High Protein, low everything else

3nails1love

I have been looking for ways to increase my protein without increasing the cost of groceries (we are on a tight budget for a little while)

Everything I think I can try, turns out to be high in fat or also have more carbs. I love meat but I live in a place were it's expensive. Most of our dinners are high carb. Any ideas? Especially in the snack department?

My daily protein usually comes from 2 fried eggs for breakfast (69% fat) and tuna (pretty much all protein!!!)

So far tuna is the only thing that boosts the green in my pie chart.

I used to eat peanuts as a night time snack (it helped me get away from chips), but the fat was still too high so I switched to pretzels. That has worked great but it's 80% carb).

I would love some of your ideas.

Thank you.

Sabine_Stroehm

Protein without fat or carbs? Jerky.

Why are you worried about fat?

TavistockToad

Reduced fat dairy?

MindPump1

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

Protein without fat or carbs? Jerky.

Why are you worried about fat?

My thought exactly. Fat is actually good for you despite all the broscience circling the web. Make sure to do your own research but I eat a high fat diet with medium amount of protein, about 100-150 grams of protein and about 20-50 grams of crabs or less a day ( mostly from veggies). You don't have to push yourself to consume so much protein each day.

3nails1love

I tend to either go over on fat (less now that I don't eat mayonnaise on bread anymore), or really high in the carbs and just a tiny sliver of protein. I'm just looking for something to help balance out the rest of my day.

RodaRose

Shrimp, eggs whites, protein powder.
It is ok to go over fat as long as you are getting enough protein. The macros are not a rule for everyday. They are a good guideline.
If you work every meal around protein, you will not have to be concerned about what happens at the end of the day.

kommodevaran

What have you set your macros to, and why?

3nails1love

The normal setting, but I would prefer to do 50/25/25.

lemurcat12

If meat is a problem (lean meat is the easiest source), then how about low fat dairy like plain greek yogurt or cottage cheese? Also, try to find non meat sources of protein to base dinner around rather than just carbs. Beans and lentils and soybeans/tempeh/tofu will have carbs, of course, but more protein than something like grains (including pasta) or potatoes.

Beans with a small amount of lean meat (including something like chicken or turkey thigh, which is often less expensive) can be a way to add protein and keep costs down, too.

yarwell

Rabbits.

kommodevaran

3nails1love wrote: »

The normal setting, but I would prefer to do 50/25/25.

That's strange. I really expected some crazy split Maybe if you open your diary, we can offer more suggestions.

emstewart95

Whey protein powder, spinach, quinoa and more eggs!!!

Tricia7188

Eggs are fairly cheap so you could do like 1 whole egg for flavor and an additional 2-3 whites which are really low cal for the protein (tossing the yolks is worth it to me to save the cals) or all whites.
Also you can learn how to cut up a whole chicken, rather than spend money for the stores to do it, big money saver.
Nuts, beans, legumes are great nutritionally but aren't as great for the cals compared to protein content and they definitely up the fat/carbs.
Shrimp are awesome protein but aren't cheap. I get the ones with shells and everything and theyre cheaper.
Cottage cheese has alot of protein, not sure how cheap it is nowadays though.

3nails1love

Thank you all.
I think cottage cheese will be a big help for afternoon snacks.
My diary often has French or German words because I scan products and I live in Switzerland. I think my biggest problem is nighttime snacks and dinner. I've started adding chickpeas, beans and lentils to some meals, I haven't converted to egg whites only yet or protein powder. I may have to look into that too.

sympha01

Greek yogurt. Read labels though since in the US that's not a protected term and anyone can call their yogurt "greek." Some manufacturers just put thickeners like gelatin in regular yogurt to make it thick, and that won't help you as much from a protein perspective. For a high protein yogurt you want a strained greek yogurt product. If the label shows it has < 18g of protein for 100 calories (for non fat yogurt; it's more like 18g per 150 calories for 2% yogurt), then it's really going to help. The best name brand is Fage, I think, but it's pricey. But my grocery's store brand is the real stuff and that's quite cheap on a $$ :: protein ratio.

Purely on a dollars to protein grams perspective, I don't think anything beats chicken breast (if you're not fussy about where your chicken comes from, shop sales, etc.). I think meat is crazy expensive where I live but chicken breast is the most economical option for me to get lots of protein. If you watch sales and are not picky, tilapia (especially individually quick-frozen fillets) can also be really cheap and is protein-erific.

On that note, consider looking at your favorite foods a little differently. If you look at foods not as g of protein per serving but instead grams of protein per 100 calories, it starts getting easier to know what foods you like to eat that give you the most protein "bang" for your calorie "buck." When I was first learning to get my protein levels higher, I had to start evaluating everything right down to snacks to learn that a lot of the foods I was eating were low calorie, but contributed nothing to my protein goals, thereby cutting more into my calorie budget and making it hard to meet that goal. (Things like almond milk or Laughing Cow cheese wedges were big offenders in this category). Mushrooms, spinach, and broccoli on the other had have pretty high protein :: calorie ratios for vegetables, and cauliflower is not bad either. Eating a piece of toast with a little peanut butter had the same calories as a couple of cookies but 3 or 4x as much protein. Stuff like that.

Also, if you currently eat pasta or rice, consider swapping them or stretching them with beans. Beans are high in calories compared to meat, so I wouldn't swap beans for meat to increase your protein. But compared to grain products they do have a favorable protein :: calorie ratio. White beans make a dandy substitution for pasta in many dishes, I've found. Mixing in lentils, chickpeas, pinto beans, kidney beans etc. with rice can help you eat a smaller portion of rice and get a little more protein in.

californiagirl2012

It is kind of hard to get enough protein while on a deficit and also manage not to skip any macros or deprive of any food groups. I find most people are successful when they focus on protein and veggies first, then fill in the gap with carbs, and make sure some healthy fat is in the mix. It falls into place pretty well that way. Even with the small calorie budget for my 5 foot nothing frame I can manage to get close to 100 grams of protein most days. And I don't skip the fats, carbs, fiber, or nutrients. You can alternate days with higher fats/carbs/protein to make sure you get enough of all the things every week and everyone should eat up to mainteance one day a week anyway to keep hormones stable. The maintenace days are a great way to make sure you get enough of all the things.

The highest protien per calorie foods are in this order; egg whites, white fish, protein powder, turkey/chicken/ham, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese. Other foods have protein but the ratio of protein per calories drops off dramatically.

Traveler120

3nails1love wrote: »

Thank you all.
I think cottage cheese will be a big help for afternoon snacks.
My diary often has French or German words because I scan products and I live in Switzerland. I think my biggest problem is nighttime snacks and dinner. I've started adding chickpeas, beans and lentils to some meals, I haven't converted to egg whites only yet or protein powder. I may have to look into that too.

Adding beans, peas and lentils is a good move. Also keep in mind that you really only need about 1g/kg of ideal weight in protein. Unless you're a serious body builder, the average woman would do perfectly fine with 50-70g of protein and you can get that just from eating a variety of whole foods from grains, legumes, potatoes and veggies. Meat is not an essential food. Also, think about it, should you really have to resort to protein powders (a highly processed food!!) to be healthy? I don't think so. That's just what people selling supplements and low carb diets want us to believe.

I eat a high carb diet (75%), get 60g of protein on average, keep fats around 10% and I'm doing just fine. All my labs are normal, I've lost all my excess weight and I stay active. Just watch total calories if your goal is weight loss and eat whatever you like.

Spyer116

Non fat greek yogurt (plain you could have like 4 grams of carbs, with 12 grams of protein), flavoured I think would be up to 8grams carbs and 8 grams protein.

Chicken breast is generally cheap any/every where, so try get that?
or turkey mince / ground turkey, a bit boring, but since its not so popular its generally cheaper too.

Normal cheeses tend to be roughly 50-60% fat 40-50% protein. Low fat ones could be 66-75% protein.
I've never bought them or really looked at them. But there's goats cheese, cottage cheese, and quark. I think one or two of those are super low in fat if not nil, and close enough to just pure protein.

Protein milk (some stores do their own brands so are cheaper than more well known brands there's a store brand here with 0% fat, 7g protein / 100ml, and only 79c price), could have up to 7grams protein / 100ml. I think normal milk has 3-4 grams. (and the protein milks tend to be 0-1% fat).

If you eat porridge, try oat bran. It has more protein than normal or jumbo oats and more fiber and beta-glucan fiber, which is always helpful for being filling and healthy.
The one I have says 17grams / 100g oat bran.
a 40g serving of that oatbran + 150ml of a protein milk could be over 17g protein, which is pretty damn awesome for a grain breakfast totalling somewhere between 220-250 calories off the top of my head. 20-30g would be a fairly solid serving of protein per small-medium sized meal. So it stacks up pretty well.

Protein powders lack the vitamins/nutrition. but they're generally a complete solid protein that digests quickly. The main brands are expensive, but you can get some good quality cheaper brands too.
I get an isolate one which is 90% protein. 1kg is 22 euro. 40 servings @ 25gram servings. That's 55c per 23-24ish grams of protein.
If you get a normal non isolate one (the brand i use for example), 1kg flavoured is about 15.50 euro. And that's still 21 grams of protein, give or take.
There's another brand that's from the country i'm in, I haven't tried them. but they have 1kg bags for under 10 euro. I doubt its great quality, but i'd still consider trying them.
And the thing with protein powder is, they come in so many many different flavours, you can always change it up every purchase so you don't get tired of it.
You can mix them with your porridge to flavour it instead of sugar or more carbs.
You can make normal smoothies with them added to it too, along with the fruit and milk/water/etc.
you can bake with them.
I even make muffins using oat bran and protein powder. each muffin is about 90 calories, 10 grams protein, 9 grams carbs, and 2 grams fat. I think 5 grams fiber too. no added sugar/salt/butter/oil. Flavour comes from the protein powder and almond milk or the different greek yogurts I use (can use different kinds of milk too). Not great tasting. But decent for me. Especially since they're basically healthy food (protein, oat bran, greek yogurt, milk, etc), I eat a few for breakfast or lunch a few times a week instead of other things.

Here there's very few sport nutrition shops. But in other countries (maybe yours) maybe there would be more, or even the super markets might have more variations than here. But you can get protein enhanced foods such as protein porridge pots, protein pasta (can get that here, 25g protein / 100g pasta, while the normal would be 12-13g protein per 100g pasta), protein breads, protein granola/muesli, etc.
and even for breads, you can get some wholegrain/wholemeal breads with multi-seeds in them. so 1 slice of normal white bread might have 1-2grams protein, while a wholegrain multi-seed one could have 3.5-5grams protein in it.

Don't dis fat too much though. It is vital for the body, as hormones are made partly from dietary fat, and it has many other uses. + Fat is good for you. If you eat a healthy diet and are active on a mostly daily basis, you could eat a super high fat diet, and still be in great health, having high hdl (good cholesterol) and low ldl (bad one). And its filling in foods to

chelsea7162

I only have plant based protein ideas to offer but I also live somewhere that has expensive meat. If I'm cooking a large meal I'll use Gardein meatless crumbles, tastes just like meat without as much fat and is often on sale, very good for tacos and takes spices perfectly. Beans are very cheap, basically any legume has protein that your body can process with a side of rice.

judyannsews

Nutritionally, you would be better off to eat the nuts versus pretzels. Pretzels raise your blood sugar quickly and don't have much nutrional value.

3nails1love

@judyannsews I switched to pretzels because my fat was too high after peanuts. I love peanuts and salty snacks but need to find the right balance to satisfy cravings too. That's why I was asking for ideas so I can see how to balance my day. Maybe I'll switch back to nuts though instead of carbs before bed.

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