Low- Cal sources of protien?

What are the lowest calorie sources of protien you guys know of?  I don't eat much meat because i'm in college and it's hard to cook for just one person.

I don't do a lot of 'red meat' (like beef) and asked my nutritionist about other protein sources that weren't high in fat, and she suggested things like tofu, and beans. 

Hope that helps.

nuts and fish are great too...canned tuna you can use it in simple things like stir into noodles or just add to a salad. I make soup using fat free half and half, water (as much as the cream)mushrooms, onions and a can of tuna. Fry the onions with the mushrooms in a tsp of butter then add the cream and finally mushrooms season with salt and pepper or steak spice..montreal steak spice is the best but is not available everywhere. Half and half tastes richer then milk.

my big protien meal is breakfast, i scramble about 3-4 egg whites (and give the yolks to the dog :D ) have a cup of milk and some toast when i entered it in the first time i looked and my meal eval and it was pretty nice :D

you can have peanut butter builder's bars,
or tuna, cause it doesnt need refridgeration or cooking,
nuts and beans too.
g'luck!

0% fat cottage cheese is about 100 calories per half cup. If you compare how many grams of protein for how many calories, 0% fat cottage cheese has more calories than fish but less than chicken... plus you get some calcium.  I usually have mine with a dab or jam, or some fruit.

Check it out: 100 calories of Broccoli has 8 grams of protein, 100 calories of romaine or kale has 6 grams of protein, 100 calories of endive has 7.5 grams of protein, 100 calories of peanut butter has 4 grams of protein.

You need far less protein than you probably think.  You need between 2.5% and 5% of your calories from protein.  So for a 2000 calorie diet that means you'd need between 12.5g of protein and 25g of protein in a day.  You can easily get that from vegetable sources and be completely satisfied with your meals. 

fat free cottage cheese, beans and legumes. . . . lentils are REALLY good for you and low calorie : )

I agree with the latter; fat free cottage cheese is awesome. Mine is 80 calories per 1/2 cup with 13g protein. You can buy a good sized tub for a couple bucks, too. It lasts me a good few days.

Whole wheat bread. The 100% Whole Wheat brand from Nature's Own has 4g protein per 50 calorie slice, plus 2g fiber. I believe their Wheat 'n Fiber brand is 60 calories but with 6g protein.

Fat free yogurt. Lite 'n Fit is 60 calories with 5g protein. But there are yogurts with higher protein, you just have to browse and compare.

Egg whites. The average sized egg has about 1/4 cup of egg white, which comes out to 32 calories and 6.6g protein. Add a couple egg whites, some spinach or broccoli, some fat free cheese, and you have an incredibly low-calorie, protein-packed omelette!

Protein powder. You can either get whey or soy. I prefer whey, as it usually has the best protein to calorie ratio. I buy 100% ON whey, and per scoop it has 110 calories and 23g protein. I add a half scoop to my fruit smoothie every night! :)

Skim milk.

 

On the suggestion of 25 grams a day of protein Even the RDA is 0.8 grams per kilo of body weight. 25 grams would be 31kg. Or just over 60 pounds of body weight!

 

That assumes you aren't active at all. If you're active or still growing or both then you need a fair bit more. You might want to look for the Kent State study. To make it worse the ones with the highest requirements weren't body builders but if IIRC cardio people.

 

I'd suggest most active people not getting lower then 1gram per kilo of body weight on average.

I hope your percent protein calculations are off and you're truely eating more protein than 5% protein!  You are made of protein!  Your skin is protein, your hair is protein, your MUSCLES are protein!  You need more protein!

Personally I eat around 30% protein daily (20% fats, 50% carbs).  I might even try to increase that since I'm back to weight training (building muscles - made of protein) 

My favorite quick grab proteins include f/f cottage cheese, yogurt, tuna, turkey bacon, chicken breasts, protein bars (Balance, PowerBar, Pria, etc) and protein shakes.   Protein powders can also be used where you might not usually find it - Pancakes, smoothies, biscuits, milk shakes, cookies, etc.   

nymo,

The research is crystal clear.  Populations where protein intake is above 10% of caloric intake are at a much greater risk of getting "diseases of affluence" (the most prevalent killers of people in developed countries - heart disease, cancer of all kinds, and autoimmune diseases).  This is true of protein from any source but particularly true when the protein is from animal sources.  The recommendations are that you should get no more than 10% of your calories from protein and 5% is more than sufficient.  Getting 5% of your calories from protein is sufficient for even olympic athletes who are training and building muscles constantly.

 

zeke2

The RDA for protein was set by the USDA.  Think about why that doesn't make sense.  The USDA's mission is to keep the US agriculture industry afloat.  The USDA does not have anything to do with human health.  The conflict of interest is astounding particularly when you consider the fact that the beef and cheese industries have such well-funded and powerful lobbies.  Follow the money, that should piss you off - I know it pisses me off.

The guidelines from other governmental agencies that are not influenced by the meat industry are 2.5 to 5% of your calories should be from protein.

And the experience-based figures from the body-building and strength-training communities are that you need a minimum of 1.114 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight when training for muscular hypertrophy - in other words, to build muscle mass.

 Advanced trainers and beginners can often need as much as 1.8 grams of protein per pound of lean bodyweight to see any muscle growth at all.

 I don't know where you're getting your figures, but they are nowhere near the experience-based guidelines developed in the trenches of actually working to gain muscle.

melkor,

You can find the details of one of the largest nutrition studies of all time (one that has over 8000 statistically significant results) by reading The China Study.  Stated clearly, consuming greater than 10% of calories from protein puts people at a much higher risk of heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune diseases and decreases their life spans tremendously.  The data is very, very clear about this and there are literally thousands of studies that support that. 

 

This one? Or this one? There is a difference - one is the actual study, and one is a book of pop science. One has data that can be critically analyzed, and the other is a propaganda piece advocating a particular vegan lifestyle choice as being the more rational choice.

Personally, I find that rather dis-ingenious - being a vegan is a moral choice, and no amount of research one way or the other will change that. Would you stop being vegan if research indicated that you had elevated risk of something incurable? No? Then your diet is a moral choice, not a rationality-based one.

Having morals isn't bad, mind you - and I respect you for your choice. I just dislike it when science is abused to make moral points one way or the other - carnivores who obsess over "skinny vegetarians" and "where are you getting your proteins"-style questions are equally obnoxious abuses directed your way.

Now, personally I've just come off an experiment in protein deprivation, limiting my protein intake to 30 grams total per day (animal and plant-based sources) as opposed to my normal 174 grams per day - and I can tell you that my body was EXTREMELY unhappy with my diet at the end. Recovery times from a single weight workout rose from 3-5 days to 7+ days, my hormone levels shot through the roof, and I've had observable changes in my behaviour from elevated hormone levels.

Returning to my normal protein schedule after this period of protein deprivation has slashed my recovery time to 2-4 days after a weight workout, due to the elevated hormone levels.

So I can tell you from direct personal experience that your protein consumption scheme does not work long-term for strength training, even with the hormonal boost from protein deprivation response.

That said, there's no reason why the protein can't be plant-based - there just need to be enough of it in the right combos.

All of this is kind of besides the point of the original question though - and personally, I think the avocado is a delightful part of my daily menu....

The Cornell Oxford China project (this one) was headed by Dr. T. Colin Campbell who then wrote the book The China Study (this one).  So I'm speaking about both of them.  Perhaps you should read The China Study before criticizing it as propoganda.  Sorry, it's just funny to me that you pointed those out as if they're unrelated.  You didn't even bother to read the first paragraph of the Cornell site and compare it with what you found on the China study website did you?  That makes me question your desire to actually find good information rather than find things that will support your particular views (and, thus, the validity of the rest of what you say).

In any case, I'm intrigued that you say being a vegan is a moral choice as if the only reason to be vegan is that you aren't harming animals.  It's part of the reason I dislike the word "vegan."  The other reason I dislike the word vegan is that you can avoid all animal products and still suffer the ill effects of diseases of affluence - veganism isn't *necessarily* healthy.  Let me just say, I have no problem, morally, with the consumption of meat products.  I have leather shoes and a leather jacket, I'm not that crazy about leather seats but that's only because they get hot in the summer, etc.  I enjoy the taste of meat and miss very much the convenience of it. (There aren't many whole foods vegan restaurants near me for sure!)  My point is that, no, being a vegan (more specifically, eating a whole foods, plant-based diet) is not a moral choice but one that was made with careful deliberation and education (with help of books like The China Study which was, again, written by the person that headed up the Cornell Oxford China Project).

Your test case was interesting; however, what it seems that you didn't do from the sounds of it was to change your diet completely.  You kept eating the same things except you cut back on the protein.  So part of what you did was you kept working out the same intensity but reduced your caloric intake - please note this is not what I'm suggesting which makes your argument a bit of a straw man.  Of COURSE you're going to feel worse when you do that.  If you're willing, I'd personally love to see what happens when you follow the recommendations from a book like Eat to Live (which is quite detailed about its sources, among them the China Project, and has a more specific suggestion on how to eat).  Take, for inspiration something Carl Lewis had to say.

If you're not willing to give that an honest try, god speed.  Hopefully you don't end up like the vast majority of Americans and get stomach or bowel cancer, heart disease, or an autoimmune disease like MS or ALS.  Just know that with increased amounts of protein you are putting yourself at MUCH greater risk. 

http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/19/suppl _5/513S

 

Hardly funded by the US food industry.

 

You have to wonder why things like height is increasing in Chinese kids today. At the same time protein intake is climbing.

 

Using a percentage for something like protein intake is great if you're eating 3000 calories a day. OTOH for the rest of the people I wonder how it's supposed to work?

 

While it's nice to talk about life spans. I'd rather consider life quality.

Sigh - I can see this will be a long discussion. Perhaps we should ask the mods to split the thread for us so you and I can go off in a corner and talk amongst ourselves?

I linked to both the actual study and the pop science book based on the study for a reason: so that you'd know I was aware of both, and my reservations were directed at the pop science version.

Specifically, the pop science version excludes from consideration all the reservations of the authors themselves about the actual value of the study, deficiencies that the China Study Phase II is partly designed to compensate for. It also skips data that in fact leads to precisely the opposite conlusion from the ones he draws in the book - specifically:

The China Study report lists only 6 statistically significant correlations between meat-eating and disease mortality. Further, 4 of the correlations are negative, which indicates that the mortality rate for that disease decreased as meat consumption increased. The two diseases that had positive correlations with meat consumption are schistosomiasis, a parasite, and pneumoconiosis and dust disease.

I'm not surprised that eating meat can lead to increases in parasitic infections.

Further, the China Study is an ecological study, which has extremely limited relevance to individuals as the link provided shows - it's called the Ecological Fallacy(Same reference) in case you were wondering:

The ecological fallacy consists in thinking that relationships observed for groups necessarily hold for individuals:These inferences may be correct, but are only weakly supported by the aggregate data.

...However, it is all too easy to draw incorrect conclusions from aggregate data.... For example, recent studies of individual-level data cast serious doubt on the link between breast cancer and fat intake (Holmes et al. 1999).

To top it off, since the China Study aggregates data on a country level it has only 65 data points, which makes analysis of their data dubious at best. In a study with N variables, a robust experiment needs at least N+1 data points to be able to arrive at statistically reliable conclusions when you're using multivariate regression analysis. The China study doesn't even come close - something The China Study II should presumably be designed to correct.

However, I've been unable to find any references to it beyond this one which is only a presentation based on preliminary results, and not the actual result. And I note that the presentation is that the unpublished results supposedly supports his findings in the first study - something I'd very much like to see papers from other people on before I'd accept that conclusion without reservation.

I reiterate: there is no evidence one way or the other for the particular dietary choice being especially healthy on an individual level - ecological studies generate hypotheses, they don't prove anything. The followup studies neccessary to prove anything isn't there yet.

Which is why being vegan as a lifestyle choice is not a matter of following proven dietary science - it's a matter of personal belief.

And in case you were wondering - I respect personal beliefs. I just don't accept that personal beliefs gives anyone the right to twist the science they supposedly rely on to further their own personal beliefs.

This isn't to dismiss your choice, by the way - my own personal choice is as odd in its deviance from mainstream eating habits as yours is; bodybuilding nutrition recommends staying away from processed foods as much as possible. At times, there's a convergence with the Raw Foodists....

And no, I did change my diet completely in the test case - I joined Calorie-count specifically to keep track so I could keep my calorie intake up to the levels my body requires for my current goals (Working to take some of the weight that the antidepressants put on me back off - the theory being that adding muscle will make it easier long-term to burn the fat off).

Carl Lewis is of course inspirational in more than one way, and yes, I'm aware of his vegetarianism - I'm actually going to repeat the protein-deprivation phase later on in my training program when the increased hormonal activity from this first one wears off. It'll be interesting to see the effects of that - but my individual results aren't science. They're just one guy's experience with protein deprivation - though suggestive, I'd need further studies to accept my own claims as valid science.

Uh, Mods? Perhaps we should have a thread of our own for this discussion?

 

 

zeke2:

"http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/19/suppl _5/513S

Hardly funded by the US food industry."

That link is busted so I've got no idea what you're talking about.

 

"You have to wonder why things like height is increasing in Chinese kids today. At the same time protein intake is climbing."

Note also that "diseases of affluence" (heart disease, cancer, autoimmune diseases) are also on the rise in China.

 

"Using a percentage for something like protein intake is great if you're eating 3000 calories a day. OTOH for the rest of the people I wonder how it's supposed to work?"

A normailzed comparison between sedentary individuals from China who eat a diet that is entirely or almost entirely derived from plant-based foods to sedentary individuals in the US that ate the typical US diet showed that, on average the Chinese individual consumed over 3000 calories per day and the American consumed roughly 1500 calories per day. The Chinese person was much thinner than their American counterpart and did not suffer the same rates of diseases of affluence. The point being that when consuming the proper foods, the number of calories may not be as big of an issue. The body will simply dispose of what it does not need.

In any case, getting protein in the range of 2.5% to 5% of your calories is the right amount of protein irrespective of the number of calories you consume in a day.

 

"While it's nice to talk about life spans. I'd rather consider life quality."

Life span and quality go hand-in-hand in this case. Spending your last years fighting off cancer, having your legs amputated because of diabetes complications, or in a nursing home unable to recognize your children is not what I would call quality. I would much rather be fit, active, and disease-free in my twilight years. Longevity and quality, that's my goal.

 

melkor:

You linked to both; however, you seem to think that writing a book which deciphers complex nutrition science and statistical findings for the benefit of non-scientists is somehow wrong and akin to propaganda. That sentiment is wholly without merit as the book is extraordinarily well documented and is specifically not designed to push any one ideology but is designed to provide information so people can make the right decisions. If you haven't read the book, I strongly suggest you do.

I will also say that I am highly suspicious of any information about the China Study book or the China Project that comes from a site called "beyond vegetarianism." Call me crazy but that seems like it just might be a biased site with ulterior motives. In particular, I am quite certain that the book lists far more than 6 statistically significant correlations between meat-eating and diseases of affluence. I believe my wife has the book while she's out of the country for work at the moment so I can't confirm this. I will eventually. In addition, I find the quote from "Holmes et al. 1999" quite interesting since there is no reference from Holmes et al on that page's bibliography.

In terms of statistical significance, there is no doubt of the significance of the China Study's findings. There are over 8000 statistically significant findings. It is the most comprehensive study of diet and disease ever conducted. Additionally the book details several individual-level studies that clearly support the findings such as the Ornish study. This, of course is not mentioned on that site. So again, I am skeptical about an article condemning the study from a site called "beyond vegetarian" to say the least.

beans.    simple as that.