I need *vegan* lean protein options for breakfast...

[Vegreenmom]

Any ideas? I've been doing things like peanut butter in my oatmeal...but I really need something else. Problem is that I absolutely hate (and gag on) tofu and tempeh.

Help!

[tinyman5000]

wow you really set yourself up for failure

[US_Ranger]

Wow, you're kinda screwed. Have you tried hummus? What about pumpkin? You can make a good pumpkin curry (mash up the pumpkins) and then put it with brown rice.

[rotlex]

Grass fed beef?

[MEStrange]

Have you tried Seitan?

Here are two versions I found a while back.

Take some (wheat) flour - after all seitan is just gluten, so it's pretty much gotta be wheat. Mix the flour with a little water until you have a stretchy dough, like bread dough. Knead it around a little to help develop the gluten.
Wheat flour is basically just starch and gluten, and to get seitan, what you're going to do is... ready for this? RINSE the starch from the gluten. It's the strangest thing.

You take your ball of stretchy dough and... just... rinse it under the faucet (on low), or in a bowl of water, changed frequently (I do both, rinse under a dribble of water over a bowl in the sink). Keep stretching and kneading the doughy mess, so that the little bits of gluten will find each other and cling, and won't be washed away. This will also continuously bring starch to the surface of the ball, to be rinsed away. You'll see that the water coming off the dough is white and milky, and if this settles anywhere, like your bowl, or in the bottom of the sink, you'll see the starch grains settling out. It's wacky.

Gradually you'll start to notice a change. The mass of dough will become stretchier, kind of spongy, and a little sticky, even under the water. Keep rinsing until all the starch is gone and the water runs clear. Be patient, this takes a while.

When you're done, you'll need to cook your mass of seitan. It won't really slice until it's cooked. The cookbook recommended boiling it in vegetable broth, slicing it and storing it in the broth for snacking. I usually find that it's not quite done when I want to slice it -- so I slice it anyway, then boil it some more to make sure it's done, and well flavored. Like tofu, seitan is pretty flavorless unless you season it, but unlike most tofu, it's got a great chewy texture which is nice for meat eaters (or former meat eaters), and novel for those who do not crave meat.

I've since bought boxes of pure gluten, but have found that if you just mix it with water and knead, the lump of seitan is incredibly dense, and doesn't soak up flavor that well. I think kneading it underwater for a bit would help develop that porous texture that helps make it more spongy.

But a more tasty version is here:

Seitan and the Great Becoming
I decided boiling seitan was just wrong, so after a few tries I decided to make my own recipe for it (a composite of a few of others, actually, but tweaked to my liking... based mostly on a recipe from another website):


The Recipe O' Greatness:

Ingredients:
1.5 cups vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cumin
1-2 tsp pepper (I use 2 tsp)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (you can use 1/8 tsp if you like it less spicy)
1/8 tsp allspice
2 tsp garlic powder


3/4 cups water
4 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp tamari
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp vegetarian Worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 325?.

In a large mixing bowl mix dry ingredients. Mix the rest of the ingredients (liquid ingredients) in a smaller mixing bowl. Whisk well until mixed.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix well, then knead for a minute or two.. it doesn't need long.

Form into a log (6-8" long), wrap tightly in foil, twisting ends. Bake for 90 minutes. When done baking, unwrap and leave out to cool all the way. Then wrap it foil or plastic and refrigerate. Slice to use as desired.

Nutritional Info
The entire log has:
1134 calories
32g fat
63g carbs
158g protein

Hope that is some help for you.

[WannaBbig!]

What about beans, peas, lentils? They're very low in fat (especially lentils) and excellent sources of fibre.

You could try Hemp protein, i think there's a brand called 'Vega' in the USA.

[reefpicker]

Vegan options for BREAKFAST:


*Oatmeal with soymilk, and a bit of soy protein added to the milk: you can easily get this to be a 20g protein breakfast.

*Kashi soy graham cerals w/ soy milk: I usually eat 1.5x the serving, which means 1.5 x 13g protein = about 20g protein + soy milk = 25g protein.

*Soy Sausages: They taste great. Morning Star's sausages have usually about 10g protein per serving. Not sure if they are vegan (may have eggs).

*You can also try to add soy protein powder to things like corn grits, corn meal, corn bread , etc. I have tried whey protein but it didnt work well (I still need to play with the ingredients).

HTH

[Fallen_Horse]

There are VERY few vegan fake-meat breakfast products, so check the label.

Nuts, seitan, soy milk (if you can handle it, or add some sweetener to it), TVP (it's soy but you won't know), oatmeal, cereals, etc.

It's gonna be really tough without tofu man...

[Charuto222]

You could try Hemp protein, i think there's a brand called 'Vega' in the USA.

I've heard of the benefits of hemp, but I would try Gemma first, especially if $$ is an issue. I'm going to order some Gemma myself, as the low price, high concentration of lysine, and high protein concentration per serving all looks very appealing to me.

[Vegreenmom]

Grass fed beef?

LOL that's definitely not vegan


As for everyone else thanks SO much for the suggestions! I know I don't have as many options sans tofu and tempeh, but the few times I've eaten those things I've either not even been able to swallow them (I'm talking about even eating them in nice restaurants so you KNOW they are cooked well), or if I can swallow them they don't agree with my stomach whatsoever.

Thanks again, great ideas

[rotlex]

LOL that's definitely not vegan

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[The Solution]

Nuts
Milk
Whey
Beans
Lentils

those would be my chioces even tho nuts are mostly a fat source same with peanut butter.. u really cant count PB as a pro source for ur oats

dump a scoop of whey on top of ur oats 2 after they are done cooking and add ur PB its a sensation

[MUFC]

make sure you add some grains if you do eat beans/lentils so you can complete the protein

[Dm84]

Nuts
Milk
Whey
Beans
Lentils

those would be my chioces even tho nuts are mostly a fat source same with peanut butter.. u really cant count PB as a pro source for ur oats

dump a scoop of whey on top of ur oats 2 after they are done cooking and add ur PB its a sensation

Milk and whey are NOT vegan. lol

[Spewn]

LOL that's definitely not vegan

The beef might have disagreed, prior to it being on the shelf at the grocery store etc. After-all, an all-grass diet is a vegan diet right?

[jdominic6]

make sure you add some grains if you do eat beans/lentils so you can complete the protein

not true, as I recently just learned

[Vegreenmom]

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Yea i figured someone would say something similar haha

not true, as I recently just learned

Correct! As long as enough amino acids are eaten throughout the day there is no need to combine foods. It's actually possible to get ALL the amino acids from just one food source, you'd just have to eat a ton of it to do that. For instance you could actually eat just potatoes all day long (LOTS of potatoes) and get the right combination of amino acids. However, you probably wouldn't get enough calories and that diet would SUCK. Typically I mix different kinds of complete proteins in a meal, but only because I like the foods together not because I have to

(just to add it, here are a few links about food combining:
http://www.all-creatures.org/mfz/myt...ein-craze.html
http://www.veggiechic.com/more-on-th...ein-combining/
http://www.fatfree.com/FAQ/protein-myths )