What are the best plant-based sources of protein?

Very few nutrients are as essential as protein. As a reminder, 10 to 20% of your calories each day must come from protein. Your muscle composition and your overall health will suffer if you don’t eat get enough protein through your diet.

The Dietary Reference Intake is 0.8g of protein per Kg of body weight. This respectively translates to roughly 56g and 46 for an average sedentary man and woman.

If those numbers don’t look unattainable, we need need to remember that these numbers are minimum to avoid protein deficiency. The amount of protein each person needs depends on many factors, including their physical activity. If your train several times a week to grow lean muscle, exert your body through many high-intensity classes, your protein needs will be between 1.3 - 2.0g per kg of bodyweight.

Your dietary choices will direct the amount of whole food you’ll have to ingest in order to get your daily recommended amount of protein. Meat, poultry, seafood, eggs - animal food source in general - are by far the richest in protein. On the opposite, vegan sources of food, while they virtually all contain some, are not equally rich in protein. If you can provide your body adequate amounts of essentials amino acids with a plant-based diet (lysine and methionine are the toughest to get), depending on the culinary choices you make and your personal food preferences, the amount of food you have to eat will vary a lot, and sometimes it can make it hard to reach your recommended or target daily protein intake.

Listed below are the 3 best protein sources in different categories of plant-based food. For a more exhaustive list, please read out blog post: How Much Protein Do You Get From Your Vegan Diet?

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