Protein

The whole protein thing has been on my mind a lot lately, not because I'm concerned I'm not getting enough, but because I feel like people are needlessly concerned that I'm not getting enough as a vegan and I want to prove to them that I am, in fact, getting all the protein I need.

Normally, women need about 46 grams of protein a day, but since I am growing a human, I need about 70 grams.

Legumes and whole grains about probably the highest source of protein for vegetarians/vegans, and I eat plenty of these a day, not to mention green leafy vegetables, fruit, and almond milk.

My daily food intake looks something like this:

Breakfast
One large bowl of cereal with almond milk
One piece of toast with Earth Balance spread
1 cup of fruit
1 cup of tea or decaf coffee
1 cup of water
Sometimes orange juice

Lunch
Large salad with kidney or garbanzo beans
and/or
Veggie wrap in whole grain tortilla
OR
Soup with rice

Dinner
Salad
Some kind of entree (see the entire rest of this blog)

I usually don't count calories, or protein grams or calcium or anything like that, but just for fun I added up the amount of protein in my breakfast today.  This is what I came up with:

1 cup diced cantelope = 1.3 grams protein
1. 5 cup whole grain cereal = 15 grams
1 cup almond milk in cereal = 1gram
1 cup chocolate almond milk drink = 1 gram
1 piece of whole grain and seed toast = 6 grams

Total comes to 24.3 grams of protein just at breakfast.  And that's not including the additional cantelope I kept snacking on, or the little bit of almond milk I had in my decaf coffee.

I don't know how much more protein I'll eat the rest of the day, but I'm already 1/3 of the way to my daily intake and still have two more meals to go.

This just goes to show that without even trying, I'm already on the right track for one day, and need no additional supplements or protein shakes, or meat or dairy!