The Co-op Food Stores of New Hampshire and Vermont

added 08/11/10

Protein is your body’s most important nutrient. Hair, nails, skin, blood, connective tissue, muscle, and bones are all made of protein. In addition, enzymes (which speed up chemical reactions in the body), antibodies (which fight bacteria and viruses), and hormones are proteins. Because protein is so important to our bodies, we need to eat enough of it every day. Fortunately, this is extremely easy to do, even for vegetarians. In fact, most Americans, including vegetarians, have a daily protein intake in excess of their needs.

How Much Protein Do You Need?

The recommended Daily Value for protein is 50 grams per day, based on a 2,000-calorie diet. This is easily met, or more likely exceeded, by meeting calorie needs with a varied, healthful diet. More specifically, for adults, the National Academy of Science recommends about 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. For example, a 150-pound person would need just about 54 grams of protein a day.

Which Foods are Good Sources of Protein?

Foods especially high in protein are animal products such as meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs. Plant foods such as beans, seeds, nuts, and nut butters are also rich in protein. Protein is found in just about every food. Grains, breads, and vegetables all contain some protein, which adds up to a significant amount as we eat these foods throughout the day.

Protein Perils

Lots of myths surround protein: how much you need, what kinds of foods it should come from and what benefits it provides. These can all be answered with facts. So let’s bust some nutrition myths about protein:

Myth: Eating lots of protein is essential for growing big muscles.
Fact: Eating extra protein does not build big muscles. Eating extra protein calories in excess of your body’s calorie requirement are not stored as extra muscle but, like all extra calories, as body fat. The only proven way to build stronger muscles is through weight-bearing exercise. (Hoisting 16-ounce steaks with a fork doesn’t cut it!)

Myth: Eating lots of red meat and butter is the best way to lose weight.
Fact: A long-term diet that has lots of fatty protein foods (pork rinds, fatty meats, butter) and is low in other healthful foods such as whole grains, beans, nuts, and fruits and vegetables, lacks important nutrients and can lead to nutrient deficiencies and negative health effects.

But cutting down on refined carbohydrates such as white bread, pastries, cakes and cookies and boosting healthful proteins such as beans, nuts, lean meats (small portions), and low fat milk and yogurt, can be a healthful way to improve your diet.

Myth: Vegetarians have to be careful to combine beans and rice at meals to get a “complete protein”.
Fact: Vegetarians do not have to worry about combining certain kinds of protein foods at each meal. This now out-of-date belief was based on early nutrition research in rodents. Newer research showed that plant protein can fully meet human protein requirements, as long as a variety of sources are consumed throughout the day and calorie needs are met.

The bottom line is that protein is absolutely essential to good health, easy to get enough of, and easy to overeat, especially when it is served as an oversized steak at a restaurant or barbeque.

To get the best balance of nutrients and health benefits, the latest food guidance recommends mixing up your protein foods– for some meals use plant proteins such as beans, nuts and seeds, and dairy foods, and for other meals use small portions of lean cuts of meat, poultry, and fish.

Tip Top Protein Choices

Make sure you eat several different kinds of protein foods over the course of your week:

• Beans – You can’t choose a bad bean! Lentils, peas, great northern, pinto, kidney, black, cranberry, red, limas, baby limas, garbanzo, and navy all provide protein, fiber, folate, iron, potassium, and other important minerals. Soy products such as soy burgers and hot dogs, tofu, tempeh, and soybean “nuts” can replace animal foods high in saturated fats as part of a heart-healthy eating plan.

• Nuts and Seeds – All are excellent choices for fiber, healthy plant oils, and minerals.

• Fatty fish – Salmon, mackerel, herring, and sardines, lake trout and albacore tuna are high in protein and rich in heart-protective omega-3 oils.

• Skinless poultry – Chicken, Cornish game hen, turkey, as well as ground turkey meat, are great lean protein choices.

• Eggs – Choose small or medium-size eggs; use just the egg white or egg substitute to help reduce your cholesterol intake.

• Lean beef – Cuts from the round, chuck, sirloin, and loin are leanest. Buy “choice” cuts or “select” grades. Choose 90% or higher lean ground beef. Trim all outside fat before cooking.

• Lean ham, lean pork – Tenderloin and loin chop are leanest choices.

• Wild game – Rabbit, venison, pheasant, and duck (without skin) are also naturally lean choices.

What’s a Serving?

Restaurant entrees could lead you to believe that a twelve-ounce steak is one serving. In fact, that portion size is more than two times the daily recommended amount!

For an average person, just five and a half ounces of protein foods are needed each day.

Each of the following serving sizes counts as a one-ounce serving from the Meat and Beans Group.

1 ounce of lean meat, poultry, or fish
1 egg
1 Tbs. peanut butter
1/4 cup cooked, dry beans
1/2 ounce of nuts or seeds

Of course, you can chose to eat all of your daily protein servings at one meal, or have smaller servings throughout the day.

Getting Enough Protein Is Easy!

This table shows the approximate amount of protein provided in a typical day of meals. It all adds up to plenty, even with small servings of steak and turkey or no meat at all!

Food	Amount	Protein (grams)
Shredded wheat cereal	1 cup	5
1% milk	1 cup	8
Whole wheat pita	1 pocket	6
Swiss cheese	1 oz.	8
Turkey breast	2 oz.	17
Lettuce and tomato salad	1.5 cups	3
Yogurt	1 cup	11
Lean steak	3 oz.	23
Baked potato	1 med.	4
Broccoli	1 cup	2
Whole wheat roll	1 small	2
Total Protein	=	89 grams