Comment by parl_match
2 days ago
I'm a weightlifter and as part of my training, I eat pretty close to about a pound of meat a day during bulk, usually about 12-14oz. This is because I need to eat about 200g of protein a day. I supplement it with protein shakes.
I find that to be a challenging amount of meat. It's a lot! And to find out that's average???
Americans eat way too much meat. Cheese, too.
The number quoted is the pre-processing weight. A lot of mass is lost during processing, drying, aging, in transport, to spoilage, and so on.
The real number for meat consumption at the end consumer is about half that amount.
The thing is though you’ll be eating (I presume) mostly lean meat. Chicken breast, white fish etc.
When you compare the macros of that to sausages or ribs or even steak it’s quite drastically different.
Also I’d guess you aren’t covering your meat in thick sugary sauce every time…
I am not a weightlifter, I am an amateur powerlifter, and I do pretty intense resistance training for my age (54yo) and my weight (112kg) and I eat about 800g to 1kg a day of meat - duck, pork or beef. Even if I eat 1kg Wagyu beef, it would give me about 3000 calories, slightly less than 3500 calories I need to keep my muscle mass. I would happily eat even more meat but circumstances prevents me to do so.
I used to drink protein shakes, but now I am actively against these. Artificial sweeteners provoke insulin release [1] [2] that leads to type-II diabetes.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887503/
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10568...
you can get protein powder that doesn't contain artificial sweeteners. You can get protein powder that doesn't contain any sweetener. You can even buy pure protein powder without any additives at all.
thanks for the dietary advice, b00ty4breakfast
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Your best evidence is a rat study and a narrative review?
Kinda makes zero cal sweeteners look good.
It is hard to experiment on humans. Here is an experiment on monkeys: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39978336/
At least aspartame increases insulin secretion in them.
You can get protein powder without flavoring. I drink that either pure or with a little bit of flavored protein mixed in (something like 3:1) because the flavored stuff is so sweet I can't drink it. Some brands I could literally do 3 parts flavorless, 1 part flavored and it would still taste too sweet.
Why you get protein powder of unknown origin instead of the meat?
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I guess it's a matter of perspective and what you're used to. Some indigenous North American peoples used to subsist largely on bison for at least part of the year and often consumed 5 pounds or more of meat and other animal products per day. Was that too much?
I too try for 200g of protein/day, with meat and supplements by shakes. It’s difficult to eat more meat than that, because of how it fills you up, its prep requirements and its cost.
I don’t believe that the average American eats nearly a pound of meat per day. I do believe if the average American ate meat before carbs, we could get there, and all be a lot healthier, though.
For me, processed carbs make me much hungrier, but the kale salad I’m eating right now makes me less hungry.
200g a day? Are you a big guy? I did an experiment in my 20s on building muscle on a plant based diet, and managed to gain 10kg in one year (muscle mass, confirmed by a DEXA scan). Total weight gain was about 16kg. Most of the surplus was water.
I started at 70kg (181cm), so pretty skinny, and without prior resistance training. I ate between 120and 140g of protein per day, without any shakes.
I am aware that these gains would not have continued, but my body obviously had more than enough with 130g to build muscle. I did eat a calorie surplus, but
200g seems like A LOT.
The latest in body building science recommends 1g of protein per day per 1lb of body mass (or 2.2g per 1kg for metric folks).
How did you do that in a plant based diet? What were your largest sources of protein? (To be clear: I'm doubting that you did it. I am genuinely curious.)
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I think this is person dependant. A Kale salad makes almost no impact on my hunger, but a piece of bread makes me feel pretty full.
Just as an example of an opposite experience.
(american, vegetarian for 13 years, athletic, former meat eater, long carb centric diet that i'm trying to change)
This is very true, and something that people pushing keto (myself included) had to learn the hard way.
There are satiety indexes for different foods but they are not universal. I can eat almost unlimited carbs and never feel full. I'll eat multiple plates full of bread or a thousand calories in french fries and then move on to the main course.
6oz of lean meat and some salad and I'm good with 500 or so calories on my plate.
I honestly don't get how potatoes supposedly fill people up. I have made twice baked potatoes before and eaten an easy 2000 calories of them along side thanksgiving dinner.
In contrast right now I'm eating clean and doing a body recomp. Eating clean is super satiating, for me at least!
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Well, if you've ever cooked down a cabbage or spinach or whatever, you'll see it basically takes up no space whatsoever... so yeah, kale on its own will take a while to fill you up.
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I cut out mammal products and replaced with plant protein like lentils and wild rice.
I can eat 200g of lentil noodles in a sitting.
I've been cooking more with lentils as well, so many cheap tasty recipes. I've been following this chickpea hack (cooking in microwave for like 5ish) to great success. Microwaving the chickpeas splits them into a crispy texture, then after that it's very flexible to create all kinds of dishes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EU76q3Vf3Q
My favorite is pan frying them in a hot sauce + aromatics for a quick chickpea rice bowl, I even gotten into the habit of using chickpeas as a chicken replacement for many of my Mexican dishes.
If you're use to the typical American diet, please try cooking more lentils! Very tasty, filling dishes, low on costs and high on nutrients.
chicken 100g/27g of protein
chickpeas 100g/19g of protein
That's a good ratio for something that costs less than a dollar a can compared to chicken.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzsEqV0Bjcs - that lecture refers a simple formulae to compute protein content from the amount of nitrogen. They count nitrogen in grams, then multiply by 6 to get amount of "available" protein. But, any antinutrients such as cyanides will count as proteins by this calculation.
Lentils contain trypsin inhibitors, which contain inordinate amount of nitrogen that is counted as protein.
While you do not eat these directly after cooking your lentils, you do not eat as much protein as you would think you do.
lentils carb/protein ratio isn't great. you still need to supplement it with protein (whey or pea). i eat a fair amount of lentils, but mostly as a carb source (like white rice). even tofu's ratio isn't good enough. i do eat a lot of tofu though, because i like it
back of the hand math suggests id have to eat a kg of dry lentils a day to reach my protein requirements. that's gotta be what, 2800 cal? edit: 800g of lentils for 200g of protein, 2500 cal.
im just thinking out loud here, but lentils alone wouldn't be adequate for me.
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Lentils are about 9% protein by weight; that's only 18g of protein.
(Beef is about 25-30% protein by weight. Whey protein isolates are about 80% protein by weight.)
> mammal products
Makes me think of the song:
https://youtu.be/14jjo7MtSzE
I like that term. I assume that means you cut out beef, pork, mutton, goat, cheese, and milk but eat seafood and birds/eggs.
I may start that diet!
Depending on the type of training you're doing, you're likely eating lean meat too, like chicken breasts and fish. Most people are much less picky about the kind of meat they eat, opting for fatty cuts or meat products high in salt and saturated fats.
yes that's true
im probably more conscious about what i eat than the average person, just on virtue of watching macros lol
> And to find out that's average???
I think you’re conflating 200g of protein with 200g of meat that has protein.
They said “I eat pretty close to about a pound of meat a day during bulk, usually about 12-14oz”
A pound of meat is 450g of beef, which has about 110-140g of protein in it.
David Bars, while not even close to anything resembling a whole food, have made hitting macros so much easier. End up being cheaper than chicken, per gram of protein per calorie, sometimes too!
A 16oz ribeye can easily be eaten in a single meal by most people who are large enough (90kg) to need 200g of protein per day.
Would be important to see how that number is being computed? If it is the amount of meat sold divided by number of people it may be misleading since there is a fair amount of wastage particularly in places like schools etc with kids filling plates that are never consumed.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. There is even more trimming that goes on as well. Chefs trim what's ordered, tallow may be rendered for non-consumptive reasons, and so on. Like a poster above, as an athlete I eat more meat than most people, and I don't seem to eat those numbers... I feel like we are missing some data points.
Cheese is probably there due to lobbying. I don’t understand why it would be that high.
Cheese _is_ delicious.
(But I doubt the cheese I find so delicious is that same as the cheese that's so prevalent in American diets...)
Bodybuilder? Powerlifter? Curious what specifically you mean that requires you to bulk vs. cut
well im not bodybuilding anymore, so i guess im just in a constant bulk/caloric parity. i still think like that tho lol
Have you considered not bothering to bulk or cut and instead just maintain? Maybe you are saying that but I can’t tell. I lift 5-6 days a week but neither bulk nor cut. Just eating/consuming whatever is necessary to maintain and/or hit goals when I feel like it.
I'm not a weightlifter but I'm a carpenter. Meat is like a healing potion on my body. Makes the pain go away. And without meat, it doesn't.
Eggs work too.
That's an immense amount of cholesterol. You might consider replacing some or all of it with plant-based sources. (Many protein shakes are made with whey powder, which also contains cholesterol.)
Heart disease is a real risk. Don't ignore it. It's not something that only happens to other people.
I'm not a weightlifter, and 1lb steak (pre-cook weight) is a normal amd very reasonable sized dinner for me. Weird to hear that called "challenging".
TIL the amount of animal suffering that goes into each person trying to be swole.