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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

No, I went off a vegan diet. Switched to eating a lot of egg whites, chicken and some fish. Occasionally red meat. Also drinking lactose free milk with my coffee and eating cheese sometimes.

It’s hard to get enough protein from a vegan diet and without enough protein, it’s harder to decrease fat %.

Also, I have a problem digesting beans so one of the main source of vegan protein is not practical for me.

I’m on a break even calorie diet right now and keeping the weight off. I’m also still breaking personal records at the gym despite maintaining the same weight which suggests my body is still getting lower in fat %.

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It’s trivial to get plant protein. Extra firm tofu, tempeh, seitan, and TVP rival meat, though they tend to be novel for most people here. Certainly were for me.

I eat this tofu scramble almost daily: https://youtu.be/Vc5pZ-PY-H8

I agree that it’s possible to eat enough protein on a vegan diet.

But it’s easier to do it on a non vegan diet.

For example, chicken has higher protein per 100g than tempeh while having lower calories. In addition, I could also drink whey protein which is cheaper, and have higher protein per calorie than vegan protein powder.

My goal was to lose weight and get visible abs. It’s just easier to do it on a non vegan diet.

Bioavailability of protein from vegetables is significantly less than from animals.

That statement usually comes from a misinterpretation of PDCAAS which only measures the limiting amino acid in a food. If you put any weight behind PDCAAS, then you have to grant that plant proteins have perfect PDCAAS scores if you eat more than one plant.

But there's research on strength performance outcomes on plant protein, those eating enough plant protein in total don't have any different outcomes. I don't see why this would move the needle for you.

It's harder to do it on a vegan diet if you don't eat high protein foods, and those foods might be novel to you, sure. But you said "It’s hard to get enough protein from a vegan diet", not "I was unwilling to eat the food". So of course I'm going to step in.

Protein density isn't all that different, but seitan and tvp are even more dense per calorie.

- extra firm tofu 14g protein, 130 cal. 0.11g/cal

- tempeh 51g, 510 cal. 0.10g/cal

- chicken breast 27g, 184cal = 0.15g/cal

- chicken thigh 28g, 240cal = 0.12g/cal

- seitan 21g, 106cal -> 0.20g/cal

- tvp (soy chunks) 50g, 330cal = 0.15g/cal

TVP is cooler than it seems if you were to google it. You basically treat it like dried ground beef in a bag. It's also ultra-cheap. For example, you'd dump it into a bolognese pasta sauce instead of ground beef and it comes out the same.

Do you have any concerns about TVP being ultra-processed?

> For example, you'd dump it into a bolognese pasta sauce instead of ground beef and it comes out the same.

In my experience it comes out, kind of, edible but slight disgusting, with grassy, soy aftertaste and spongy texture.

Thanks for this list. In 2014, I switched to a vegan diet with a heavy emphasis on restricted oil consumption too, and the weight peeled off. I originally did it for dietary/health reasons, but over the years I've developed more of an ear for the ethical reasons too. I never have felt like I'm not getting enough protein, but occasionally when conversations like this come up, it's nice to know what's out there. I'd never heard of TVP.

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