Easy and Healthy Protein Source?

[Naer]

tofu

 

[SP33Demon]

I will say this thread has inspired me to try and give microwaved meat another try. I have an inverter microwave that doesn't completely super nuke everything, and in the last couple of days I have learned it can heat up frozen cooked pork or cooked ground meat fairly well. I might just try to cook a ton of meat on the weekends, freeze it, and then heat it up via the inverter function every night.

Gross, dude. Unevenly heated meat is just nasty, if you have a thick cut no way a microwave will evenly heat it. Get yourself an Instant Pot and pressure steam for 5 minutes instead. Always comes out juicy and evenly heated.

 

[KIAman]

I'm a lazy eater like you. I find the best convenient/value/time efficient method is to consume a protein shake for breakfast and a protein shake at night. This alone gives me 114g of protein per day by itself.

I adjust the remainder of my macros for lunch and dinner. I use myfitnesspal to track calories and macros.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Lately I've taken to mixing greek yogurt with equal parts low fat cottage cheese a couple of times a day. It makes the greek yogurt edible to me and it's around 25 grams of protein for 1/2 cup of each. Half a tablespoon of honey takes it from edible to quite tasty, but then you're upping the carbs a bit too.

 

[LetsDoWellness]

dont be so afraid of carbs as long as you're eating the right kind of carbs

As for protein sources try nuts, quinoa, soy products, peas, beans, chickpeas, etc.

 

[pete6032]

Chickpeas and beans. Lots of casseroles you can make meatless and use chickpeas or beans instead of meat.

Also, plain unflavored Greek yogurt with a scoop of vanilla protein powder mixed in is really tasty.

 

[Muse]

OK, Poofyhairguy, I read your OP, and being a human being with the same DNA for the most part I can, of course, relate and have some ideas right off the bat.

Firstly, your jerky idea isn't as bad as you think. I was in Costco around 3 months ago and one of their many jerky offerings looked really good to me. It was Krave brand, cherry flavored, was cheap at IIRC ~$10/lb., had no nitrite/nitrate/preservative on the ingredients list. I bought a bunch, around 5-6. Turns out I love the stuff. After opening a package, I keep it in the fridge.

Secondly, I've been in the habit for some time of taking a cheap cut of the leanest beef I see at Costco or Safeway, usually top round steak, cut it into 1 lb. amounts and freeze in plastic bags. When wanted, I let one of these defrost in the refrigerator, then cut into cubes maybe a little smaller than 1 square inch, put in a covered saucepan with a little water, add a tablespoon, maybe a bit more, of New Mexico chili powder and simmer for about an hour, being careful not to let it dry out and burn. I like it when 90% of the moisture has come off as steam. By this time it is really tender and delicious. I let this cool some and store in a container in the refrigerator. I find that this keeps far longer than 2 days. In fact it has been keeping for me well over a week, longer than I'm apt to keep it around, even two weeks. IMO, heating this in the microwave with other burrito fixings does NOT ruin it. I throw some of this into a quick pasta sauce (with my home canned Italian sauce) for a great quick meal, too.

Thirdly, I drink a LOT of milk, specifically NONFAT milk, and I invariably make it from a cheap source: 4 lb. box at Walmart for $14.98, free shipping in orders at least $50. I ordered 3 boxes of this a couple days ago along with 1/2 dozen T shirts. Should be on my porch in a day or two. I weigh out ~1.63 oz of this on my kitchen scale, pour with funnel into a 16 oz. plastic bottle (from juice, originally), fill with water, shake, keep in the refrigerator. As long as you go through it reasonably quickly, it does not spoil. It's a very cheap nonfat source of fairly low carb complete protein and I like it in my coffee, add to cereal, cooking, whatever. Others will say they prefer other sources of milk to mine, but I'm used to it and love it! It's said that NFDM tastes better if let sit a while before drinking. That may or may not be a wives tale. Anyway, I like it, have consumed massive amounts of it over many years, always have it on hand.

 

[Muse]

Yogurt

I can and do sometimes make my own yogurt from aforementioned NFDM. Just inoculate with some yogurt, put in my oven (where it's about 85 F due to the pilot flame), and let sit until yogged, generally less than a day. Presto chango, DIY yogurt, refrigerate.

I do the same thing with kefir. I bought kefir starter in quantity online. In my experience the stuff keeps for years and years in the small unopened packets. If you keep your culture alive you don't even have to use an unopened packet. What I do is make a quart in a clean quart glass bottle and refrigerate. As long as you use it within a few weeks, it does not go bad. When this bottle gets down to about 1/4 cup, I simply pour ~4.3 oz NFDM powder in the bottle, fill with water, shake, put in microwave for 1/2 minute to get it around 80-90 F, place in that ~85 F oven, and in less than 24 hours it's turned to fresh kefir! Refrigerate. I like this on my waffles along with fresh fruit, in smoothies. Kefir is legendary for health. Helps your digestion. Expensive in health food stores, if you make it as I do it's hell of cheap. And, of course, it's a great source of protein. No preservatives.

Speaking of cheap sources of good healthy protein, have you heard of tempeh? It's a major source of protein in some parts of the world (especially Indonesia), in particular that made with soybeans. Soybean tempeh is very cheap, a high protein, very healthy source and is said to be the only vegetarian source of B12 vitamin. I used to make this myself. I started with nothing but one piece of tempeh (from a health food store) from which I made starter. Once I had that I was on my way. You can make more starter and from that, unlimited batches of tempeh (again, incubation in ~85 F compartment), which once ready, you keep refrigerated. However, it's best eaten within a couple of days, in my experience. I have a copy of The Book of Tempeh, which includes a section telling you how to do all this stuff.

I've been looking into making my own jerky but don't have time for that right now (launching a side business atm).

My cousin showed me how they do that, teriyaki jerky. They are big Costco customers, don't know why they don't just buy it there. Like I say, I found jerky there without additives that I really like and it wasn't expensive.

 

[Muse]

Like a 5 year old I can't stand to really sit down and eat uncooked vegetables every day.

I try to eat a salad on most days made with fresh vegetables. I grab those big packs of organic romaine lettuce and prewashed baby spinach at Costco. I get their organic celery, too. Grabbed a 3# bag of frozen organic blueberries there the other day for ~$11! I always get their 10lb bags of organic carrots, they keep in the fridge for a couple of months, easy! Scrub one or two under running water with a stiff brush before eating/preparing.

I was eating salads half the year when my tomatoes were on the vine, but nowadays I just eat salads without tomatoes the rest of the year. I can whip up a salad in less than 10 minutes, easy. Besides the chopped lettuce(I have a salad spinner, an important kitchen accessory) and spinach, and chopped carrots, I add a cut-up fried egg (I had peeling HB eggs), raisins, a little feta cheese, roasted sunflower seeds, a little DIY 1000 Island dressing I keep in the fridge.