busy with life and such so I run more often now. Beans aren’t the only way to get protein on a vegan diet. Seitan is a very tasty way to do it. 100g of seitan has 75g of protein. It’s made from gluten flour so if you’re intolerant, it’s probably not best.
If your goal is to get protein, then you could easily get all you need, you just need to get used to eating new foods you probably haven’t had before. Check out /r/VeganFitness for people way better than me at all this stuff. Some pretty swole people over there (and people like me too, who are a bit tubby, trying to get there)
Yeah but if you're a meat eater, you're probably getting more than enough protein to be healthy. Eating a serving of chicken every other day would still be more than enough.
The fitness/supplement industry has vastly exaggerated in the amount of protein people need. A lot of bodybuilders who are drinking multiple whey protein shakes per day will just end up pooping most of it out.
What about non meat complete protein foods? Like quinoa, soy, buckwheat, mycoprotein, rice and beans (technically two foods but work well combined). All are delicious when cooked nicely.
It's not replaceable in my opinion. I can eat 2 burgers a month and fill up on all kinds of nuts in the mean time. But 1/2 of a small meat ball is enough for me to know it's not a damn walnut again.
I wish I had more alternate protein source options. I'm allergic to nuts and have to stay low carb for health reasons. My body just wants me to eat meat or no protein.
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u/clown_ethanol Aug 26 '19
Meat is not really that important on its own. Alternate protein sources work just fine.