Is my diet normal--Meat??

I don't usually count calories anymore, but a couple of days I have logged just to see how I am nutritionally.  I am never even close to the amount of protein recommended.  I don't know how people get all that protein!  Do normal people eat meat/beans/fish three times a day?  Isn't that expensive?  When I try very hard to get protein in, I can sometimes make the minimum, but I find it hard to stay within the calories allotted and get every food group in.  How much protein is too little to be getting?  I don't drink milk or eat much dairy because it gives me issues.

You should try tuna. Tuna has a LOT of protein - almost your whole day's requirements in one can. I have really high protein requirements, because I work out for 2 - 3 hours every day, and I find tuna really does help me a lot.

Do yogurt and cheese also give you issues? I eat three servings of dairy daily.

Beans are cheap if you buy them in bulk, and they keep very well, cooked or uncooked. Also some seeds and nuts may be cheap if bought in bulk.

I also bought a huge container of chocolate whey powder (it was very inexpensive), so on days when I know I am not going to eat so much protein I dump half a scoop (3-4 tsp) in my breakfast oatmeal. Though I prefer getting my nutrients from real food, I do sometimes stumble across the financial issue as well, and I figured some of the stuff in moderation won`t kill me, since it`s pretty much the only highly processed thing I eat.

Eggs are a good, cheap source of protein, especially if you eat the yolks as well. If you are concerned about cholesterol, however, you should only eat them whole on meat-free days.

Don`t know what it`s like where you live, but over here there are a lot of dirt cheap lean meat imitations made of dehydrated soy. (one 100g package costs like $0.50, and it absorbs a lot of water and swells up like crazy when cooked) They`re pretty bland by themselves, but with some seasoning and time on your hands you can turn them into delicious patties or meatballs. Or a more convenient option is to just toss them in a salad.

Yogurt and cheese do give me problems, but I sometimes will eat that at the end of the day.

Hmm, tuna, eggs, and beans, very good, thanks.  I think I need to find some recipes to try out so I don't get bored.  Any ideas?  I've done the tuna salad and tuna casserole, scrambled eggs, fried eggs.  I tried red beans and rice but didn't like it. 

I have wondered about the whey powder myself, but I assumed you had to make it into a shake.  I'll look into what you can do with that too.

By dehydrated soy, do you mean tofu?  Unfortunately I live in the midwest in a very conservative place, and we don't have much selection when it comes to  different foods.  People seem to kind of think it's all silly hippie food, like wheatgrass and sprouts ><  One time I bought soymilk, and when I opened it it was green inside from sitting there too long! 

don't feel bad about the lack of soy products in your area.  They are bad for you anyway.  Bad Bad Bad.

Just eat more eggs!  Have an egg/egg-white omelette for breakfast.  Make quiche for dinner! 

I`m not a particular fan of beans+rice or beans+pasta by themselves either (now peas and rice or pasta are a different story, and peas are high in protein as well).

To the beans in a main dish you can add a bit of minced onion fried in 1tbsp of olive oil (the oil also) to complement the flavour nicely. I like beans on a salad with a squeeze of lemon juice or some vinaigrette. They are also nice as part of a dip or spread, you can basically combine them with anything from flaked tuna canned in water(for more protein), to other veggie sauces, like homemade salsa; preferably combine them with something a bit thinner and lighter as they add plenty of texture.

Hard boiled eggs can be diced or sliced and added to a veggie salad.

By dehydrated soy I mean something that looks like this over here (you cannot see clearly from the pic but these are very very dry, airy and light, with a consistency similar to Cheetos. This is a photo of them cooked (boiled for half an hour to absorb water and then baked for a bit). They also come in cubes and flakes (sort of like minced meat). They taste more like soy than meat, and the texture is different too, but just like tofu, as part of a well-seasoned more complex dish, they could fool most meat lovers.

You can add all these different foods into your diet or you can invest in a low-cal protien shake, GNC has a low-fat generic whey protien shake.  It has like 20grams of protein, 100 cals per 16ounch shake.... 

Original Post by marmarl:

don't feel bad about the lack of soy products in your area.  They are bad for you anyway.  Bad Bad Bad.

Just eat more eggs!  Have an egg/egg-white omelette for breakfast.  Make quiche for dinner! 

 marmarl:  please provide links that will show me that soy products are bad, bad, bad for me.  I am curious.

Original Post by osainto:

You can add all these different foods into your diet or you can invest in a low-cal protien shake, GNC has a low-fat generic whey protien shake.  It has like 20grams of protein, 100 cals per 16ounch shake.... 

I would go with the first option.

You could also try a mild fish like Tilapia. Tastes great broiled. Grains have a good amount of protein too.

You're going to get very mixed answers here.

If by "normal" you mean the vast majority of Americans, then yes, they eat roughly half a pound of meat a day. The vast majority of Americans are also overweight. Correlation? I think its likely... Legumes seem to be a little lacking in the typical American diet.

If you want to consider how you're eating, there are some really good books out there from people who really study this stuff:

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating By Mark Bittman

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan (Pollan has a couple other books - very good books - which all have info on the question you're asking above.)

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes For Great Food by Mark Bittman (I'm not a Vegetarian, but you should at least read the foreward/intro to this cookbook. You might find yourself wanting to eat this stuff!)

How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K Fisher (Don't judge a book by it's cover! You might not realize this book is about "how we eat" by looking at it. Elegantly written. Worth the read!)

Those are just a few to start. Spend some time at the local bookstore or library and read up. I would take answers from this forum with a grain of salt and apply your best educated judgement!

Good luck,

Sunny

These are all great ideas! Thanks especially for the links.  I'm going to check it out.  Thanks guys!

soy products are bad??? wtf

B"H

I'm a vegan (so I don't eat meat, poultry, fish, dairy or eggs) and I find seitan (wheat gluten made to taste similar to meat) helps me with the protein. Nuts are also good (besides protein, they have healthy Monounsaturated Fatty Acids), but they're high in calories.

As for soy, there are varying opinions about their healthiness or lack thereof. For my part, right now, I can't eat soy (my body doesn't like it).

Debbie

whey protein can be pretty pricy my brother used to be a body builder and went through it like crazy. You would never use as much as him but it's not the best option for a budget. try using dark leafy greens. they are packed in protein very low cal and super easy to stick into lots of recipes. Try frozen thawed and drained spinach. It's great in lasagna, mac and cheese low cal alfredo sauce, any casserole, or when you do have meat it's great mixed with a little fat free ricooto cheese and rolled in thin pieces of chicken steak pork or fish fillets and baked it will literally double up the protein when you're already eating protein anyway. It's cheap quick and has little flavor when used in other dishes. My kids eat it all the time and never even complain. Hope this helps.

i dont digest eggs or beans well at all, tho i can tolerate yogurt most of the time. i eat applegate sliced lunch meats almost daily, whole grain breads, alot of fish (halibut, prawns, sea scallops are my fav's despite the price), fresh produce, and occasionally supplement with whey protein shakes. the whole grains seem to make a difference in my daily protein count. i also supplement with protein bars a few days a week as part of my lunch. i use soy milk every few weeks, which also has a good protein count for the calories, tho it can also cause me some digestive issues, being a legume. tofu seems less difficult for me to digest. my strategy is variety, and yes, i try to get protein at every meal or im going to be low, but that doesn't mean i eat meat at every meal, tho i do try to get at least two servings in a day. 

I had problems with taking in enough protein too...simply because I'm too lazy/busy/etc to cook...so I mostly rely on dairy (usually skimmed milk...I look for those with high protein...the one I'm drinking has ~12g protein per serving), usually milk which I drink 3 glasses a day...I have no issues with it thankfully.

There's also eggwhites...they're easy...just boil them and u can carry them around with you or nibble on them throughout the day...1 egg white has ~3.5g of protein and 17.5kcal (very low cal :). I boil around 10 eggs and give most of the yolks away to my cat hehe...then i keep the whites in the fridge for nibbling...I can't take more than 2-3 eggwhites at one sitting...they make me sick lol...but they come in handy on those lazy/busy days. Scrambled egg whites make great daily breakfasts too(if you don't get sick of it that is), sometimes I eat them with toast, sometimes oatmeal.

Then there's tuna...I eat them straight out of the can...it tastes horrible but it's easy to eat and no prep required.

Another thing you can do is, when buying foods like cereals, oatmeal, bread etc...look for those with higher protein content (avoid refined stuff as always), that'll also help add up the grams of protein you're taking in a day.

btw, I do eat meat, just rarely, not because I hate meat...I LOVE meat...I just hate to cook on week days, so I tend to save cooking meats for weekends.

Meat wise, chicken breast and tuna is the way to go. The RDA for protein is about 45g and a portion of tuna contains about 40, and chicken breast 30 so its easy to make up the remaining amount via other sources such as nuts and cerials.

I find that buying a whole chicken works out cheaper than buying two single breasts, and although the dark chicken meat contains more fat and less protein, you can easily turn it into several meals and use the left overs for soup.

Dont forget that vegetables also contain protein the best are things like peas,potatoes,brokoli,cauliflour,sweetcorn etc...when you add it all up it isnt too dofficult to get the amount you need :)

I'm with marmarl on the soy, here are some links I found in like 2 seconds, there are probably a zillion more out there

BBC - soy halves sperm count

The Guardian newspaper - soy alert over cancer & brain damage link

In-depth study with loads of info (NB this is on a site where the guy sells health products, and I don't agree with all his ideas, but you can find the full paper in PDF format at http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/downloads/s oymyths.pdf )

And on that same site, http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/ tons more info

And ditto here http://www.healingcrow.com/soy/soy.html

There's a shedload out there, search up any of those health terms and soy if you're interested... I'm not trying to tell anyone what to eat, but my decision after reading a lot about it (dating back to 2003) was to avoid soy unless it's in really small amounts. Your own informed decisions may vary, that's life!

But do make sure they're informed - this stuff is a relatively NEW good in the form we're given it, and by no means a traditional foodstuff.