Is my vegetarian daughter getting enough protein?

Q. My daughter has just become a vegetarian, and no longer eats meat, poultry or fish. She is still growing. How I can I make sure she gets enough protein?

A. The proportion of girls choosing a vegetarian diet rises to around 10% of girls in the 15 to 18 age group so you are not alone in asking this important question.

Your daughter’s whole diet and nutrition intake will influence her current and future health. There is a growing body of evidence for links between nutrition and academic and sporting performance, and between nutrition and behaviour and mood. So it is important that she learns about healthy vegetarian choices, so she is able to obtain adequate protein and other essential nutrients in her diet as an adult.

You mentioned that your daughter needs protein for growth, but she also needs it for just about every process in her body. Proteins are needed for muscle contraction, immune protection, and the transmission of nerve impulses. They also provide structure for skin and bone.

Protein from the diet is broken down in the body into amino acids. The body must obtain a full spectrum of these and fortunately vegetarian diets can easily provide this. While milk, cheese and eggs provide the full range of amino acids, many plant sources of protein, such as pulses and grains, do not individually provide the full range. Combining these plant proteins leads to a full spectrum protein. Therefore your daughter needs to eat a good variety of foods containing protein. Soya, quinoa and hemp seeds each provide the full spectrum of amino acids, so are high quality proteins on their own.

You should try to help your daughter obtain the following in her diet: a variety of nuts (walnuts, brazil nuts, almonds, pine nuts, cashews), and seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame seeds and linseeds); a variety of pulses, known as legumes (chickpeas, lentils & split peas, kidney beans, black-eyed beans, butter beans, pinto beans, cannelli beans, haricot beans, soya beans and soya products such as tofu); a variety of grain products (wheat, rye, barley, quinoa); eggs; dairy products such as cow’s milk products: yoghurt, cheese: hard & soft; goat’s & ewe’s milk products such as feta cheese. Do note though that cheese, while a very good source of protein, can also provide high levels of saturated fats if eaten in large quantities.

You may find that initially, as you get used to cooking without meat, poutry or fish, cooking is a bit time-consuming. You should not however be tempted to rely too much on processed meat-replacement items. Meat substitutes such as vege-mince and Quorn are often over-used as protein sources. These are very highly processed products, and the details of the manufacturing processes reveal how far the finished product is from the raw ingredients. Thus meals should generally be prepared from scratch – which is of course healthier anyway. A well planned vegetarian diet is very healthy, it’s worth encouraging other members of the family to have “veggie days”. In fact some argue that vegetarianism is good for the planet – a “green” choice!

Griselda Halling
Independent Nutrition
www.independentnutrition.co.uk

References:
Crawley H (2005) Eating Well At School: Nutritional and Practical Guidelines. UK: Caroline Walker Trust
The Food Standards Agency www.food.gov.uk
Food Standards Agency (2002) McCance and Widdowson’s ‘The Composition of Foods’, Sixth summary edition. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.
Gregory J, Lowe S, Bates C, Prentice A et al (2000) National Diet & Nutrition Survey: Young people aged 4-18 years. London: The Stationary Office
Mann J & Truswell A (Eds.) (2002) Essentials of Human Nutrition (2nd edn.) Oxford:Oxford University Press
The Vegetarian Society. www.vegsoc.org
Zimmermann M (2000) Burgerstein’s Handbook of Nutrition. Stuttgart: Thieme