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I like this scatter plot. If you really want to get freaky with it, you should take into account the “protein digestibility-corrected amino acid scores.” Things like eggs and whey are 100%, beans are usually in the high 70’s, and peanuts are actually down at near 50%.
So for nutrition’s sake, not all protein sources are created equal, and it makes sense that if you are trying to get adequate protein at the lowest price, you also want to get sources where you can eat the least of it to satisfy the protein requirements of your body.
I want this chart, but add the third Z axis of “environmental cost” whether it be just CO2 emissions or a “total” impact score.
I imagine those legumes get even stronger, while the meats lose ranking.
Especially if water is factored into the equation. https://www.statista.com/chart/9483/how-thirsty-is-our-food/
why does cottonseed, which would otherwise go to waste, get counted against cattle, when that is a conservative of resources?
according to this, cattle mostly graze or are fed things that otherwise would be wasted.
this is such a great resource to understand why footprints are ridiculous metrics and how interconnected our industrial agriculture systems are.
This is not a great resource, because cows and sheep get 95% of their water intake from eating grass and drinking rain water. But when you grow vegetables, you actually have to water them a lot.
Excepr they barely eat grass anymore, but imported soy from deprecated tropical forests.
that’s not true. cattle hardly get any of the global soy crop, and most of what is fed to animals is the byproduct from making soybean oil. cattle are fed about 2% of global soy iirc and only 7% of all the soy that is fed to any animal is whole soybeans. the rest is basically industrial waste.
I see cows all the time, they eat grass. Because grass is abundant and 100% free. A farmer must be dumb as fuck to pay for soy.
they’re not dumb, they just have way more cows in their stables than the piece of land the stable is on could ever support with any crop. Am in Belgium. Pretty sure cows here eat a lot more imported crops (mostly from south america) processed to livestockfeed than they eat local grass.
Well, I don’t know how it works in Belgium, but in the UK cows are usually moved between fields and field owners sometimes even pay for grazing animals to graze on their fields to keep them tidy. Paying for soy VS getting paid for grazing is a no brainer here.
if you follow the citations they call that green water and break it down
That’s irrelevant when the first graph shows utter bullshit and people fall for it. Cows don’t need water, veggies go.
i think we are in agreement that the methodology for quantifying agricultural impacts is flawed
This would be cool with ratio of protein to calories as well, in the same format.
Yeah protein vs calories would be way more useful than protein vs weight.
Great post!
I wanted to add that this isn’t quite how proteins work. Those protein-rich legumes aren’t what you would call ‘complete proteins.’ There’s a number of amino acids our bodies use as proteins and while legumes are a good source of many of them, there’s a couple proteins you won’t get enough of from just the beans. Fortunately, brown rice- while not as rich in protein- gives you the proteins that the beans are lacking. That’s why beans and rice are a match made in heaven.
Herbivorous animals are just better at metabolising proteins from plants and of course they’re capable of eating much more than us. That’s why they’re able to live off of grass.
This just stuff I read up on a few years ago so if I’ve gotten something wrong please say so
The infos in your comment aren’t wrong, but it’s missing a crucial point: If you live in a developed country, you’re likely eating 2-4 times as much protein as you actually need.
Even when a certain legume has only 70% as much content of a certain amino acid, if you eat double than what you need, you still reach 140%.
I’m not sure what the implication of living in a developed country is. People can have vastly different diets in developed countries and people may have different protein needs. Just because you live in a developed country doesn’t make you immune to malnutrition.
I think it’s just something that has to be considered in a wider context and people are bad at that in general.
See my friend who is quite obese and suffering from diabetes including kidney issues and bad liver enzymes, because he was obsessed with being big and lifting heavy things and obsessing about cramming as much ‘protein’ as he could thinking that weight lifting would burn off all the ‘bad stuff’. He got way more protein than even any body builder could possibly need but was still always making a big show at gatherings of eating so much stuff to maintain his physique (which didn’t look muscular, he always looked fat, but said his muscles weren’t for show and that’s why he looked fat not muscular).
So when some post seeks to help folks by indicating good sources of protein, it can trigger people that have no protein issues to make worse decisions, and it’s worth pointing out that most people concerned about getting lots of protein almost certainly already have plenty of protein.
Well, if you’re actively starving, then obviously you won’t get enough. And if you’re only eating e.g. rice, then you’d likely be satiated before you have enough of certain amino acids. But aside from that, it’s quite difficult to not get enough protein, as carb-heavy food also contains protein.
I can recommend listening to this podcast/video for a more detailed explanation: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-should-i-eat-more-protein
If you live in a developed country, you’re likely eating 2-4 times as much protein as you actually need.
Except if you are reducing animal products (not just if you are vegan). In many western cuisines, if you just reduce/avoid meat, egg and diary products, you probably will get too little of some of the amino acids, causing malnutrition. Therefore, this information is important.
This professor disagrees with you: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-should-i-eat-more-protein
I can’t really cite a specific portion, as he explains how the whole RDA works, how much we eat and how plants’ amino acids work across the whole length, but frankly, the whole podcast/video is worth listening to.
But well, to cite at least the conclusion:
Yes, you can absolutely meet all your needs on a completely plant-based diet, stop obsessing about protein.
It’s extremely unlikely that anyone with an even vaguely normal diet isn’t getting all the essential amino acids as those complementary to legumes are found not just in rice but in all grains and seeds. So it’s not just rice, any kind of bread, pasta, oats, barley/spelt/etc. or nuts will do. And soy is pretty much a complete protein.
Yours and other comments have been insightful and have made me reconsider some assumptions I did not realize I had made, so thank you.
I’ll concede that a sedentary person of normal weight doesn’t need to worry much about getting all their essential amino acids. If I was interested in gaining muscle on a plant-based diet, would you say that I would still be wasting energy by stressing about eating all the proteins? Wouldn’t that make my only issue getting the right amount of calories?
I’ll look for some literature when I have the time but if you have any off-hand knowledge you could share then I would appreciate it.
It’s very much possible. Look up Noah Hannibal, Nimai Delgado, John Thomas, Brian Turner, Lifting Vegan Logic, Lakshay Naidu, Patrik Baboumian.
They all eat Tofu and other soy products like edamame regularily, often for decades and can’t exactly be called feminized.
So tofu is really your friend. Many benifits like high calcium content, isoflavones preventing specific cancers and the most complete protein in the plant world, IIRC. Quinoa and hempseeds have a pretty good amino acid profile too but are more cumbersome to consume than tofu. It tastes bland on itself but it can transform into many delicious dishes if prepared right.
If you want to learn more about the body building aspects you find a ton of information on the respectice YT channels of above mentioned body builders.
I’d refer to these channels if you want to learn how to cook good whole food plant based dishes:
https://www.youtube.com/@thenarddogcooks https://youtube.com/@pickuplimes https://youtube.com/@healthyveganeating https://www.youtube.com/@RainbowPlantLife https://www.youtube.com/@YEUNGMANCOOKING https://youtube.com/@cheaplazyvegan
I mean, I think it’s fine to make sure your diet contains all these things. If you’re eating vegan (even if you’re not) yeah, do eat beans/lentils/soy etc., for sure. But I think stressing is overkill. If you just eat a good variety of foods you’re likely to get what you need.
There is no real protein in most grains. This chart is misinformation.
Wrong
See the following on the concept of complete proteins: https://youtu.be/psAlJtgeQsY
Thanks for the link! Neat video, and I’ll make a note to skim the sources for the video. Honestly I’m happy to be wrong on this as the issue of getting enough protein for gaining muscle has made me reconsider my diet a lot in the past.
Curious where tofu would be at on this chart.
Probably somewhere around the legume cluster. They’re really pulling their weight there, as expected, though peanuts are quite the dark horse.
Pricing and product availability is regional and variable, but some napkin math using my local Walmarts pricing puts it at:
- 5.33g protein per 100g food
- $3.04 for 30g protein
That puts it in the green veggie cluster if I’m not getting the axes confused.
the problem is there are a ton of varieties of tofu, and they’re all generally around the same price. it seems the silken tofu have around 5g of protein, but some of the extra firm varieties have over 15g protein per 100 tofu, putting it in a much more respectable spot in the bottom middle with the grains and such
Is that extra soft tofu? It usually has more protein than that. A pack of extra-soft I have is 8g / 100g, and some seem to be 10-15 from online sources.
I used a firm tofu, purely because the only other option was over four times the price and the chart specified they used the cheapest price/weight possible. The soft tofu does have about 30% more protein per serving for the same weight, but the price would likely make it an outlier.
c/theydidthemath?
Thanks so much, that’s very helpful and actually a little disappointing.
No problem! Turns out my Walmart only sells a single package type of tofu so take it with a grain of salt. It’s still a cheap and good protein source, but not as dense as an animal or legume protein source.
Take it with way more than a grain of salt — add some nutritional yeast and MSG, anything to give that tofu flavor!
Yeah, I’ve got two packets of tofu at home and they list 12g and 15g of protein per 100g…
Oh no, it’s much better than that.
Google suggests it’s 8g per 100g, which on paper doesn’t sound great but a package over here is around 2 bucks for 16oz, roughly 450g. Being conservative we could say 50 cents for 100g.
8, 16, 24, 32 puts us a little under 2 bucks.
That said, tofu is 5 servings of 70cal; the 100g isn’t all calories. I’m guessing water? In any case, that eats into your cost effectiveness, putting it closer to the center than near the legumes where it really should be.
Your mileage may vary though. Nuts are great, but peanuts only pull ahead because of how insanely cheap they can be. They’re much fattier. Tofus great, though, if you prepare it as intended and not as some meat substitute like many Americans tend to do.
I suspect it would be at the bottom right blue cluster with the legumes
Comparing liquid to dry foods on the same chart is completely disingenuous. Also look at any label. Cows milk always has more protein than soy milk.
I don’t see what you mean. The left axis is a measurement of cost per gram of protein. The bottom gives you a measurement of density. So anything lower on the chart is cheap for what you get and then the further right you go the smaller the portion required to consume to get that amount of protein.
How do liquids differ from dry foods in terms of protein stuff? (Waves hands vaguely).
I was mildly surprised that milk is way down in the bottom left quadrant.
its mostly water
I got a bag of almonds for $11. 85 grams of protein. Holy fuck. Also delicious!
It would be nice to see cholesterol counts on here as well. Good work though.
Why? I thought dietary cholesterol had little to nothing to do with blood cholesterol levels? That’s what it seems to me like this source is saying, but I’m not an expert by any means.
You’re correct. Saturated fat intake increases LDL (atherogenic kind, e.g. the “bad”) cholesterol, there’s even a nice formula for it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25286466/
Sirloin steak needs to be added to this. It’s not only cheaper than other steak but it’s significantly higher in protein too at 27g per 100g.
Explains how elephants are able to get so jacked without consistent income, they just poppin’ them peanuts for days!
Peanut butter is the secret to success
Bro! My bicep is way bigger than any trunk so I could defeat an elephant in a boxing match, no prob! A gorilla, too because they only eat leafs. A bear could maybe pull off a draw because they eat them good fish proteins and have knives as fingers so I would need a knife too or my hunting bow.
This may be helpful from a cost / gram of protein but its a bit misleading on the grams protein/ 100 g axis for beans - those are the dry bean numbers.
That seems reasonable, given they presumably use the price for dried beans as well. When you care about price (and therefore about about a price/protein graph) you buy beans dried.
Unless you’re trying to consider how to veggie up your protein for the gym and suddenly you have to eat twice as many beans as you thought.
Using a smart pot (like the ninja foodie) makes preparing dried beans a piece of cake. I’ve been making pintos, white beans, and chickpeas (for hummus) on the regular now. Really brought my costs down, especially when buying beans out of the bulk section. Thank god for winco.
Probably should also be noted that you’re almost certainly eating more than plenty protein, no matter what you do.
As in, for medical reasons, when people have a dodgy liver, it’s helpful to reduce protein intake to what they actually need, but with how much protein our usual diet contains, it’s really difficult to get there.Interesting podcast/video on the topic: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-should-i-eat-more-protein
Except if you do not (or rarely) eat meat, fish, egg and diary products, and do not adapt your diet. Why would you want to rarely eat that? For everyone’s future: https://slrpnk.net/post/10599814
Well, now it’s gone full circle. The post you linked was created, because I had original commented that diagram elsewhere: https://slrpnk.net/post/10599814/9313177
🙃
I wish I could eat legumes
how legumes have more protein per weight than ground beef?
Most likely dried legumes vs uncooked meat that is full of water.
80% ground beef is 20% fat
80/20 ground beef has 17g of protein per 100g, lentils have 9g per 100g
maybe its per dry solids? yeah something doesnt seem right though.
Yeah, it’s dry weight. I just checked the labels on my beans at home. They all approximately 7g protein per 35g beans (i.e. 20g protein per 100g beans).
Yes, that’s what it is, which is a useless metric.
Cooked Pinto beans are 9 grams of protein per 100 grams.
I wouldn’t say so, since it’s a comparison of price vs protein. You don’t tend to buy wet beans (unless they’re canned), so it’s a reasonable graph considering.
Y axis should be reversed. Since 90% of graphs are trying to find the sweet spot, would y the lowest-cost, highest protein be in the upper right? Unless I’m reading this correctly it’s the lower right, which is hardly /dataisbeautiful
Course I’m shit at math and could be wrong…
You might notice Pork Belly and Ribeye Steak belong way higher than the red dots representing them. In your proposition, I don’t think there exists an elegant way to represent those data points.
If you did grams per USD, then the Ribeye would be 0.06, Pork Belly 0.10. The next worst would have been 0.25, so I think it would clearly show the relatively poor cost per protein.
Of course, I don’t think anyone is deluding themselves to think that those foods are the ones to choose if you just want “some source of protein”.
