So How Much Protein is in My Protein Though…?

No matter how hard our health authorities (along with instagram influencers reading food packaging for you in their feeds) try to remove the mystery from our daily supermarket shop, the industry that puts food on your table is always one step, or seven, ahead. And with the craze in tracking macros that has swept the internet and every gym changing room for a few years now, we need to set the record straight.

Protein in your Vegetarian Diet

Veggie diets are the place to start as the trend towards plant-based eating alongside heavy lifting are, from a fuelling perspective, basically diametrically opposed. The big unspoken secret here is unfortunately that no matter how high our tofu steak or lentil burger may be in raw protein terms, the fact is that around (and at least) 50 percent of that protein is locked up with fibre. And that means that our body is simply going to shed all of that valuable muscle building, amino acid rich nutritional content in the form of a great quality, microbiome-enhancing poop. Making good quality poo is just cheaper than making great quality, mobile, dense and elastic muscle tissue.

(Here’s a delicious protein-rich vegan burger recipe that we all love at The Hopsack – it’s a must try!)

The Genetic Factor

Now of course there are exceptions to the rule, as always and yes I hear your cries of protest ‘what about India!!??’ – it’s true that some populations have amazingly adapted to a vegetarian diet whilst staying healthy and lean and all that. But when we look at the indian population they score in the lowest third of the world in terms of height and weight, and yes that is influenced strongly by economic along with nutritional status, but my general understanding here is reinforced by looking at countries with historically vegetarian or vegan tendencies. There’s a clear correlation between non-vegetarian protein intake and body weight and height. Again there are outliers, but I wouldn’t be betting that we should build our life around the exceptions to the rule. Woud you?

How Much Protein is in Meat vs Vegetables.

When you look at the raw data, vegetables are extremely high in protein, but like we’ve said a chunk of that protein is locked up with fibre, so to be a vegetarian weightlifter we might need to DOUBLE the protein content compared to our non-veggie athlete. Just to be clear when I’m talking about athletes, it’s a useful yardstick to measure ourselves in terms of this protein consumption thing, as they’re the best examples of, and also completely obsessed with turning food into muscle. But we ALL want to turn our food into muscle – body composition, skeletal muscle mass…these things affect fracture risk, dementia risk, diabetes and heart disease…so come on get on board the protein bandwagon and let’s explore.

If we take the woefully outdated WHO guidelines as a starting point then your requirements as an adult are to take between .6 and .83g per kg of body weight as protein. Which in most diets equates to about 10-15% of your daily intake of calories, leaving a LOT of room for carbohydrates and fats…does that sound healthy? But this is all getting lost in the weeds. How much protein is in your protein you ask?  

Well fish and meat is made up of roughly 20% protein give or take, whilst even the best veggie protein is about 16%, and not forgetting that half locked up in fibre, that means our quinoa (16%) or tofu (12-15%) or mushrooms (10-12%) only provide half of what they say on the tin. So for an average adult male of 75kg, that means that whilst you only need about 300g of animal protein to achieve a 1g/kg bodyweight, the volume of veg required to extract a similar protein value might be, no in fact IS about 900g.  

We’re not saying it’s impossible to chew down a kilo of mushrooms per day, but it’s HARD work. Economically certainly more affordable…but one of the advantages of our western mindset is better living through science – a tenet which we tend to shy away from in The Hopsack – but in this case it makes sense to look at the best way to nourish our bodies with high quality protein and try to make at least one aspect of our lives a teensy bit simpler.  And if we’re willing to spend a bit on concentrated, extracted proteins, we can perhaps relax when doing our macro counting the rest of the day, and actually just eat what feels good.

Have you read our guide to some of the best protein powders available in Ireland for supplementation? You’ll find great value in it if you’re wanting to learn how to supplement your diet with high quality protein powder.