High-protein diets have been popular for a good ten years or more. In the last year or so, there has been an explosion of high-protein products at the grocery store, e.g. “high-protein pudding” or “high-protein yogurt”, which my daughter has been gobbling up. Several weeks ago my son told me he wanted to try a carnivore diet, and only eat meat. A couple days later he told me that he had done some more research, and realized that fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins and minerals, so he changed his mind. Nevertheless, this got me really thinking about protein. After moving to Germany six years ago, I wanted to try lots of new foods, so I was constantly looking for stuff at the bakery or the grocery store which I had never tried. One of those was Harzer cheese, a sour-milk cheese packed with protein. It is not a fad though. It has been around for hundreds of years. It has a bit of a strange taste, but I kind of liked it, and would buy it occasionally. I will frequently have one piece as a late-night snack. If I go to bed hungry, I frequently have trouble sleeping. Eating something shortly before bed which is low in sugar but high in protein is a great solution. It takes our body longer to digest protein than carbohydrates, so it keeps you feeling full through the night.
I was a vegetarian for 20 years, and learned a lot about nutrition because of that. One of the first questions people ask you when you tell them that you are vegetarian is how you get enough protein. I learned that nuts and legumes provide sufficient protein. Since protein has been on every one’s mind again recently, I started doing a bit more research. I was looking through our refrigerator and pantry, comparing the amount of protein in different products. In Germany (and probably all of the EU), the nutrition facts on products are presented per 100 grams. This makes it really easy to compare across completely different types of food, which is very handy. But when I looked at a package of some rolls, I was shocked to see that they had just as much or more protein than a can of beans, per 100 grams. In fact, wheat flour has 11 grams of protein per 100 grams, while kidney beans has only 8. Had I been lied to all these years? But then I started thinking about it a bit differently. I looked at the number of calories per 100 grams, and this started telling a very different story. While kidney beans have about 100 Kilocalories per 100 grams, a soft pretzel has about 300! So if you want to maintain a 2000 calorie diet and maximize your protein, you need to be thinking about the amount of protein per Kilocalorie, not per gram. In other words, choosing the correct denominator is important!
On the day I realized this, after everyone else in the family had already gone to bed, I started a spreadsheet to do some calculations. I looked at the nutrition facts for many of the different foods we had in the house (and also did some online research). I confirmed a few suspicions, and also discovered some more surprises. The highest protein per calorie food that I found was Harzer cheese. But to my surprise, broccoli also has quite a bit of protein. I did some research about how much protein doctors recommend. Netdoktor.de recommends 0.8 grams of protein per 1 kilogram of a person’s weight for children and adults, 1.0 grams for older adults. Harvard health makes the same recommendation of 0.8 grams. That means for me I should get about 58 grams of protein per day. If I eat 2000 calories worth of broccoli, I will get 224 grams of protein, four times as much as I need! If I wanted to become a body builder, a type of person who requires more than average protein, broccoli would be sufficient. Also, it contains lots of fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K. Of course, I would have to eat nearly 6 kilos ( 13 pounds) of broccoli per day, which is about 12 heads of broccoli. That is pretty crazy! Nevertheless, it could be done.
| Product | Protein per 100G | KCal per 100G | Gram Protein per KCal | 2000 KCal diet | Grams to eat | Cost per gram (Euros) | Cost for 2000 Kcal (Euros) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| harzer cheese | 30 | 125 | 0.24 | 480 | 1,600 | 0.01 | 15.12 |
| egg white | 11.2 | 48 | 0.23 | 467 | 4,167 | 0.01 | 56.06 |
| chicken breast | 26.8 | 115 | 0.23 | 466 | 1,739 | 0.01 | 13.03 |
| deli meat ham | 19 | 105 | 0.18 | 362 | 1,905 | 0.01 | 19.05 |
| smoked salmon | 21 | 119 | 0.18 | 353 | 1,681 | 0.03 | 50.42 |
| pork chop | 29 | 166 | 0.17 | 349 | 1,205 | 0.02 | 18.07 |
| Skyr | 10.6 | 65 | 0.16 | 326 | 3,077 | 0.00 | 12.31 |
| cottage cheese | 13.6 | 90 | 0.15 | 302 | 2,222 | 0.01 | 18.78 |
| seitan (mock duck) | 13 | 101 | 0.13 | 257 | 1,980 | 0.01 | 27.72 |
| high protein pudding | 10 | 81 | 0.12 | 247 | 2,469 | 0.01 | 12.35 |
| light mozzarella cheese | 19.6 | 159 | 0.12 | 247 | 1,258 | 0.01 | 8.96 |
| raw broccoli | 3.8 | 34 | 0.11 | 224 | 5,882 | 0.00 | 18.82 |
| smoked tofu | 20.7 | 188 | 0.11 | 220 | 1,064 | 0.01 | 6.08 |
| skim milk | 3.5 | 35 | 0.10 | 200 | 5,714 | 0.00 | 5.71 |
| grilled tuna | 24 | 245 | 0.10 | 196 | 816 | 0.04 | 32.65 |
| hard boiled egg | 11.9 | 137 | 0.09 | 174 | 1,460 | 0.01 | 9.82 |
| high protein milk reis pudding | 7.6 | 92 | 0.08 | 165 | 2,174 | 0.00 | 10.65 |
| kidney beans | 8 | 104 | 0.08 | 154 | 1,923 | 0.01 | 11.31 |
| Kohlrabi, cooked | 1.9 | 26 | 0.07 | 146 | 7,692 | 0.01 | 51.28 |
| butter cheese | 24 | 332 | 0.07 | 145 | 602 | 0.01 | 6.02 |
| chickpeas | 7.5 | 106 | 0.07 | 142 | 1,887 | 0.01 | 10.68 |
| black beans | 9.4 | 162 | 0.06 | 116 | 1,235 | 0.02 | 18.52 |
| yogurt | 3.9 | 69 | 0.06 | 113 | 2,899 | 0.00 | 6.67 |
| whole milk | 3.5 | 65 | 0.05 | 108 | 3,077 | 0.00 | 3.69 |
| bratwurst | 15.2 | 289 | 0.05 | 105 | 692 | 0.01 | 6.92 |
| tomatoes | 1 | 20 | 0.05 | 100 | 10,000 | 0.00 | 30.00 |
| english muffins | 9.6 | 221 | 0.04 | 87 | 905 | 0.01 | 8.67 |
| Leberkäse | 11.8 | 292 | 0.04 | 81 | 685 | 0.01 | 6.25 |
| almonds | 24 | 611 | 0.04 | 79 | 327 | 0.03 | 8.18 |
| penne pasta | 13 | 359 | 0.04 | 72 | 557 | 0.00 | 1.67 |
| greek pasta Kritharaki | 12 | 355 | 0.03 | 68 | 563 | 0.00 | 1.69 |
| beets, cooked | 1.4 | 43 | 0.03 | 65 | 4,651 | 0.01 | 27.91 |
| Moss rye bread | 6.2 | 209 | 0.03 | 59 | 957 | 0.0044 | 4.21 |
| soft pretzel | 9.1 | 307 | 0.03 | 59 | 651 | 0.00 | 3.18 |
| boiled potatoes, with skins | 2 | 74 | 0.03 | 54 | 2,703 | 0.00 | 6.07 |
| white rice | 2.2 | 122 | 0.02 | 36 | 1,639 | 0.00 | 8.16 |
| avocado | 1.4 | 138 | 0.01 | 20 | 1,449 | 0.01 | 8.70 |
A nutrition experiment
My wife is at a fasting retreat this week. She is only eating a bit of vegetable broth several times a day, so probably less than 100 Calories per day. Pretty intense. While she is gone, I decided to do my own experiment with a high protein diet. So this week I am only eating Harzer cheese and broccoli. Originally I was only going to eat Harzer cheese, but then after some research about whether it is possible to eat too much protein, I decided otherwise. Eating too much protein can cause vitamin deficiency, constipation, dehydration, and potentially kidney issues, if you are already susceptible to that. Broccoli has lots of fiber and vitamins and minerals, and I will drink plenty of water. I don’t have many concrete predictions for this experiment, but here are some of the things I am hoping to learn:
- Will I feel hungry or full?
- Will I get tired of eating the same thing all the time?
- How will I sleep?
- Will I have more or less energy?
- Will I lose weight?
My plan is to eat about 16 pieces of Harzer cheese every day, once per hour, along with some broccoli. That will yield about 1,100 Calories and 250 grams of protein, well beyond the recommendation. I don’t track my caloric intake too precisely usually, but I would guess that I am closer to 2,000 calories per day, so it seems likely that I will lose weight, if losing weight really is just about calories in versus calories out.
