besides chicken and fish?

im vegetarian... and im not sure exactly which foods are high in protein, cant find any sites that give that info.

THANKS, i appreciate it!!!!

Foods that include all essential amino acids include eggs and diary products.

Soy is high in protein, but there is much disagreement about how much of it one should eat and the best forms to eat. Personally, I only eat the fermented forms - tempeh and miso.

Nuts are high in protein - peanuts having most of the essential amino acids - but they are high in fat also. Legumes and grains also have a fair amount of protein, but they do not contain all amino acids and must be eaten in combination with other foods to make sure one gets complete protein.

There are many sites on vegetarianism, and it is important to be informed so you get a balanced diet. At http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl you can search the nutritient content of specific foods, but you have to search one by one.

That's not exactly correct, according to my research. All plant-based foods contain all the essential amino acids but in varying amounts. A person can get enough protein from a single plant-based food but they would need to eat a greater amount. Food combining is recommended since it reduces the amount of foods you need to consume in order to remain in protein balance.

The idea that vegetarians, and especially vegans, must combine foods to obtain adequate protein was promoted in the 1970's but later research has disproved the idea.

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"What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes, for brevity I did give a simplistic answer. But what I have read recently is that, while earlier research said you have to take in the protein in the correct proportions (by combining plant sources) at the same meal, now they are finding that if varied sources are eaten in the course of a day that protein will be assimilated just as well.

In other words, there would eventually be negative health consequences if one relied solely on, for example, legumes for protein. Unless one almost literally ate a hill of them.

And if one is going to rely solely on plant sources for their protein (and all nutrients for that matter), a knowledge of combining them properly is essential.

I don't know a lot about this subject, but I heard if people combined brown rice with beans, that that would give them the essential proteins. There are some food staples throughout the world that supply people nutrients at low cost. I think the beans and brown (whole) rice simply do that - give them the best for the least amount of cost.

Maybe some of you can expand upon that....

I've heard also that peanuts, beans, and corn are good in combination too.

Yes, this is correct.

In her book Diet For A Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappe recommended the combining of a food low in one amino acid with another food containing large amounts of that amino acid. People believed that at each meal they had to combine foods (such as rice and beans) in order to get all the essential amino acids. Of course this can be tedious and turn people off from veganism. Actually, since the first publication of her book, she has repudiated her claim, and even said, "In combatting the myth that meat is the only way to get high quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable care was needed in choosing foods. Actually it is much easier than I thought".(Lappe FM. Diet for a Small Planet, 10th anniversary edition. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982)

Some plant-based foods are low in one of the essential amino acids. For example, grains are lower in lysine and legumes are lower in methionine. Remember, they are *lower* but not *lacking*. Theoretically, you could just eat beans and get enough protein but you would have to eat a large amount of beans.

But eating a diet of varied plant-based foods makes it much easier to obtain the essential amino acids.

If a vegan eats a variety of plant-based foods and meets sufficient caloric requirements, he or she should easily meet their protein needs.

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"What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

[This message has been edited by justink80 (edited 07-25-2002).]