Where do you get your protein?

When someone discovers that I am vegan, their first reaction is normally "Where do you get your protein?"  To which in my head I sassily reply, "Where do you get your protein?"

While I do believe that consuming no meat or other animal by-products has had a very positive effect on how I feel, my motivation for becoming vegan was not health reasons.  In fact, I was a bit hesitant because I was worried that my body would really miss the nutritional value of a non-vegan diet.  Still, I did my homework and saw that many plant sources have amazing amounts of protein.  I saw that formulating a new diet was easy knowing that I would be contributing to the non-harming of animals and the health of our environment.

It seems that the perfect diet is the same for nobody and that perhaps Americans in particular put too much emphasis on protein anyway.  The needs of my body and yours are quite different.  With that, it has been easy to get an adequate amount of protein to meet my needs.  Fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and legumes all have protein.  Did you know that seaweed has more protein as a percentage of calories that all meat?  So does watercress.  Most beans are as good or even better sources than meat.  Spinach, chard and tofu have more protein than beef.  Sure, you may have to change your eating and cooking habits a bit, but if you are open to trying new things, it is easy!

And while we are on the topic of veg'n, you must visit a fun site called HappyCow.net.  Among the entertaining name and listing some of the best sources of non-animal proteins, they have a map telling you the vegetarian/vegan restaurants and health food stores that are nearest you (I recommend Cafe Seed, Eden Alley).  Bon appetite!