Maybe you’ve decided you want to go meatless once in a while – it could be for health reasons, environmental reasons, or maybe you want to save a little cash.  Even if you’re going meatless only occasionally, your meals will be more satisfying if you get a good dose of protein in.  Milk products and eggs will work, of course, but if you want to go with strictly with plant-based proteins, you might be hard-pressed to think of anything beyond rice, beans or veggie burgers.  So here’s a rundown of a few less well-known plant proteins that you might want to try.

 Many people are familiar with tofu – it’s basically cheese that’s made from soy milk, and it’s available in textures ranging from very soft to very firm.  Soft tofu works great in smoothies, while firmer tofu can be marinated and grilled for a tasty meat substitute.  You can also freeze it – when you thaw it out, it releases its liquid and crumbles, so it makes a good substitute for ground meat.  Calories and protein content vary – generally speaking, the firmer the tofu, the higher the protein content.  Six ounces of extra-firm tofu has about 90 calories and 12 grams of protein. 

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When it comes to eating well and exercising, Americans seem to be pretty good at “talking the talk”.  Most of us claim that we’re taking in less fat, sugar and red meat, that we’re eating more fruits and veggies, and that we’re exercising regularly.  But when it comes to actually “walking the walk”, it’s a different story.  There seems to be a big gap between the number of people who intend to engage in these healthy behaviors and the number who actually do.   And that seems to suggest that knowledge alone isn’t enough when it comes to adopting healthy behaviors – just because we know what we should be doing, doesn’t mean we actually will.

A few months back, the results of a survey¹ were released by a market research firm that’s been tracking the eating behaviors of millions of Americans for over 30 years.  The survey presented adults with a series of statements related to nutrition and healthy lifestyle behaviors – things like, “I exercise regularly” or “I limit my sugar intake”.  The participants were then asked two things – how often they actually followed these behaviors over the previous twelve months, and how often in the next year they expected to.

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It looks as if the obesity crisis in America isn’t going away any time soon. In its sixth annual state-by-state survey, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently reported that the incidence of obesity among adults has doubled – or nearly so – in 17 of the 50 states over the last 15 years.  What’s even more staggering is that 20 years ago, not one state reported an obesity rate higher than 15% – now, obesity incidence tops 15% of the population in all 50 states.

Yes, we’re not as active as we should be, and we eat too much – but why has our calorie intake gone up so much in recent years?  High calorie foods, bigger portions, and more frequent eating contribute, to be sure – but a recent study¹ attempted to tease out which of these factors have contributed most to America’s problem with girth control.

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Maybe you’ve had this happen to you – after working out a little harder than usual, you find yourself thinking, “I just burned up an awful lot of calories – think I’ll have a cheeseburger.” It’s called “calorie compensation”. Often after exercising, we end up overeating – convinced that we’ve burned up a lot more calories than we actually have. But overeating – adjusting our “calories in” – isn’t the only way we compensate. Sometimes we adjust our “calories out” – and after a spell of activity, we overcompensate by simply becoming a lot less active for the rest of the day.

It’s been suggested that we might each be born with our own “activitystat” – a biological mechanism that keeps our daily energy expenditure fairly constant. The idea is that any time we engage in some fairly vigorous activity, the internal activity thermostat will lead us to “make up for it” – by increasing our level of inactivity.

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