this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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In my opinion it’s more useful to look at grams of protein per kcal. You can only eat so many calories in a day, so that dictates your protein intake for a large part. If you eat 2000 kcal worth of peanuts, you’d ingest 80 grams of protein. With chickpeas that would be 110 grams and with chicken breast 425 grams. You don’t eat just protein rich things, so the higher the value, the higher your chances of ingesting enough protein when combined with (other) vegetables, grains, rice, oil, etc.
I know that some people will read this comment as if I’m promoting meat consumption, so let me add that I firmly believe that the world would be a better place if we ate a lot less meat. I’m just using these examples for demonstration purposes, as they’re all at the right side of the graph. It’s always an option to supplement with a plant based protein powder.
Not just meat, but veggies as well, would get a huge boost from looking at protein per calorie. In terms of available calories, vegetables are often very protein rich, especially the dark leafy ones, but they are also packed with water and indigestible fiber. Nobody is going to eat 2000 calories of spinach, but when spinach is on your plate you shouldn't look at it as hurting your protein intake. Also a chart based on calories that had lines down the middle for suggested protein intake and suggested intake for bodybuilding would reveal that most whole foods that aren't fruit are completely adequate, the only reason you'd ever have to eat a lot of the highest protein per calorie foods is if a large portion of your diet was refined sugars or oils. Supplementing your Oreo addiction with chicken breast is not a good way to think about a balanced diet.
When I was trying to gain weight working put 5x a week and doing manual labor I was downing 5kcal a day and it was almost impossible looking at food made me want to throw up, but I powers thru and got pretty big. My job is too much though and it wasn't realistic to keep up unless I was working a desk job. Still pretty strong but definitely a lot smaller now. But holy shit is it hard to eat that many calories in 24hrs. You basically have be Constantly snacking between meals. Also it's insanely expensive I was spending like 300$ a week in just food for myself.