Plant proteins - How much protein you actually need. Where does our information about protein and our daily needs for it come from?

The levels of adequate intake for nutrients were set by the government in 1847, and were then updated again in 1974. These levels were set to be adequate for 99% of the population. (Pregnant women, The elderly and the ill will require amounts outside of the RDA) These levels were set by finding the levels that our bodies needed, and then by adding a “margin of error” to those values. This means that they determined the amount of a certain nutrient that the average person needed to avoid a disease state, and added a percentage to that number to allow for errors in their measurements.  The amount of protein that a person needed was only 5% of overall calories. After adding the margin of error, their recommendation for protein was 10-35% of overall calories.- Highlight 5% and make a picture of it instead of the Braniac bottle.

Keeping these numbers in mind, that means that the average adult male needs between 50-60 grams/day, and the average woman needs between 40-50 grams per day. Not very much! 

Lets look at an example of a  simple salad, and how many grams of protein you would get from it:-

• 1 head of lettuce – 7 grams
• 1 beet – 1.3 grams
• 1 carrot – 0.6 grams
• 1 rib of celery – 0.4 grams
• ½ cucumber – 1 gram

This would give us 13.5 grams of protein.