Mythbusting: Vegans & Vegetarians Don't Get Enough Protein

Little old me, flexing some veggie muscle

Everybody knows  that if you don't eat meat or fish then there is no possible way that you could get enough protein in your daily intake of food. Right? You will wither away, your grandmother should be worried and you won't possibly be able to function in life because protein is, of course, the most important part of any meal.

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me about how I get my protein, I might be able to afford that Vitamix Blender I've been lusting after all these years!  But is it all old wives tales?  Is there any factual basis for this?

Protein is important for cell development and maintenance of vital bodily functions like enzyme creation and fueling neurotransmitters. In a single day the average adult human female needs about 46g of protein per day, the males require about 56g. Meat is a really easy source of protein but it's certainly not the only one. Bodybuilders are protein obsessed and two of the most popular protein supplements are whey (a vegetarian cheese derivative) and hemp (which is vegan cuz it's from from seeds).  Gram for gram there are plenty of plant based sources of protein - nuts, seeds, beans and even oats - that deliver the goods in a real and tangible way.

And while we're talking about it, there is some protein in most foods. So in practice, here's how you might get more than enough protein in an average plant based day of eating:

Breakfast

2 slices of wheat toast = 7g

2 tbsp peanut butter = 8g

1 glass of OJ = 1.7g

Snack

1 banana = 1.5g

Lunch

Lil pot of hummus 1/2 cup = 10g

10 tortilla chips = 1.4g

100g spinach = 2.9g

1 avocado = 4g

Snack

20 almonds = 4g

Dinner

1 cup white mushrooms = 2.2g

1/2 an onion = 0.6g

2 cloves garlic = 0.4g

1cup brown rice = 4.5g

1 green pepper = 1g

1 tomato =  0.8g

2 wheat tortillas = 10g

TOTAL PROTEIN = 60g

How easy was that? Meat eating folks need not worry that I will waste away or that a diet like this is bad for my health. The reality is totally to the contrary and we haven't even gotten into useful things like meat substitutes, nutritional yeast or juicing! Furthermore, vegetable sources of protein so completely out perform fleshly counterparts on overall nutrition it's almost laughable. So 100g of peanuts contains not only 26g of protein but 4 x the potassium, 5 x the iron, 9 x the calcium, and 8 x the magnesium of a 100g piece of chicken. That's right: peanuts!

Studies show that getting protein isn't an issue for vegetarians in the west, while scholars are currently debating whether a diet which is high in meat proteins might be as 'bad for you as smoking'. So really people, us veggie folks are doing fine.

Michelle Obama and the FDA Get Real on Serving Sizes with Proposed Changes to Nutrition Facts

Source: Clutch

I spend hours in the supermarket reading boxes. Going over ingredients, costs per gram, country of origin, and nutrition, on everything I buy. These shopping trips take a long time and though my fascination with back of the box literature drives my partner insane, I make the time because I like to know what I'm getting.

Michelle Obama and the FDA recently released proposed changes to US nutritional labeling that are intended to make it quicker to size up your goods and make an informed decision before purchase. The main updates from the original 1993 format are to emphasize calories, make serving sizes more realistic and highlight added sugars.

source: FDA

The bold over sized calorie figures follow on from what we've seen recently on restaurant menus and are arguably a simplified tactic to fight obesity - but hey, it's a start.  And as far as the effort to make serving sizes more realistic and easier to understand, I am totally with them on that and will gladly put my calculator away.

Source FDA

But I'm not completely sold on the plan to remove the  to remove the 'calories from fat' information. A spoke person said that this was done because they think that the 'type of fat' is more important than the amount. There is definitely truth to this, but lots of people struggle with 'good fats' just as much as 'bad fats', thinking they can eat all the cashews they want because it's vegetable fat. The thing about it is though that 'good fat' works the same as 'bad fat' when you're trying to get in your jeans. Still it's a start.

It's all under review at the moment, with the FDA seeking feedback for 90 days and plans still in the works for when it will come in practice, but if it does, it will effect more than 700,000 products on a shelf near you.

Huffington Post Reports: A Vegan Diet (Hugely) Helpful Against Cancer

Bell Peppers at the Las Vegas Farmers Market

Bestselling vegan author and wellness activist Kathy Freston, recently reported some pretty conclusive information the benefits of Vegan and Vegetarian diets in The Huffington Post. It seems there's more than just vitamins behind the health benefits of a vegetable diet.

Source: The Huffington Post 

If you're anything like me, the "C" word leaves you trembling. But today there is very good news to report: Research suggests you can improve your odds of never getting cancer and/or improve your chances of recovering from it. Not with a drug or surgery, although those methods might be quite effective. This is all about the power on your plate, and it's seriously powerful.

A 2012 analysis of all the best studies done to date concluded vegetarians have significantly lower cancer rates. For example, the largest forward-looking study on diet and cancer ever performed concluded that "the incidence of all cancers combined is lower among vegetarians."

That's good news, yes. But what if we're looking for great news? If vegetarians fare so much better than meat-eaters, what about vegans? Is that an even better way to eat? We didn't know for sure until now.

A new study just out of Loma Linda University funded by the National Cancer Institute reported that vegans have lower rates of cancer than both meat-eaters and vegetarians. Vegan women, for example, had 34 percent lower rates of female-specific cancers such as breast, cervical, and ovarian cancer. And this was compared to a group of healthy omnivores who ate substantially less meat than the general population (two servings a week or more), as well as after controlling for non-dietary factors such as smoking, alcohol, and a family history of cancer.

Why do vegans have such lower cancer risk? This is fascinating stuff: An elegant series of experiments was performed in which people were placed on different diets and their blood was then dripped on human cancer cells growing in a petri dish to see whose diet kicked more cancer butt. Women placed on plant-based diets for just two weeks, for example, were found to suppress the growth of three different types of breast cancer (see images of the cancer clearance). The same blood coursing through these womens' bodies gained the power to significantly slow down and stop breast cancer cell growth thanks to just two weeks of eating a healthy plant-based diet! (Two weeks! Imagine what's going on in your body after a year!) Similar results were found for men against prostate cancer (as well as against prostate enlargement).

How may a simple dietary change make one's bloodstream so inhospitable to cancer in just a matter of days? The dramatic improvement in cancer defenses after two weeks of eating healthier is thought to be due to changes in the level of a cancer-promoting growth hormone in the body called IGF-1. Animal protein intake increases the levels of IGF-1 in our body, but within two weeks of switching to a plant-based diet, IGF-1 levels in the bloodstream drop sufficiently to help slow the growth of cancer cells.

How plant-based do we need to eat? Studies comparing levels of IGF-1 in meat-eaters vs. vegetarians vs. vegans suggest that we should lean toward eliminating animal products from our diets altogether. This is supported by the new study in which the thousands of American vegans studied not only had lower rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, but significantly lower cancer risk as well.

This makes sense when you consider the research done by Drs. Dean Ornish and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn; they found that a vegan diet caused more than 500 genes to change in only three months, turning on genes that prevent disease and turning off genes that cause breast cancer, heart disease, prostate cancer, and other illnesses. This is empowering news, given that most people think they are a victim of their genes, helpless to stave off some of the most dreaded diseases. We aren't helpless at all; in fact, the power is largely in our hands. It's on our forks, actually.

'Cress to impress: what's the deal with watercress?

Who knew that mild mannered watercress was actually a superfood? Yeah, I know, not quite as pretty as rocket and slightly more complicated to eat than spinach:  watercress.
I recently came across this  article from Positive News and turns out that the quiet little sproutling is actually ‘packed with 15 essential vitamins and minerals. Weight for weight, it contains more vitamin C than oranges, more calcium than milk, more iron than spinach, more folic acid than bananas’….yeah, watercess! I’ve been upping my quota and I’m loving it. It’s a major crop here so not only do I get to eat tasty greens, but I’m also supporting my local farmers  and eating on the cheap, making it taste event better.
So what about the taste? If you've never had watercress it's really spicy  with a hint of bitterness like eating rhutebega greens. And actually it's actually quite versatile. Soup, salad, sandwich, hot or cold.
My favourite cressipe (you like that? I just came up with it and I’m very proud. Watercress marketing people, you’re welcome to use it.) so far is a simple salad with cheese with I regularly have for lunch. I won't bore you with a 'how to put stuff in a bowl' recipe but here's a lovely Indian recipe for Watercress and Chickpeas from vegetarian blog jugalbandi.