dont worry, your meals are well balanced and great. no matter where protein comes from, protein is protein just that complete proteins (found in meat for example) have more of the amino acids you and your muscles need. dont think you can stop eating grains and stuff like that, theyre just as important!
let me explain it to you like that: vitamins are found in every fruit and vegetable, some have A, some have C etc. all by their own are great but to have a complete supplement of all vitamins you need to eat various fruits and vegetables. same for protein
Nino:Rep for you for this thread
Well here is the best thing I can say whether a food is good or bad (Thanks to MedX):
Back to the original subject of this thread, we need to stop trying to classify foods as good or bad. It just isn't that simple. We need to look at them more as pieces of a puzzle. It's our job to look at the nutrients provided and piece them together with other foods to complete our nutritional picture. Peanut butter offers a lot of useful nutrients, including some mono and polyunsaturated fats.
Taking that into account you have to look at the bigger picture of your diet, if you single one thing out like 'is beans a good meal?' well like a doctor I need to know what other symptoms you have to make a decision.
correct me if im wrong but you need complete proteins or else u wont gain much if any muscle at allYou do not need protein, it's the amino acids in the protein you need. So that said protein sources all have a certain types of amino acids and various amounts. Animal protein has all essential amino acids in a a balence so you really don't need any food to supplement the deficiencies.
Look at plant sources they lack/are deficient in certain amino acids: Rice & Corn are deficient in tryptophan, so you eat foods with rice like beans or nuts to make up the lack of tryptophan. Cereals (like the type of plants) are deficient in lysine, which legumes are full of lysine so those are good to pair together.
This brings me into the next thing I'll discuss.
well food is not a source of protein only. there are a lot of different other things you need to stay healthy and to live....
its all about balance
Those two things are the summary, if a food has tons of protein does it make your diet healthy? Probably not, because there are more important things to focus on than just protein, protein, protein. I do not think of things as "good or bad" but actually "functional" or "dysfunctional".
Example: Is a Banana good or bad?
From this type of thinking we would say something like this: Yes, a banana is good because it's natural, has minerals like potassium and fairly low calories. It also has natural sugars good for energy.
You should think of things as a function;
Is a banana functional or dysfunctional? Well all depends on how you are using it. If you came back from a good workout and run, chances are you need sugars to replace glycogen so a banana is functional at this point.
If you are about to fly on an airplane and you had the choice between a few bananas or handful walnuts, bananas aren't functional at this point because you'll get the energy spike sitting in your seat then get tired, but the walnuts are functional.
What if you just ran and again the choice of walnuts v. banana? Walnuts are dysfunctional because they don't serve the purpose of refilling glycogen.
But I'll say I am talking in terms of optimal because at times we do buy a banana at the airport because frankly everything else in the store is candy & soda or the McDonalds next door, doesn't mean your screwing yourself over but it is better than not eating when you have a long, long flight.
