Cost by Protein Source

I want this chart, but add the third Z axis of "environmental cost" whether it be just CO2 emissions or a "total" impact score.

I imagine those legumes get even stronger, while the meats lose ranking.

51

Especially if water is factored into the equation. https://www.statista.com/chart/9483/how-thirsty-is-our-food/

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- this is such a great resource to understand why footprints are ridiculous metrics and how interconnected our industrial agriculture systems are.
  
  5
- why does cottonseed, which would otherwise go to waste, get counted against cattle, when that is a conservative of resources?
  
  3

I like this scatter plot. If you really want to get freaky with it, you should take into account the “protein digestibility-corrected amino acid scores.” Things like eggs and whey are 100%, beans are usually in the high 70’s, and peanuts are actually down at near 50%.

So for nutrition’s sake, not all protein sources are created equal, and it makes sense that if you are trying to get adequate protein at the lowest price, you also want to get sources where you can eat the least of it to satisfy the protein requirements of your body.

39

Curious where tofu would be at on this chart.

36

Probably somewhere around the legume cluster. They're really pulling their weight there, as expected, though peanuts are quite the dark horse.

22
Pricing and product availability is regional and variable, but some napkin math using my local Walmarts pricing puts it at:

5.33g protein per 100g food

$3.04 for 30g protein

That puts it in the green veggie cluster if I'm not getting the axes confused.
16
- the problem is there are a ton of varieties of tofu, and they're all generally around the same price. it seems the silken tofu have around 5g of protein, but some of the extra firm varieties have over 15g protein per 100 tofu, putting it in a much more respectable spot in the bottom middle with the grains and such
  
  20
- c/theydidthemath?
  
  Thanks so much, that's very helpful and actually a little disappointing.
  
  5
- Is that extra soft tofu? It usually has more protein than that. A pack of extra-soft I have is 8g / 100g, and some other varieties seem to be 10-15 from online sources.
  
  3
- Oh no, it's much better than that.
  
  Google suggests it's 8g per 100g, which on paper doesn't sound great but a package over here is around 2 bucks for 16oz, roughly 450g. Being conservative we could say 50 cents for 100g.
  
  8, 16, 24, 32 puts us a little under 2 bucks.
  
  That said, tofu is 5 servings of 70cal; the 100g isn't all calories. I'm guessing water? In any case, that eats into your cost effectiveness, putting it closer to the center than near the legumes where it really should be.
  
  Your mileage may vary though. Nuts are great, but peanuts only pull ahead because of how insanely cheap they can be. They're much fattier. Tofus great, though, if you prepare it as intended and not as some meat substitute like many Americans tend to do.
  
  1
I suspect it would be at the bottom right blue cluster with the legumes

1

Great post!

I wanted to add that this isn't quite how proteins work. Those protein-rich legumes aren't what you would call 'complete proteins.' There's a number of amino acids our bodies use as proteins and while legumes are a good source of many of them, there's a couple proteins you won't get enough of from just the beans. Fortunately, brown rice- while not as rich in protein- gives you the proteins that the beans are lacking. That's why beans and rice are a match made in heaven.

Herbivorous animals are just better at metabolising proteins from plants and of course they're capable of eating much more than us. That's why they're able to live off of grass.

This just stuff I read up on a few years ago so if I've gotten something wrong please say so

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It's extremely unlikely that anyone with an even vaguely normal diet isn't getting all the essential amino acids as those complementary to legumes are found not just in rice but in all grains and seeds. So it's not just rice, any kind of bread, pasta, oats, barley/spelt/etc. or nuts will do. And soy is pretty much a complete protein.

19
- Yours and other comments have been insightful and have made me reconsider some assumptions I did not realize I had made, so thank you.
  
  I'll concede that a sedentary person of normal weight doesn't need to worry much about getting all their essential amino acids. If I was interested in gaining muscle on a plant-based diet, would you say that I would still be wasting energy by stressing about eating all the proteins? Wouldn't that make my only issue getting the right amount of calories?
  
  I'll look for some literature when I have the time but if you have any off-hand knowledge you could share then I would appreciate it.
  
  2
- There is no real protein in most grains. This chart is misinformation.
  
  -13
The infos in your comment aren't wrong, but it's missing a crucial point: If you live in a developed country, you're likely eating 2-4 times as much protein as you actually need.

Even when a certain legume has only 70% as much content of a certain amino acid, if you eat double than what you need, you still reach 140%.

6
- I'm not sure what the implication of living in a developed country is. People can have vastly different diets in developed countries and people may have different protein needs. Just because you live in a developed country doesn't make you immune to malnutrition.
  
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- If you live in a developed country, you're likely eating 2-4 times as much protein as you actually need.
  
  Except if you are reducing animal products (not just if you are vegan). In many western cuisines, if you just reduce/avoid meat, egg and diary products, you probably will get too little of some of the amino acids, causing malnutrition. Therefore, this information is important.
  
  -1
See the following on the concept of complete proteins: https://youtu.be/psAlJtgeQsY

3
- Thanks for the link! Neat video, and I'll make a note to skim the sources for the video. Honestly I'm happy to be wrong on this as the issue of getting enough protein for gaining muscle has made me reconsider my diet a lot in the past.
  
  1

Explains how elephants are able to get so jacked without consistent income, they just poppin' them peanuts for days!

21

Peanut butter is the secret to success

11
Bro! My bicep is way bigger than any trunk so I could defeat an elephant in a boxing match, no prob! A gorilla, too because they only eat leafs. A bear could maybe pull off a draw because they eat them good fish proteins and have knives as fingers so I would need a knife too or my hunting bow.

0

Probably should also be noted that you're almost certainly eating more than plenty protein, no matter what you do.
As in, for medical reasons, when people have a dodgy liver, it's helpful to reduce protein intake to what they actually need, but with how much protein our usual diet contains, it's really difficult to get there.

Interesting podcast/video on the topic: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-should-i-eat-more-protein

20

Except if you do not (or rarely) eat meat, fish, egg and diary products, and do not adapt your diet. Why would you want to rarely eat that? For everyone's future: https://slrpnk.net/post/10599814

1
- Well, now it's gone full circle. The post you linked was created, because I had original commented that diagram elsewhere: https://slrpnk.net/post/10599814/9313177
  
  🙃
  
  1

This would be cool with ratio of protein to calories as well, in the same format.

20

Yeah protein vs calories would be way more useful than protein vs weight.

13

This may be helpful from a cost / gram of protein but its a bit misleading on the grams protein/ 100 g axis for beans - those are the dry bean numbers.

15

That seems reasonable, given they presumably use the price for dried beans as well. When you care about price (and therefore about about a price/protein graph) you buy beans dried.

12
- Using a smart pot (like the ninja foodie) makes preparing dried beans a piece of cake. I’ve been making pintos, white beans, and chickpeas (for hummus) on the regular now. Really brought my costs down, especially when buying beans out of the bulk section. Thank god for winco.
  
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- Unless you're trying to consider how to veggie up your protein for the gym and suddenly you have to eat twice as many beans as you thought.
  
  1

Comparing liquid to dry foods on the same chart is completely disingenuous. Also look at any label. Cows milk always has more protein than soy milk.

10

I don't see what you mean. The left axis is a measurement of cost per gram of protein. The bottom gives you a measurement of density. So anything lower on the chart is cheap for what you get and then the further right you go the smaller the portion required to consume to get that amount of protein.

4
How do liquids differ from dry foods in terms of protein stuff? (Waves hands vaguely).

I was mildly surprised that milk is way down in the bottom left quadrant.

2
- its mostly water
  
  7

This data seems way off - steak has 24-30g of protein per 100g, for example

9

Also according to this graph beef is $100/kg

1

It would be nice to see cholesterol counts on here as well. Good work though.

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Why? I thought dietary cholesterol had little to nothing to do with blood cholesterol levels? That’s what it seems to me like this source is saying, but I’m not an expert by any means.

Source

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- You’re correct. Saturated fat intake increases LDL (atherogenic kind, e.g. the “bad”) cholesterol, there’s even a nice formula for it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25286466/
  
  2

how legumes have more protein per weight than ground beef?

7

80% ground beef is 20% fat

10
- 80/20 ground beef has 17g of protein per 100g, lentils have 9g per 100g
  
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Most likely dried legumes vs uncooked meat that is full of water.

5

Sirloin steak needs to be added to this. It's not only cheaper than other steak but it's significantly higher in protein too at 27g per 100g.

7

What, no grubs?

3

Y axis should be reversed. Since 90% of graphs are trying to find the sweet spot, would y the lowest-cost, highest protein be in the upper right? Unless I'm reading this correctly it's the lower right, which is hardly /dataisbeautiful

Course I'm shit at math and could be wrong...

1

You might notice Pork Belly and Ribeye Steak belong way higher than the red dots representing them. In your proposition, I don't think there exists an elegant way to represent those data points.

2
- If you did grams per USD, then the Ribeye would be 0.06, Pork Belly 0.10. The next worst would have been 0.25, so I think it would clearly show the relatively poor cost per protein.
  
  Of course, I don't think anyone is deluding themselves to think that those foods are the ones to choose if you just want "some source of protein".
  
  1

I wish I could eat legumes

1

I got a bag of almonds for $11. 85 grams of protein. Holy fuck. Also delicious!

1

I basically live on turkey breast, only slightly more expensive than chicken breast, but more protein and almost no fat. Makes macros super easy.

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The problem is that a lot of those sources of protein aren't just protein. Take legumes; they all have a ton of carbs as well. Nuts? Loaded with fats. (Same with pork belly, TBH; that's a very fatty cut.) On the other hand, boneless, skinless chicken breast has a trivial amount of fat and carbs.

If you were plotting a 3-dimensional chart, factoring in proteins, cost, and other macronutrients, you would likely find that boneless, skinless chicken in general was the highest combination of both purity of protein, and price.

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