Making sure you get enough protein in your diet is important for your overall health, as well as keeping you full between meals. There are different types of protein sources including lean meats, fish, dairy and nuts. But how much of each should you be consuming? In this Avera Medical Minute, Avera dietitian Kaylee Gebhart explains how different protein sources impact your body.
What are some options to getting protein in your diet?
There’s a lot of different options. You can have meat, like chicken, fish, pork, beef, all of those good sources of meat proteins. You can also get proteins from other things like lentils, peas, legumes, eggs, low-fat dairy products, nuts and seeds.
How much protein should you be consuming a day?
The recommended daily allowance says anywhere from 10%-35% of your calories should be from protein. Or 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, that could be another way to figure out how much protein you actually need in your day. Most people get more protein than we actually need.
What are the benefits to including protein in your meals?
Our body doesn’t actually store protein, so getting enough every day in your meal is something we should really be keeping in mind. But be mindful, don’t go overboard, be mindful of a good serving size. It’s important to maintain good muscle tissue, so making sure you’re eating enough to maintain that muscle tissue that you have. It’s also important for curbing hunger, so if you’re eating enough protein and eating enough fiber in your meals, that can curb hunger and in turn also help maintain a good healthy body weight.
What happens if you’re not getting enough protein?
Sometimes people can experience some muscle loss, also some people can overeat if we’re not feeling full from that protein.
Besides meat proteins, what are other options?
Eating enough protein but also eating enough meatless options, too. There’s a really big push for meatless protein options, so nuts, seeds, legumes, beans, peas, all of those. Then also incorporating fish; 8 ounces of fish every week is really beneficial to our heart health.
