help please

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1976mmm
1976mmm Posts: 20 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Im vegan and struggle to get my % protein. Although I have cut out bread and pasta my carbs are very high. I aming for a 50% carbs and 30% protein. Any advice please

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  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
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    Why are you cutting out so much?
  • GauchoMark
    GauchoMark Posts: 1,804 Member
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    elphie754 wrote: »
    Why are you cutting out so much?
    That doesn't really even make sense... you don't know how much she is cutting out except for bread and pasta - which makes sense if she is wanting to decrease carbs in exchange for protein.

    OP - I'm definitely not vegan, but you seem to be on the right track by exchanging low protein, high carb foods with high protein foods. You just need to find some more protein rich foods.

    If you go vegan you also need to be somewhat concerned with protein quality. There are not many (if any) complete proteins that are plant based. This means you need to get protein from many sources. Unfortunately, unless you get a vegan protein powder such as these http://truenutrition.com/c-198-vegan-protein-powders.aspx all your protein is going to come with about 50% carbs as well if you are getting them from whole foods such as legumes. Do you eat dairy products or eggs?
  • Laurend224
    Laurend224 Posts: 1,748 Member
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    Seitan. Almost all protein, use it like meat. I'm making a batch today. I've been switching it up, I switched out my almond milk for soy, and am eating more things like Boca, and Sunbutter, beans and lentils. I am slowly increasing my protein, small changes daily.
  • 1976mmm
    1976mmm Posts: 20 Member
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    Thanks for the advice. Will look into more great tasty tofu recipies.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    Nuts, beans, (can you have greek yogurt?), eggs?
  • 1976mmm
    1976mmm Posts: 20 Member
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    No im vegan. Gonna try protein power this morning in my smoothie. Thanks
  • lawlifehanna
    lawlifehanna Posts: 90 Member
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    I'm not a vegan so I don't have advice on this, but for those who do: vegan means only plant based products, nothing from animals (=no dairy, no eggs). Vegetarians often eat dairy and eggs, just not meat. There's a difference between vegan and vegetarian :)
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    1976mmm wrote: »
    No im vegan. Gonna try protein power this morning in my smoothie. Thanks

    Make sure it's vegan, many aren't.
  • quickcrx702
    quickcrx702 Posts: 46 Member
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    I'm not a vegan, but believe it or not as a heavy meat eater I've done vegan diets a few times for fun, usually only for about a month at a time, followed by eating almost nothing but meat LOL. I have a good friend who is vegan because of health reasons, so I was curious what his life is like.

    Anyway, to give you some info from my experience, nutritional yeast is VERY high in protein, especially the red star brand. Spirulina is also high in protein, but I find it to be kind of gross. Some people like it though. Plant fusion is probably the best(tasting) vegan protein powder I've tried, and the ingredients seem to be okay, and it dissolves REALLY well into water compared to some others. You probably already know, but combining beans and rice will give you a complete protein. Since you're trying to keep fats around 20%, I'd say you can make sauces out of nuts(high in protein) rather than eating them. You can make some awesome cashew hollandaise sauce that goes great with brussels sprouts or asparagus. There are also "cheese" sauces you can make with cashews and nutritional yeast that are pretty tasty, and don't have all kinds of garbage like the frankencheeses at whole paycheck. Although I won't lie, Daiya makes the best fake cheese I've ever tried LOL. You can also make some "feta" with tofu, and it tastes semi decent. Hummus with celery is a decent semi low calorie snack with good amounts of protein. Finally, if you fry up some extra firm tofu until it's crispy, it tastes MUCH better than raw. I like to dip it in a mixture of half soy sauce(or liquid aminos since you're vegan) and half plain vinegar with chili peppers added, but you can also just sauce it up with whatever people normally put on meat.

    I hope I gave you some ideas. Good luck!
  • quickcrx702
    quickcrx702 Posts: 46 Member
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    Laurend224 wrote: »
    Seitan. Almost all protein, use it like meat. I'm making a batch today. I've been switching it up, I switched out my almond milk for soy, and am eating more things like Boca, and Sunbutter, beans and lentils. I am slowly increasing my protein, small changes daily.
    Out of all the fake milks I tried, flax milk is by far the closest tasting to regular milk, is high in omega 3s, and Good Karma brand has plant based protein added in a pretty decent amount. I definitely recommend trying it if you're vegan. The only bad thing is that the only place I found it was at whole paycheck, but it's only like a dollar more vs coconut, soy, or almond milk.
  • 1976mmm
    1976mmm Posts: 20 Member
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    Thank you so much for the advice. Need to look into as some items im not familiar with and not sure u can get them in uk.
  • quickcrx702
    quickcrx702 Posts: 46 Member
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    No problem. Since you're in the UK, you might not get the whole paycheck reference, which is a health food store called Whole Foods. That stuff isn't available at most regular grocery stores. You can probably find most of that stuff at a similar health food store in the UK, or pay a premium and get it at Amazon. The nutritional yeast is probably my #1 recommendation for you to try.

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