Where do you get your protein?
Short answer: From beans, lentils, tofu, grains, nuts. The RDA is 0.8 g/kg, a target a varied plant diet hits without effort.
The RDA for a 70 kg adult is about 56 g a day. These add up fast.
Vegetarian Resource Group
The objection
“Animal protein is complete, concentrated and easy to absorb. Where does a vegan possibly get enough?”
The answer
All true about animal protein, and none of it matters, because the bar is low and plants clear it easily.
The Recommended Dietary Allowance is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. For a 70 kg adult that is roughly 56 grams a day. A cup of cooked lentils gives about 18 grams, 100 g of firm tofu around 17, a cup of black beans about 15. Add grains, nuts, seeds and vegetables, which all contain protein, and the total accumulates almost without trying.
The “incomplete protein” myth is dead. The idea that plant proteins must be carefully combined at every meal was popularised in the 1970s and later retracted by its own author. Your body keeps an amino-acid pool; eating a variety of plant foods across the day supplies all nine essential amino acids. Soy, quinoa and buckwheat are complete on their own.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the world’s largest body of nutrition professionals, confirms well-planned vegan diets are adequate for all life stages, including athletes. Plant protein is slightly less digestible, so nudging towards 0.9 g/kg is sensible; athletes target 1.2–1.7 g/kg, all met from beans, soy, grains and, if wanted, plant protein powder.
Clinical protein deficiency is essentially unheard of in anyone eating enough calories from a varied diet. The strongest land animals on Earth, elephants, gorillas, oxen, build their muscle from plants. The protein was never missing. We were just taught to look for it in one place.