How Much Protein Should I Include in my Diet?

A healthy, active man requires something like 2500 calories per day, and women could do with 2000 calories more or less, depending on if she is exercising a lot or breastfeeding. The FDA recommends that between 10 – 15 percent of this daily diet should come from an intake of protein, the building block of our body, as it builds and conserves a lot of elements of the body. This amount of protein equals to approximately 55.5 grams per day for men and 45 grams per day for women.

The FDA’s Eat Well’ plate shows the ideally balanced diet one should take for a healthy body.

The ‘Eat Well’ plate is actually an illustration of a balanced diet, including most important food clusters and making sure that all dietary needs are fulfilled. It is separated into three equal portions, one-third portion composed of starchy foods, for instance rice, pasta and bread. The second portion comprises of vegetables and fruits and the third is separated into three additional categories.

These kinds that form the last portion are (i) products made from dairy sources, (ii) meat, kidney beans and eggs (iii) lastly high fat and sugar foods.

It is clear hence that for a diet to be healthy, a few of the main nutritional advantages meat supplies are not available in other foods, at least not in quantities that are practically possible to consume in a day. Vitamin B12, iron, zinc and some other nutrients can only be obtained from animals. This is the reason why it is significant for vegetarians to include a synthetic source of vitamin B12 in their diets.

There is no doubt that our body requires protein and meat is the only source that can provide us the correct amount of it. However, in order to get a more balanced and healthy diet one ought to be aware about how much meat one needs to consume and what kind is the best.

A major factor in keeping balanced diet covering all areas of nutrition is to eat meat but in moderate quantities. We know that too much of anything is harmful and so is true for meat. Huge quantities of meat may result in constipation, obesity, type 2 diabetes and a higher chance of getting heart diseases.

The standard quantity of meat suggested by Dietary Guidelines is five ounces per day. To make certain you get the necessary amount of protein without consuming any meat you can replace it for eggs, tofu, nuts or seeds but remember that the protein in these substitutes is little and you will have to eat a load of them to get the required amount which can sometimes become impractical. Men have usually a higher need for protein than women to protect their muscle mass. Children have to consume meat all through their growing age, that's why it's not suggested to keep them on a vegetarian diet only.

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