Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

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I dunno. I track macros religiously with daily protein/fat/carb targets for weight lifting.

I don't care much about the macros of each individual meal (or any individual ingredient). When dinner comes around, I'm cooking whatever meal will let me hit my targets for the day. If I already got most my protein in, I'll happily eat something with "bad" protein/calorie ratio.

Granted, 99% of people don't track food intake, so yea, probably makes sense to optimize food nutrition for the average person eating an average meal looking for an average balance of macros on a per-meal basis.

I guess my point is there's a time and place for virtually all foods (including junk food... bodybuilders regularly snack on things like sour patch kids during workouts).

Critiquing beyond burgers for their macro breakdown doesn't make sense to me. But criticisms around the level of processing is 100% valid IMO. The last package I opened up quite literally smelled like dog food.

Edit: Also FWIW, I'm a vegetarian (although eat meat maybe once every 1-2 weeks, sometimes beef). Despite that, I'm easily able to get 200+ grams of protein a day. If I took protein powder out of my diet completely, I'd still be able to hit 150g/day at least without really trying.

Out of curiosity, how do you get 150g/day of full proteins?

For instance, eating lentils, which is one of the most proteinated vegetable, bring 18g of proteins per 100g, along with 40g of carbs. You also have to eat a comparable amount of cereal to get a full protein chain.

Given that amount of proteins you mention, this requires eating a very large volume of food (cereals and graminacae swell with water during cooking).

I always wondered how vegetarians could reach a highly proteinic diet as a result!

I’ve eaten 124g of protein so far today, no meat no protein powder.

I wish I could tell you one food, but it’s not primarily from 1 source.

Egg whites, chickpea salad, Greek yogurt - lots of stuff has protein in it.

On the flip side, I’ve never understood how meat eaters can hit their protein goals without frequently exceeding 50-100g fat per day.

Ok, so mainly animal products, but not meat. Regarding fat, lean meat cuts are easy to come by.

Tofu, 100% peanut butter with no added oil or additive, skyr yogurt (10g of proteins for 100g for around 50kcal !), there are a lot of options What's hard is not protein intake but to moderate carbs intake in my opinion

For vegetarians it's much easier, they just go for animal derived products (eggs and milk based), so it's a bit bullshit if you ask me.

For vegans it's extremely hard, a lot of them that I know are proper skinny fat. Rarely overweight (or just a little bit) but with a terrible body composition.

> Critiquing beyond burgers for their macro breakdown doesn't make sense to me.

They're selling a meat replacement. Replacing the meat in my diet with their product does not work for my goals without additional planning to compensate. Therefore it's not a good replacement for me. A criticism need not apply in all cases to be valid.

> I'd still be able to hit 150g/day at least without really trying.

What are your calorie goals? If you're in a surplus, maybe. But I'm currently in a deficit with 150g protein / 1600 calorie. I do not find that I can hit this goal "without really trying", _especially_ without protein powder.

And to clarify, it's 100% possible to hit my goals eating vegetarian/vegan. But with meat in my diet it's much easier because their high protein content gives me more flexibility with the rest of the diet. If I wanted to do it vegetarian, I wouldn't use beyond meat because it'd be even harder than other options.

Current calorie goal is ~3000 - I agree, that amount of calories makes it much easier.

Over winter/sprint I was targeting 1900-2100 (180g P). It would have been near impossible to do it without protein shakes.

You are not a vegetarian

If you wear vegetarianism on your sleeve for philosophical reasons, yea that’s not me.

I simply prefer not eating a lot of meat.

Next time I’ll say majority-vegetarian minority-carnivore?

I hate the term, but I've heard 'flexitarian' used to describe this.

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