Protein at Every Meal—Really?

Picture that you are trying to build a house.  You have the job site, the plans, and a crew of skilled construction workers, but you keep running out of materials!  Maybe you have lots of wood, but are short on screws.  Or piles of sheetrock, but no joint compound.  The workers sit around for a while, waiting, but then they all leave and do something else.  The screws finally show up, but the workers are missing.  Frustrating, right?  If the house gets built at all, it’s going to take a long time, and may not be built very well.

Working out with weights, or bodyweight (any type of resistance training) taxes our bones, muscles, and nervous systems.  This stress provides the stimulus to our mind-body system to upgrade all of our tissues.  These are good taxes, ones we want to pay!  Our bodies will build and repair our muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and ramp up all the cardiovascular and nerve supply to these tissues.  It’s a big anabolic (growth) event!  We are building ourselves better, and it keeps us young!  The activity induces a flood of good inflammation, and the workers arrive on site via our blood and lymph.  They need ready materials to do the work, now!  These building materials are called amino acids, and come from eating and digesting a steady supply of good quality protein throughout the day.

Proteins are strands of amino acids held together by weak peptide bonds.  The digestive juices in our stomachs and small intestines tear apart the bonds, and the amino acids are transported to the liver for storage.  These are the equivalent of 2x4s, nails, sheetrock, copper wiring, pipes, cement, everything we need to build and repair tissues.  There are 20 types of amino acids our bodies use as fundamental building blocks.  9 of them are called essential because they must be obtained directly through food.  The remaining 11 our bodies can assemble out of odds and ends.

You may be thinking, “but I am trying to be healthy and eat less, not more, meat!  This is confusing!”  Or, maybe you have heard that plant proteins are incomplete, and not high quality proteins.  Let me fill you in. 

Yes, for superior health, it’s good to cut down on (or eliminate!) animal products.  Plant proteins burn much more cleanly than animal proteins, and don’t clog up our systems.   Most plant foods have little to no saturated fat, and no cholesterol.  What they do have are lots of fiber, protein, slow burning carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.  They are good for our guts.  Plant foods are good for our brains, our hearts, lungs, and help us out in the bathroom, and the bedroom too!  

Soybeans have a complete profile of amino acids.  While other beans are lower in the amino acid methionine, grains and seeds are high in methionine.  So, eating a range of whole plants as sources of protein is the way to go.  These combinations don’t have to happen at every meal, but need to happen on a daily basis, giving the liver a full range of amino acid building blocks.    

Eating protein at every meal becomes easy and delicious, once you get the hang of it.  Since most people feel more grounded and satiated (all around “better”) when they eat plant protein regularly throughout the day, it’s an easy habit to adopt, and well worth the effort.   

What does this look like on a typical day?  Here is a quick sketch:

Breakfast:  Oats with vegan protein powder (and berries, chia)

Lunch:  Beans, rice, veggies, and seitan (wheat protein)

Dinner:  Tempeh burger with whole grain bread, salad, veggies

Snacks:  Baked tempeh or tofu, yams, beets, hummus with celery

To give you an idea of numbers, my current body weight is 130lbs.  Three meals (and a snack here and there) provide me with 120 grams of protein.  This is ample to aid my recovery, build new tissue, and keep me badass in the second half of life.

My recommendation is to start with breakfast. You will likely feel so much better that you will want to start tinkering with your other meals too! Enjoy! 

Stay tuned for recipes!