(August 12, 2014 at 2:43 am)bennyboy Wrote: Yeah, protein really depends on how much hurt you're putting your body through. I'm pretty sure weight-lifters need lots of protein, and I've heard that long-distance runners also need very large amounts due to the constant wear-and-tear.
Protein requirements are mostly overstated. The ADA make the following recommendations:
"Power athletes (strength or speed): 1.2 to 1.7 grams/kilogram a day
Endurance athletes: 1.2 to 1.4 grams/kilogram a day
For an adult male athlete, that’s about 84 to 119 grams of protein a day; for adult females about 66 to 94 grams.
By comparison, a sedentary adult male needs about 56 grams of protein a day; for females it’s about 46 grams."
So if we take the upper end of a 70kg power athlete's requirements, that means they require the avg. protein calorie density of their food to have around 16% of calories from protein (assuming 3000 calories Total daily req.(which is pretty damn conservative considering the amount of exercise they perform) and 119g protein at 4 calories per gram)
The protein calorie density of some vegan foods are below
Lentils = 31%
Green peas = 27%
Kidney Beans=27%
All bran cereal = 20%
Oats = 19%
Spaghetti = 16%
Multi-grain Bread = 17%
Peanut butter = 17%
Hummus = 19%
Spinach =48%
Broccoli = 28%
Asparagus = 40%
I could go on....
Of course many foods also have below 16% protein calorie denisty, fruits will be very low but most vegetables and whole grains are above 10% (which is all a norm needs anyhow). And this is of course without turning to soy products, which personally I quite enjoy eg tofu or vegan sausages etc or things that some people find difficult to find eg seitan, or vegan protein powders, all of which are way above 20%. The point is two fold, firstly we don't actually require that much protein, and secondly there are vegan sources that are more than ample.
