By Varun Pandey / 16 Sep 2019
Did your gym trainer ever ask you to include eggs in your diet? Well, we all know that eggs are an ideal source of protein for gym-goers. And the more protein you take more muscle-mass you will build.
Other than muscle mass, protein is the most essential unit of body, required by everyone at every stage of life. But the question arises, what about vegetarians?
Vegetarianism involves avoidance of meat along with abstinence from animal products like dairy products like eggs. Often vegetarians are classified under the following categories:
1. Lacto-ovo-vegetarians: Eat plant-based foods, dairy products, and eggs. But exclude meat, poultry, and fish in their diet.
2. Lacto-vegetarians: This kind of vegetarians are same as Lacto-Ovo except that they exclude eggs as we.
3. Ovo-vegetarians: Eat plant-based foods and eggs. But exclude meat, dairy products, poultry, and fish.
4. Vegans: Eat plant-based foods only, excluding all the foods of animal origin even dairy products too.
All type of vegetarians have one thing in common and that is they all don't eat meat.
Meat is the most popular choice for gym-goers to include protein in their diet. Eight ounces of steak packs about 52 grams of protein. Moreover, it is a great source of niacin, vitamin B3 and B12.
Protein is the most basic building block of the body tissues and can also serve as a fuel for the body and serve beneficial in repairing wear and tear.
However, what we miss out most on is that quality of protein matters the most when you want to benefit out of the magical nutrient. The protein in the animal products like dairy products, meat, and eggs have complete protein i.e. their amino acid profile is complete. While the protein in the plant-based protein sources is incomplete i.e. their amino acid profile is incomplete.
Our body needs 20 types of amino acids for its development. 11 of those are obtained naturally in our body while the remaining 9 types of amino acids are what we have to import from our diet. Therefore, in plant-based protein sources at least one of those 9 amino acids will be absent.
Lacto vegetarians abstain the inclusion of meat in their diet while vegans don't even have animal products. So can we conclude that vegetarians miss out the most important ingredient for muscle gain in their diet?
No.
You really don't have to be dependent on meat, eggs, and fish to reach your daily protein goals.
There are plenty of vegetarian protein sources: Almonds, Broccoli, chickpeas, lentils, soybeans, tofu, milk, cottage cheese, etc.
Even though plant-based protein sources don't have a complete amino acid profile, this doesn’t mean that we cannot make that profile complete.
Grain-based protein sources like wheat and rice are low in amino acid Lysine but are high in Cystine and Methionine. Thus they can complement the legume-based protein sources which are high in Lysine but high in the other two. Rice and beans are again a mutually complementing combination that can give your body the required quality of protein.
Moreover, Soy protein sources are also complete sources of protein. But again moderation is the key as there are a number of experimental evidence suggesting that large intake of soy can lead to hormonal imbalance. Although it’s not yet proven completely, being in moderation is never dangerous.
To sum up, it's not the source that matters but how you balance the different sources that will complete your protein intake and help you get stronger, healthier and tougher.
