Where DO You Get Your Protein? Vegan Mofo Day 8

Where Do You Get Your Protein?

As I mentioned the other day, and as every vegan and vegetarian knows, “where do you get your protein” is the most frequent question that we hear. While many of us roll our eyes after hearing it so often, I like to think of it as a teachable moment, my chance to share some information that might take some of the nutritional mystery out of the vegan diet.

This is a question that I received from a reader named Tom.  I wrote about protein needs a couple years ago, but then I estimated my protein needs based on my own body weight, not necessarily calories. I thought that to answer Tom’s question I would use my food from last week’s What I Ate Wednesday, and analyze it a little to see how I was doing protein-wise. As a rule, I don’t count calories but just try to eat a balanced, mostly healthy diet, so I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of numbers I’d come up with.

As just a little disclaimer, remember that I’m not a nutritionist, and my calculations are based on package labels and Dr. Google. And I used the “eyeball” method as opposed to a food scale to estimate portion sizes.  I also skipped the data on the protein powder, since Tom doesn’t use it.

Breakfast

I actually have about three breakfasts, mostly because my morning starts so early. In this example, I had a banana before cross country practice, another banana and a package of Larabar Renola afterward.

Banana (2): 200 calories, 2.6 grams protein
Renola: 200 calories, 6 grams protein

A little later in the morning I had some eggy tofu and toast.

Tofu: 90 calories, 10 grams protein
Toast: 180 calories, 10 grams protein

Lunch

My early afternoon “pre-lunch” consisted of leftovers of my Best Vegan Burrito.

Seitan: 80 calories, 15 grams protein
Beans: 90 calories, 7 grams protein
Avocado: 50 calories, 0 grams protein
Tortilla: 220 calories, 4 grams protein
Plus salsa, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro which adds negligible calories and protein so I didn’t bother to do the math.

Lunch was a Veggie Delight sandwich at Subway. The website actually figures out the nutrient information based on what you add to the sandwich, so, yay, a little less math for me.

Subway Veggie Delight on French bread with avocado, brown mustard, spinach, tomato, cucumber, jalapeno, and banana peppers: 290 calories, 9 grams protein

Dinner

And finally, dinner was Chick’n Piccata, made with Gardein Chick’n Scallopini and wild rice.

Chick’n: 110 calories, 14 grams protein
Wild Rice: 165 calories, 6.5 grams protein
Mushrooms, 20 calories, 3 grams protein

What I didn’t include was the oil I used to cook with, the Earth Balance I spread on my toast, or the glass of wine I had with dinner. All of these add calories (unfortunately), but no protein to speak of.

By my estimate, I ate about 2,000 calories with 87 grams of protein. While this falls a little short of what Tom is looking for, it would be easy to increase total protein without adding very many calories. In general, most of the vegan protein sources, beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan, provide a lot of protein with very little caloric cost. One extra serving of the Chick’n Piccata would add the protein. That extra 110 calories can be offset by having just one slice of toast, using less oil, or skipping the glass of wine. Or even cutting out the second banana.

Honestly, if I were taking an objective look at my food for the day, my concern wouldn’t be the protein. There are not a lot of vegetables included beyond the sandwich toppings, and not much fruit either.  I could definitely make improvements in my overall nutrition by adding more leafy greens and other veggies. Having a salad and some asparagus with dinner would help. Replacing some of the carbs (toast, tortilla, sandwich roll), with more vegetables would go a long way to “powering up” my diet.

Instagram picture of the day (Follow me!). My varsity girls team posing before their first race of the season.

How about you? What small changes could you make to your diet to power it up?