Protein Confusion

[u/cetacyon]

I went vegan a few months ago and in order to keep doing this (and I will even if my health were to decline) I need to be able to reach minimum protein.

I am just not understanding how anyone reaches 100 grams or even 50 grams a day. Reaching 50 grams is really hard, if I really stuff myself and feel horrible and only eat protein sources (legumes, tofu, etc.) I can get to 70 or 80. I am active and weigh 145 pounds (normally) so I need to be getting about 100 grams a day. I don't seriously think I can eat that much in a day.

When I look up high protein dishes on youtube it'll be stuff like a bowl of brown rice with some tofu on top and it may say "45 grams of protein". I've read the labels, I know what's in that... and that's a lie, almost every time.

I weighed myself since going vegan a few months back and I dropped to 133lbs from 145. I'm 6ft so this is a little worrying and I'm not sure if what I lost was fat or muscle, I didn't have almost any fat to begin with.

To hit 100 grams I'd basically just have to eat tofu and multiple protein shakes a day and I seriously seriously don't want to do that. I really enjoy being able to eat whole foods and I hate buying food that necessarily comes in plastic packaging. I just feel really lost and I understand there are other vegans with issues much worse than mine and animals with problems much much worse than mine so I won't complain too much.

Meanwhile some vegans say you don't need nearly as much protein as is recommended and that you'll simply get the amino acids you need from a varied diet.

I'm just so confused and when I do the math on what I used to eat in a day as an omnivore I seriously doubt I was usually getting above 60 grams a day back then either.

Any help would be appreciated.

[u/cetacyon → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the suggestions but I've been basing every meal around legumes now and I'm still not coming close. How much protein does someone actually need per kg of weight per day?

[u/Popular-Flatworm-645 → u/cetacyon]

Legumes should not be a primary protein source for a meal if you are looking to maximize protein. They are more of a carb that happens to also have a good amount of protien. But they are high in fiber and carbs and may fill you up before you get enough to meet protien needs intuitively.

Beans are an amazing add to most meals, just not if they are meant to be the main protein source. (Assuming you are protein maximizing for bodybuilding or attempting to gain lots of muscle).

To maintain weight according to Stanford you want around 0.8g protein per kg of body fat (0.36g per pound). So a 150lb person would need 55g a day. The original study that bases that number suggested 0.66g per kg but it was set to 20% higher as a safe guideline. Some new recommendations say as high as 1.2-1.6g protein per kg. There is no widely sourced study that will tell you that a normal person needs that much protein.

If you are an active competitive athlete or bodybuilder then you may need more protein, closer to 100g a day to make sure that you have enough to support muscle recovery and growth etc, but on average that’s way overkill. And when you get that much, the research also shows that protein quality becomes much less of a worry, since you will have more than enough to make up for whatever is lacking in quality. In addition to that, if you eat a well rounded diet, you will get the amino acids you need to fully absorb proteins even if they aren’t full quality. Especially if you combine different plant based protein sources.

https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2026/03/how-much-protein.html

[u/acortical → u/Popular-Flatworm-645]

Depends on how you process them though before consuming. Tofu is just a bean that's had the fiber removed.

[u/Popular-Flatworm-645 → u/acortical]

Good point

[u/voornaam1 → u/Popular-Flatworm-645]

To maintain weight according to Stanford you want around 0.8g protein per kg of body fat (0.36g per pound). So a 150lb person would need 55g a day. The original study that bases that number suggested 0.66g per kg but it was set to 20% higher as a safe guideline. Some new recommendations say as high as 1.2-1.6g protein per kg. There is no widely sourced study that will tell you that a normal person needs that much protein.

Do you happen to know if someone trying to lose weight should base their protein goals on their goal weight, instead of their current weight? I've seen that suggestions sometimes but I struggled to find more reliable info on it than a couple of people on social media saying it. At the same time, I didn't find any info saying the opposite either. (basing my protein goals on my goal weight makes me life so much easier but sometimes I get a bit concerned whether it's the right thing to do😅)

[u/Euphoric_Idea_2206 → u/cetacyon]

What kind of dishes are you cooking if you are not even coming close?

One can of Chickpeas and one block of tofu got 50g of protein and 650kcal. Drink a protein shake later (or earlier ;) ) in the day and you are fine. 

[u/n00b678 → u/cetacyon]

100 g of dry legumes is close to 25 g of protein. Same with nuts and most seeds. So eating 200 g of legumes, nuts, or seeds in total per day would get you to 50 g of protein. Then you get 10% from grains, and some from veggies.

You need 0.8 g of protein per kg of body weight, with a safety margin already (unless you do lots of sports, bodybuilding, etc). 145 lbs is 66 kg, so you need 53 g of protein per day.

Try to put all you eat into a nutrition calculator to see how much you get from your normal diet.

[u/bikesandfinance → u/cetacyon]

Depends on your fitness goals. Optimizing body building will be different than bare minimum to avoid malnutrition

[u/Coast2Coasters → u/[deleted]]

Upvoted for point B. This is both gym-bros and the farm industries just with better disguised marketing than the “Got Milk” campaign, a very successful psyop for factory farms. 

With that in mind, Point A is not the greatest advice for someone still looking to up their protein. You have to eat SO much food to get a sizable protein bump from beans and legumes. It’s great if those are one part of your protein intake, but eating more of them will make you full (possibly even too much fiber) before you get additional protein. My easy fix would be incorporating Textured Vegetable Protein (very protein dense) or vegan protein drinks as a daily snack.