By Marty Davey, Speaker at the 2015 NYC Vegetarian Food Festival
Darlings,
LaDiva here. I am so excited to meet with you and share my recipes to keep your girl-ish figures. These not only have FAB flavors, but as a registered dietitian, I know that they will keep in your FAV jeans. When working with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Geico Weightloss Study, I saw first hand how to help folks lose weight and feel great.
Still, I meet people who tell me, “I don’t eat carbs. They make you fat.” These carbo-phobes’ mantra is flesh proteins make you muscle-bound and thin. I LUV these people, but they don’t understand protein sources.
Here’s the skinny – protein is in all foods.
When you take your first nutrition class, Day One you learn that all foods are broken up in to 3 macronutrients. Macro meaning “big”. These are the biggest nutrient chunks of digestion. The three basic nutrients are: Carbohydrates [CHO], Protein and Fats [aka Lipids]. Carbo-phobes speak of these macronutrients as if they were separate continents existing on Planet Food and never meet. To some extent that’s true with flesh products being protein sources and oils in jars or bottles being fat sources. But when all your nutrients come from plant-foods life gets goofy.
Let’s look at the table below to better explain.
Look at the Tilapia. There are no carbohydrates in tilapia, a lot of protein and some fat. So, tilapia could fairly be labeled a protein food. Ditto for the ground beef. But then you come to quinoa.
Of course, you are expecting to find carbohydrates in quinoa. But, there is also some protein and fat. How about that onion? There are carbs. Whoa, there are almost 2 grams of protein in one cup and a teeny bit of fats.
Okay, what about strawberries? There can’t be any protein in strawberries. Wrong again. There is almost 1 gram of protein in a cup of strawberries. Can you eat a cup of strawberries? Even walnuts have all three macronutrients in them.
What should we call these vegan macronutrients – Carbprolids? ProFatdrates? My vote goes to Carfateins.
The table shows that plant foods are truly WHOLE foods. Not to say that there is every protein, fat and carbohydrate you need in strawberries, so just live on strawberries. Rather, realize that plant foods have more nutrition than you give them credit. When you choose chowing flesh products versus fresh produce something is left out. Mother Nature is pretty smart in putting a bit of all the basic stuff you need into the foods your are naturally drawn to in their natural state.
If you don’t believe me, get a bunch of kids. Put a platter of raw flesh on a table with a platter of any fruit. The fruit never lasts.
Here’s the real question – How much do I need? I’m 5’5” and weigh 125 pounds. [One of those things is true.] I need 45-55 grams of protein daily. A dinner of the quinoa, kidney beans, onions, mushrooms with strawberries for dessert equals approximately 24 grams or almost half of my daily protein needs. With my Basil Mustard Sauce you’ll sample at the festival, this dish looks yummy, boosts energy, is low in fat for my girl-ish figure and tastes FAB!
©Marty Davey, MS, RD 2015. All Rights Reserved.