When you think of protein, often times your mind goes straight to meat. I am here to tell you that you actually CAN get enough protein from plants! Crazy right?! Plant-based foods that offer a high amount of protein include lentils, beans, green peas, amaranth, and quinoa. To figure out how much protein your average adult should be consuming, a good rule of thumb is about 0.8-1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. In case you still don’t believe that you can get all of your protein needs from plants, I have prepared a one day meal plan with all plant-based foods that can provide you with your protein needs for one day.
Breakfast: Overnight Oats
1/2 cup of Greek yogurt – 17 g of protein 2 tbsp of Chia seeds – 4 g of protein 1/2 cup of rolled oats – 16 g of protein 2/3 cup of Almond milk – 1 g of protein Add sweeteners to flavor balance
Lunch: Protein Bowl 1 cup of cooked quinoa – 8 g of protein 1 cup of edamame – 17 g of protein 1/2 cup of black beans – 19 g of protein Dress with favorite sauce
Dinner: Green Smoothie
1 banana – 1 g of protein 1 cup of spinach – 1 g of protein 1 cup almond milk – 1 g of protein 1/2 cup of chopped mango – 2 g of protein 3 tbsp of hemp seeds – 11 g of protein
This one day meal plan is solely plant based and provides you with 98 grams of protein.
I learned about a couple new scoring systems used for identifying nutrient dense foods and antioxidant content. The ANDI, Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, rating system ranks nutrient dense foods on a scale from 1 to 1000. This system evaluates a wide range of micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and antioxidants. One flaw with this system, however, is that some very nutrient dense foods score lower on the scale because the rating system doesn’t differentiate between the sources of calories like good fats and bad fats. The ORAC, Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, rates the compounds and their antioxidant ability in foods. The system measures these compounds based on their isolated effects outside the body. Since we cannot predict how the antioxidants will react inside the body, when mixed with other nutrients, this just gives us a general idea of the antioxidant value in various foods. For one of the recipes we made this week, I scored the ingredients using both of these rating systems. The recipe was a Steamed Bok Choy with Cooked Buckwheat and a Cilantro Tamari Dressing.
ANDI Rating: Bok Choy – 865 Buckwheat Groats – 30 Olive Oil – 10 Scallions – 173 Ginger – 56 Cilantro – 481
These main ingredients add up to a score of 1,615. This score means that this dish is very nutrient dense and offers a great deal of health benefits. Just in regular daily life, these scores are useful to know to make sure that you are including nutrient dense foods in your diet. These are also helpful to know when working in a dietetic field and instructing people on what foods are more or less nutrient dense.
Our recipes this week were very interesting and all tasted so different. While making one of the dishes, I learned that Sumac powder is pomegranate seeds ground up into powder form. I also learned that it is very high in Vitamin C. I learned that Bok Choy is very nutrient dense and it was my first time trying it as well! It was a lot chewier than I expected, but tasted delicious! I had also never tasted Sumac powder before so that was pretty exciting as well. I would most definitely make the Fattoush Salad with the lemon mint dressing again. It was such a fresh, light salad and offered a lot of different flavors and textures. This was definitely my favorite dish and quite easy to make! All of these recipes included a super food which was awesome to actually make recipes that included super foods! Super foods are very nutrient dense and offer a wide variety of health benefits. For example, super greens like wheatgrass and spirulina are very detoxifying, purifying, and alkalizing to the body. All foods are not considered super foods because some foods offer little to no nutritional benefits.
Food for Thought 