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by aurareturn 860 days ago
I agree that it’s possible to eat enough protein on a vegan diet.

But it’s easier to do it on a non vegan diet.

For example, chicken has higher protein per 100g than tempeh while having lower calories. In addition, I could also drink whey protein which is cheaper, and have higher protein per calorie than vegan protein powder.

My goal was to lose weight and get visible abs. It’s just easier to do it on a non vegan diet.

2 comments

It's harder to do it on a vegan diet if you don't eat high protein foods, and those foods might be novel to you, sure. But you said "It’s hard to get enough protein from a vegan diet", not "I was unwilling to eat the food". So of course I'm going to step in.

Protein density isn't all that different, but seitan and tvp are even more dense per calorie.

- extra firm tofu 14g protein, 130 cal. 0.11g/cal

- tempeh 51g, 510 cal. 0.10g/cal

- chicken breast 27g, 184cal = 0.15g/cal

- chicken thigh 28g, 240cal = 0.12g/cal

- seitan 21g, 106cal -> 0.20g/cal

- tvp (soy chunks) 50g, 330cal = 0.15g/cal

TVP is cooler than it seems if you were to google it. You basically treat it like dried ground beef in a bag. It's also ultra-cheap. For example, you'd dump it into a bolognese pasta sauce instead of ground beef and it comes out the same.

Do you have any concerns about TVP being ultra-processed?

> For example, you'd dump it into a bolognese pasta sauce instead of ground beef and it comes out the same.

In my experience it comes out, kind of, edible but slight disgusting, with grassy, soy aftertaste and spongy texture.

Bioavailability of protein from vegetables is significantly less than from animals.
That statement usually comes from a misinterpretation of PDCAAS which only measures the limiting amino acid in a food. If you put any weight behind PDCAAS, then you have to grant that plant proteins have perfect PDCAAS scores if you eat more than one plant.

But there's research on strength performance outcomes on plant protein, those eating enough plant protein in total don't have any different outcomes. I don't see why this would move the needle for you.