Not a target to hit. A rough sense of scale for protein.
Roughly the amount of protein you would want at a main meal:
From animals
A palm sized piece of chicken, fish or meat.
Three eggs (or two large).
A cup of Greek yoghurt (check the NIP).
A tin of salmon or tuna.
Around 60g of hard cheese, which is a decent wedge rather than a slice.
From plants
A cup and a half of cooked lentils or chickpeas.
A block of firm tofu, around 200g.
Two cups of cooked edamame.
Around 100g of tempeh.
A generous cup of cooked quinoa, paired with something else.
Why the plant serves look bigger
Because they are. Plant foods generally carry protein at a lower concentration, so you need more volume to land in the same place.
They also carry fibre, which the animal sources do not, so you are getting two things at once. Useful to know when you are putting a meal together rather than a mark against either.
Most Australians are short on fibre and the gap is larger than the protein one, so a meal built around legumes is doing two jobs.
The easiest way to lift a meal
Add rather than swap. It takes less thinking and you keep the meal you were already going to eat.
A tin of lentils through a pasta sauce. An egg on a salad. Yoghurt instead of milk on your muesli. Nuts and seeds through a bowl of anything. A handful of frozen edamame into a stir fry in the last two minutes.
None of that requires a new recipe or a shopping list.
The takeaway: A main meal serve is roughly a palm of meat or fish, three eggs, a cup of greek yoghurt, or a cup and a half of cooked legumes. Plant sources need more volume for the same protein and bring fibre with them. The simplest way to lift a meal is to add something rather than rebuild it.
The science behind this post:
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Australian Food Composition Database. Protein content of meat, fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, tofu, tempeh and quinoa per common serve. foodstandards.gov.au
- National Health and Medical Research Council. Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand: Protein and Dietary Fibre. nrv.gov.au