I Tried A High Protein Vegan Diet For 50 Hours

Can you get 150 grams of protein per day on a vegan diet without protein powder? The people of the internet say, why do you need so much protein? You don't need that much, which I'm taking as a no. So I'm here to put it to the test. For the next 50 hours, I will be consuming no meat, no seafood, no dairy, no eggs, no animal products whatsoever, to find out if you can actually eat high protein on a vegan diet or maybe not. The rules for this challenge are pretty straightforward. One, must hit 150 grams of protein per day. Two, no protein powder can be used or consumed. And three, minimally processed foods only. That means no imitation meats such as Impossible Burger or vegan chicken nuggets. I want this challenge to be as whole foods based as possible to truly put the vegan diet to the test. That being said, we need to go grocery shopping before we start day one tomorrow. Grocery shopping for this challenge made me realize I pretty much ignore half of the grocery store because I grab these same foods every time I come here. There are actually a lot of interesting options that I've never really paid attention to. When you're trying to eat high protein on a vegan diet, there are a few obvious players. Tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils, and basically anything that can be traced back to a soybean. Then you've got things like soy milk and soy or almond yogurt, which I'll be honest, I'm probably the most skeptical about trying. Greek yogurt is one of my favorite foods and I'm not sure anything can really replace it. One thing I did like about a lot of these plant-based protein sources like lentils is that you're getting a decent amount of fiber along with the protein. So you can kind of kill two birds with one stone, which, you know, considering this is the vegan diet, probably isn't the best expression. But there's also a pretty common misconception that if you're vegan, you're automatically eating healthy. And that is absolutely not true. You can eat like complete garbage and still be vegan. Oreos are vegan. So for this challenge, I really wanted to focus less on just eating foods that happen to be vegan and more on actually putting together a high protein diet that was also nutritious. I am a little concerned about our calorie to protein ratio with these foods, but with our groceries picked up, let's see what we can actually do with them over the next two days and whether I can somehow hit our 150 gram protein goal. I think breakfast is going to be our easiest meal of the day because I eat oatmeal a lot. Sometimes I'll do yogurt or eggs or something on the side, but nothing that we can't replace. And my breakfast usually isn't very high protein either, so I'm not too concerned about getting a ton of protein in in the morning. So naturally, we're going to do oatmeal. I usually just use this oatmeal that I get at Costco, but when I was at the store, I saw these protein oats. And when I first saw it, I figured they just put protein in it to make it higher protein, but it's just oats. And this has 10 grams of protein per serving, whereas this has seven grams, which normally three grams, I don't really care about. It's not worth paying extra for this. But for this challenge, I feel like every gram is going to count. So I got these, but apparently, these are a specific conventionally bred variety of oats that are naturally higher in protein. I don't know how growing stuff works, but I'm just going to trust it. Normally, I just cook my oats in water, but because we can't have any Greek yogurt or eggs, I'm going to use some soy milk to cook this in for a few extra grams of protein. Then I think we'll do some hemp hearts as well for a few extra grams of protein, and then the usual maple syrup and banana to finish it out. I'm no chef, but I like to think I know how to microwave a bowl of oatmeal. I don't know if it was the oats or the milk, but it came out looking a little funky. But for extra protein, I added some hemp hearts, then added maple syrup, cinnamon, and banana for a total of 25 grams of protein for meal one. I eat oatmeal all the time, so not much to touch on here. These oats were a bit more chewy than regular oats, but I ate it no problem. It was honestly a pretty standard meal for me. I was ready to try a couple of the new items that we bought, so I made a smoothie for our next meal since it seemed like an easy way to get in some extra protein with soy milk and almond yogurt. I was also too afraid to try that yogurt plain. I also added more hemp hearts. Hemp hearts are a complete protein, meaning they contain all nine amino acids. They also contain omega-6 and omega-3 in the form of alpha-linolenic acid. However, omega-3 in the form of EPA and DHA are primarily found in fish and seafood, which means you will likely need to supplement it if you are on a vegan diet. I'm keeping an open mind, but that almond yogurt smelled awful. It smelled like sour cream that went bad, but I'm hoping everything else covers up the taste of that. It's actually pretty good. I am used to my normal smoothie that I use normal milk and Greek yogurt in, which tastes a little bit better. This one has a slightly strange aftertaste, but overall, it mainly tastes like the berries and the banana and hemp hearts. So I'm not mad about it. I'll for sure drink all this. It's about 28 grams of protein, which isn't bad. My normal smoothie is closer to 40 to 45 grams of protein, and this is pretty high calorie for the grams of protein. We still have, I believe, more than 90 grams of protein. We need to get more than 90 grams of protein more today, so we need to figure something out for lunch and dinner, but I think we can do it. Eating only vegan stuff and no protein powder or anything, you definitely have to think and be more conscious of the food choices you are choosing, but I feel like we can hit 150 grams, and the goal is to stay within my normal calories, which is 2,800 calories. So I'm gonna drink this and think about what to make for lunch. Meal three is red lentil dal, which is an Indian dish made from lentils, onion, garlic, tomato, broth, coconut milk, and a bunch of spices. Indian food makes for fantastic vegan meals, since a lot of Indian dishes are traditionally vegetarian, and the ones that have meat are easy to substitute, such as butter chickpeas instead of butter chicken. Since we are getting a decent amount of carbs from the lentils, and I am trying to save some calories for dinner, we are doing cauliflower rice instead of regular rice, which bonus points for it being a veggie, and shelled edamame for more protein, making this meal 40 grams of protein total. This bowl definitely just looks like a pile of mush, but hopefully it tastes better than it looks. This is actually so delicious. I will be making this on a regular basis. This meal does have a lot of micronutrients and fiber. I would 10 out of 10 recommend trying this. You do have to really like spices to enjoy this meal, since all the spices kind of steal the show. So if you're a very picky eater, or someone who likes very plain food, you probably won't like this, but if you want to try a plant-based meal, this is definitely a good option. So far, I'm really enjoying this day. I think vegan meals get way too much hate. For dinner, we are making sesame tempeh. I've never had tempeh in my entire life. It's basically just fermented soybeans smushed into a block. I already cut up all of the tempeh, and then I also made the sauce. And then to go along with it, I have some frozen broccoli and jasmine rice that I'm just gonna throw in the microwave to make it easy. This meal should get us to our protein goal, as long as tempeh isn't disgusting. We have the final meal of the day, which honestly, it looks pretty good. With eight ounces of tempeh, the rice, and the broccoli, this meal is 60 grams of protein, and will put us at 153 grams of protein for the day. Eight ounces of tempeh looks like a lot, but I eat eight ounces of ground beef all the time with no problem. But the real question is if it tastes good. I've heard very mixed things on tempeh, even from vegans. Some people love it, some people hate it. It doesn't taste like a whole lot. It mainly just tastes like the sauce that is on it. I have a feeling plain is probably not very good, but with the sauce, and then the broccoli and everything, it tastes pretty good. As you're eating it, it almost feels like it leaves a little bit of a film or a coating in your mouth, which is a little bit weird since ground beef or chicken doesn't do that. But if you just drink water with your food, it's fine. It's a lot better than I expected. I will be able to eat this whole thing. I was worried that it was gonna be disgusting, and I wouldn't wanna eat it. The film that it leaves in your mouth when you're eating it is a little weird, though. Best way I can describe it is if you sprinkled some cornstarch on your meal after you cooked it, and then ate it with the cornstarch sprinkled on top. I imagine that's about the same coating it would leave in your mouth. If you've never had tempeh, I would say try it at least once. I think just looking at the block plain, it looks quite unappetizing. But once you cook it, put some sauce on it, pretty good. But our final totals for the day are 2,833 calories, 153 grams of protein, 364 grams of carbs, and 85 grams of fat. So we hit our protein goal, and we also hit my normal daily calorie goal. I honestly feel pretty great. I don't feel really that different from any other day, but I definitely do feel a bit more bloated because we did get 74 grams of fiber today. That's a lot of fiber if you're not used to it. On my normal diet, I'd say I'd get anywhere from 30 to 50 grams of fiber per day, averaging around 40 grams. So today we hit almost more than double that. So it makes sense to be a little bit bloated when you're eating that much fiber and you're not used to eating that much. But other than that, I feel good. Day one was successful. Now let's see how day two goes. Breakfast is nice and simple today. I did two pieces of Ezekiel bread, two tablespoons of peanut butter, 10 grams of hemp hearts, and then one banana. I honestly eat this on a normal day when I'm not trying to eat vegan. So this is nothing out of the ordinary. This meal has 22 grams of protein. So nothing too crazy, but not bad for some toast. In the mornings, I'm more concerned about getting more carbs than a bunch of protein because breakfast is always my pre-workout meal. So I care about fueling my workout more than getting ahead on protein too much. I did the hemp hearts for a few extra grams of protein. Hemp hearts are really easy to add to any meal and it adds just a few grams of protein. And it's also a good source of omegas. So I'm gonna enjoy this while I do some work and then work out, and then it's gonna be time for lunch. This meal has 49 grams of protein. Just did roasted chickpeas, edamame, sweet potato, some olive oil, and nutritional yeast. I put a ton of nutritional yeast on this. One for extra protein, and it also makes things taste cheesy. And then also for vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is extremely difficult to get in on a vegan diet without supplements or fortified foods. Thankfully, nutritional yeast has a ton of vitamin B12. So this is an easy way to get B12 in on a vegan diet without supplements. That being said, we need to see if this actually tastes good. I need a spoon. It's actually quite good. It could use the sauce, but otherwise the spices taste pretty good. Surprisingly, the nutritional yeast isn't coming through that much. So it doesn't taste very cheesy, but I like chickpeas, edamame, and sweet potato. So I like it. That being said, we aren't even halfway to our protein goal for the day. And I'm worried my creative juices might be failing me. You can be quite creative with plant-based meals, but when you're so focused on hitting a certain protein goal, it starts to feel like there isn't a ton of options because you have to really prioritize your calories for basically tofu, tempeh, beans, and lentils, maybe some soy milk and soy yogurt, but it doesn't really leave too many options. This would be pretty easy with protein powder or with imitation meats, but without that, you're not left with a ton of options if you are trying to hit 150 grams. Not impossible, but you do have to be very conscious about the choices that you are making and what foods you're eating. Don't get me wrong though, I've enjoyed everything we've eaten so far. So I'm just gonna enjoy this and think about what to eat next. My vegan protein creativity did in fact fail me. So for meal three, I made the same smoothie as day one with just an extra half cup of soy milk for four more grams of protein. This is quite tasty and is packed with micronutrients, so I did not mind. For dinner, we're doing a Southwest tofu scramble. I already calculated everything for this meal in my fitness pal, so that we hit 150 grams of protein today. So we're gonna do nine ounces of tofu, 225 grams of black beans, because it seems like every meal needs beans. Then we have five ounces of sweet potato from the sweet potato we cut earlier. And then I just chopped up some mushrooms, bell peppers, and red onion. I'm just gonna throw all of that in a pan with some taco seasoning, and of course, more nutritional yeast to get in the last few grams of protein, and that'll be a day. I've had tofu before. I probably eat it once a year, maybe once every two years. If you cook it right, it can be really good. If you cook it wrong, kind of gross. I like when it's a little crispy. You either have to cut it thin and pan fry it or crumble it up so it dries out. But if you just did fat slices of tofu and it's all squishy and gross, I can't eat that. This is a hefty plate of food. I also topped it with yellow bird Serrano hot sauce because that hot sauce make everything taste better. This plate feels like it weighs at least four pounds. It's not terrible. This is definitely my least favorite meal we've had so far. Surprisingly, the tempeh from yesterday is better. Since I've had tofu before, I thought I would like this more. As a scramble, it's just a little too squishy for me. As much as I like basically making slop bowls and plates by just shoving a bunch of ingredients together and calling it a day, this is just a little too mushy. I'm gonna eat it because I'm hungry and we need to get our protein in. This would actually be really good with some avocado on top. But again, since I've been so focused on protein, we just ran out of calories for the day. The taco seasoning and the hot sauce are really pulling the weight here. Not bad, but I've had better. I might've judged too soon. I've eaten about half of it now and I'm actually really liking it. We did have to use quite a bit of tofu. So I think the texture of that is kind of overwhelming all the other stuff. There was slightly less tofu. I think this would be an 8.5 out of 10. But because there is so much tofu, it's a little bit mushy, but it has been growing on me and I quite enjoy it. I would eat it again if someone served me this. I wouldn't say no. So to answer the question, can you hit 150 grams of protein per day on a vegan diet without protein powder? Technically, yes, you can. However, it's definitely not easy and takes some pretty deliberate planning. Eating the way I did in this video would definitely become a bit boring after a while to hit that amount of protein, but the point still stands. Eating a high-protein vegan diet would definitely be easier with some protein powder and imitation meats, but we did prove that you can eat high protein on a vegan diet without those things. You just have to be careful about the foods you are eating to hit that amount of protein while not going over the calories you are shooting for each day. I did not go into the environmental or ethical side of the vegan diet, but I do think there is something to be said there. If you are eating a plant-based diet due to environmental and or ethical reasons, that is very respectable and honestly an amazing thing to do. However, if you are eating a plant-based diet strictly because you think it is the healthiest way of eating there is some debate there. If you do not wanna be vegan, I do believe there is still benefits to incorporating plant-based foods into your regular diet due to the micronutrient profile. Even if that's just adding beans to a meal or having one vegetarian or one vegan meal per week, just small things like that can make a difference and also might help you get in some more fiber, which is very important for your gut health. And if you don't even wanna do that, you can make a difference by choosing skincare or beauty products that are cruelty-free and don't use any animal products. Yes, even a lot of skincare products do have animal products in it. I'm not vegan, but from an environmental and ethical standpoint, I really respect it. And from a dietary standpoint, it has its pros and cons just like everything else. But let me know your thoughts down in the comments below. And thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. And I will see you all in the next one.