How Do I Get MORE Protein On A Raw Diet?

by Susan G.
(Sunny Florida)

Susan's Question:

Hi Andrew,

I use CRON-O-Meter's free website to keep track of my daily cals/fats/carbs, and I've just noticed that I'm falling way behind in the protein department.

What can I eat to remedy that? I do have a small amount of seeds (pumpkin and sunflower) in my daily salads, but aside from that (no meat!) what should I do?

Thanks!

Susan

Andrew's Answer:

Hi Susan.

First, understand how much protein we actually need by reading the protein section of this article.

When you're eating a healthy low fat raw food diet, you'll notice that the fruit which provides most of our calories is fairly low in protein, and if that is all we had to rely on, we might be in trouble.

Also, the raw nuts and seeds we eat are very high in calories because of their fat content, and if we tried to significantly increase our protein intake with them we would quickly find ourselves eating a high fat diet, and probably more calories than we'd want.

What's left? Greens, of course.

See if you can consume 6 percent of your calories from a variety of leafy green vegetables.

Fruits, nuts, and seeds will add to your protein intake, but its the greens that will really make the difference for you.

Fool around with cronometer for awhile and try adding in different combinations of fruits, greens, nuts, and seeds to see how you can hit your target.

Notice that if you add in a lot of low-protein fruits like dates, you'll need to add in more greens to compensate.

Eat up!

-Andrew