[jallen_dot_dev]

Why does a food need to contain 90% or 100% protein? I think many people vastly overestimate how much protein they need.

[cleancoder0]

It's not true that by weight chicken breast has higher concentration of protein than beans.

100g of raw beans, or 100g of raw lentils, has more grams of protein than a chicken breast. 100g of raw soybeans has more grams of protein than same amount of beef.

Of course, "raw" is the catch word, because when cooked, beans/lentils fill with water and then you might claim that concentration has been lowered but the amount of protein stays the same (nothing is lost by cooking).

[wintermutestwin]

Protein:Fat+Carb ratio is what matters when talking about protein concentration.

[wintermutestwin]

Define "need." Sure, I could live off bread and water, but if I want optimal function, I have found that a high protein diet is the silver bullet.

[paulcole]

Once you discovered that a high protein diet worked for you, how many other diets/options did you try?

[wintermutestwin]

I'm a greybeard so I've had lots of time to try different diet+exercise programs. I was a serious cyclist for a couple decades and during that time, I tied high carb, vegetarian and the 40/30/30 diet that was trendy back in the 90s. Despite being much younger and burning a large # of calories, I still had persistent belly fat, which I attribute to the large # of carbs I inhaled on the bike. 40/30/30 worked better all around though. When I started lifting I went to .8grams of protein per LB of bodyweight and haven't felt the need to try anything else.

[humanrebar]

I know a lot of people who have had success maintaining fitness goals on a high protein diet, including people who struggle with obesity.

I'd say that latter case especially counts as a need.