Are you getting enough protein from your plant based diet?

Every single cell in your body contains protein, so ensuring your diet contains a good amount of it is essential for your body to function.

Some roles of proteins in our body include:

• Building and repairing muscles and other body tissues such as our hair, skin and nails
• Hormone production
• Enzymes (i.e. break down our food into smaller pieces)
• Immune function
• Energy

Protein is made up from smaller components called amino acids. We need a balance of all 22 amino acids for so many functions within our body, however, our body doesn’t make 9 of these amino acids therefore we must get these 9 from food – we call these 9 “essential amino acids”.

A “complete protein” refers to a food that contains all 9 of the essential amino acids; animal foods are often complete proteins. Plant proteins each contain some essential amino acids but not often do they have all 9 of them in one food, therefore, when eating a plant based diet its important to eat a wide range of high protein foods to ensure we get all the amino acids that we need.

These are some examples of plant-based foods high in protein:

• Grains (oats, quinoa, buckwheat & rice)
• Nuts & seeds (chia and hemp seeds, walnuts, cashews, almonds, brazil & peanuts)
• Legumes (lentils, peas, beans, edamame, chickpeas & kidney beans)
• Certain fruits (avocados & jackfruit)
• Soy (tofu & tempeh)
• Vegetables (watercress, spinach & broccoli
• protein shakes (pea, rice etc..)

Plants based foods are generally higher in vitamin C and fibre than meat and are lower in saturated fat.