Veganuary and the Protein Myth

It's January again. We're sure you've noticed if only because of the diabolical weather we all seem surprised by!

That means it's once again Veganuary. We're always stocked up on on vegan staples and meat alternatives and we're very happy to recipe swap and share tips if you're just starting out with a vegan diet or even if you're just dipping your toe for the month.

It can be a great way to up your plant food intake, using more beans and legumes, wholegrains, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, tofu, tempeh, seitan etc. But it can be a little intimidating or overwhelming if you've never cooked with these things before. There are loads of blogs and social media accounts regularly sharing simple and fast plant based meals and it doesn't have to be scary. Even making simple swaps like making an all bean chilli and forgoing the mince, or a lentil shepherds pie, again, no mince, or even an easy options such as veggie sausages and mash or toad in the hole (yes that would need to be egg free batter too, we can help you out if the internet fails you there!) and you can easily fill weeknight dinners or meal prep with non-animal options.

There's a long held misconception that plant food is less protein rich than meats and animal products. They aren't lesser, they're just different. The combinations of amino acids (the acids which make up 'protein') in plant food aren't the same as in flesh. So you need to eat different types of plant food to get all of them in your diet. Therefore, making sure you've got more than one source of plant protein on your plate at each meal helps to ensure you're hitting your amino acid needs.

Sprinkle some seeds and chopped nuts over your tofu scramble (or on your salad, over your veggies at dinner time, on your porridge... they work on almost everything in our experience!), add some quinoa to your bean soup, make a nut roast and add in some beans as a binder, add nutritional yeast to anything you think will benefit from it flavour wise. There are loads of ways to combine your plant proteins.

Quinoa, chia seeds, hemp seeds (hemp hearts in American), spirulina and nutritional yeast are some of the exceptions and are all 'complete' plant proteins, this means they have all of the essential amino acids found in animal products. They make a wonderful addition to any plant based diet because of this.

Your nuts, seeds and wholegrains are also wonderfully mineral rich. Usually aiding with calcium, potassium, magnesium and zinc. Definitely a good idea to include these wherever you can for an additional nutrient bump.

We know that some people can struggle to digest beans and legumes and there are a couple of things you can try to lessen the impact. Adding some kelp or asafoetida to whatever you're cooking can really help to break down the starches responsible for that bloating some people experience. For anything dried, you can cook separately in water with kelp on high for 15-20 mins before adding to the main dish. It's best to soak dried beans overnight and wash well before cooking, and if you're using tinned beans, make sure you rinse off the aquafaba (bean juice - can be used as an egg substitute, doesn't matter what type of bean it comes from) thoroughly before you add them to your dish. It's also worth starting with small portions and building up as your microbiome responds rapidly to the food available, so if you start eating more plant foods, your fibre and starch loving strains will flourish and you'll become better at digesting your plants as they do.

You may also hear that plant protein foods are full of 'anti nutrients' such as lectins and phytic acid. Yes, they are. However, cooking tends to denature the 'anti nutrient' effect. So unless you're only consuming raw food, this is highly unlikely to be an issue for you unless you have a sensitivity to either of these.

Vegan protein sources also tend to be richer in dietary fibre, making them great for long burning energy and satiation (feeling full for longer after meals).

It's becoming easier than ever to find good dairy alternative cheeses too. Violife have a really wide range of options, Applewood have a great smokey cheese, Boursin now have a vegan option, so do BabyBel! Dairy free cheese isn't always a protein food though, so if you typically count your dairy cheese towards your intake, only certain ones will help you here. Violife have a protein rich Cheddarton, different from their original Cheddarton so do check the packaging and there are lots of great nut and bean based cheeses available too. You will be able to get some of them in the supermarkets but you can always order something you fancy trying through us. We can get Kinda Co, Honestly Tasty and I'm Nut OK. Brands we can't currently get but are definitely worth trying are Tyne Cheese Co and Mouse's Favourite.

Soya yoghurts and milks are also going to help add to your daily protein score. There are so many alternative milks, yoghurts, creams, butters, ice creams, chocolates etc that it's becoming hard to keep track of them all, even for us. Some of the brands you can look out for, which we've never been disappointed by, are;

Dairy Alternative Milks (some also do yoghurts* and creams**)

Plenish

Alpro* **

Sojade* **

Rude Health

Minor Figures

Oatly* **

Kokos

Honourable mention to Nush, who does fantastic yoghurts and cream cheeses, but no milk option from them

Ice Cream

Booja Booja

Swedish Glace

Need

Ben & Jerry's

Little Moons - not all vegan though, so do check

Chocolate

Booja Booja

OmBar

Montezuma - a lot of their dark chocolate is vegan

Hu

Rhythm 108

Plenish

There are of course, options from Galaxy, Cadburys, MooFree, NOMO, Mummy Meagz and several others also available widely in supermarkets, but some people find them overly sugary and not necessarily very chocolatey

If you're looking for something easy and more main meal worthy, we've got a great selection of pies from Magpye and Clive's. We also have a great range of frozen meat substitutes from Fry's, tofu from Itz Not Just Tofu and Clearspring, tempeh from Better and a range of great pre-marinated tofu options from Taifun. There are also bean burgers and various other delights from Biona in our fridges, and we have dried soya mince and soya pieces, also from Clearpsring.

A little public service notice - if you have any kind of gluten sensitivity, it's worth being aware that plant-based and gluten-free don't overlap hugely. Be careful checking the ingredients of meat substitutes and cheeses for wheat or gluten and equally check your gluten-free baked goods for dairy and egg.

We stock all the brands highlighted in bold above so pop in to see what you fancy!