[ctoa]

When I did strength sports and would eat ~180g protein a day (which for me was 1.8g/100kg), I ate a lot less meat than you would think, I was carefully tracking all my food for a while and you have to count the whole diet.

I really like this study of a population of highly trained athletes and their diets/protein intake: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27710150/

In that study they eat > 1.2g protein/kg body weight, but 43% of that is "plant sources", meaning grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables. Like one serving of oatmeal is 6g, things you don't think of as "protein" add up and you have to count them. The athletes in that study are Dutch and 19% of their protein intake came from bread.

But what always happens with protein recommendations is that they say "x grams protein/kg bodyweight" but people hear "protein is meat, you are telling me to eat x grams/kg bodyweight of meat." Very few people ever look closely enough at their diet to develop an intuitive sense for counting macros.

[aucisson_masque]

Protein from grain food isn’t as well absorbed as protein from meat, milk, fish. Roughly, 2g of protein from bean equal 1g meat protein.

[ctoa]

Yes, but the standards aren't based on "the best protein to absorb", they are based on whole diet consumption. Studies like the one I linked to are where the recommendations come from. It is a misunderstanding to read a recommendation for 1.2g/kg (or whatever) as saying that the 1.2g is supposed to all be meat quality protein. It's supposed to be the protein in your total mixed diet.

Your diet contains many sources of protein lower quality than beans (as in the linked study with high level Dutch athletes getting 19% of their protein from bread), you do need to count those. They do add up and if you don't, you end up assuming you need way more protein than you do.

[NewJazz]

Source?