Meeting My Needs

        Nearly everyone who hears I'm a vegetarian asks the question "Where do you get protein from?" or "Do you get enough protein without meat?". I've always answered, "Yea, of course I get enough. I eat beans!" but I never knew for sure because I didn't know how to analyze my protein intake when I was making recipes. Let's be real, that would be a lot of math on my own.

        Well this week in my nutrition class we had an assignment where we need to track our protein intake for a day. We start with a formula to see how much you need. What you do is divide your weight in pounds by 2.2, this gives you your weight in kilograms. Then multiply that number by .8 and ta-da! you have how much protein you need in a day! After a normal day of eating I came only 2 grams shy of what I should be intaking. Not too shabby, in my opinion.

        Now, for the best part. I had homemade soup and a homemade chili for my meals, so how did I know how much protein was in it? Because today I just discovered http://nutritiondata.self.com/! You can add recipes and it will analyze it for you! It provides neat graphs as well as analyzing vitamin and mineral percentages. Whether you are trying a vegetarian diet or not I highly recommend this site to make sure you're diet includes everything you need!