Vegans: How do you respond to the "Where do you get your protein?" question?

I give people the stink eye. And then I say I eat lots of beans and tofu.

Most people who ask me this are genuinely interested and genuinely simply don't know. So I simply answer patiently, sharing some basic nutritional information about how protein is basically in all food, how it is actually HARD to get protein deficient when eating a diet with variation and enough calories, and what vegetarian produce and products have especially high protein content. I may also explain something about how our body MAKES protein from the amino acids in our food.

Every time somebody asks me this I have an opportunity to bust the myth that it's hard to get enough protein as a vegetarian. Which is a good thing.

It all depends on why they are asking and if they are actually prepared to listen to the answer, it's amazing just how many people won't lol.

It can be anything from explaining how there is protein in all foods and how you don't need anywhere near as much of it as you think, to just saying something along the lines of "the same place that your food gets it from" (that also works for the equally as tired B12 question). And once I have done that I follow it up by asking where they get their fiber from, that soon shuts them up

I tell them "You need to do more research".

It's understandable that people are going to question vegetarianism/veganism, because it's not normal in Western cultures. People grew up on the idea of eating meat and that it contains protein, but they don't keep up with new studies that show there are proteins in many plant foods. We discover new things daily.

In fact, you do get plenty of proteins in beans, nuts, seeds, and tofu. Amino acids are in plant-based foods like quinoa and wheat grass. Wheat grass is also something you can grow right in your house easily.

I hate that question. In July I had to be taken to the hospital in the ambulance and they were asking a whole bunch of questions and one came up about my diet and I said," I don't eat meat." Now, let me just say that I was in excruciating pain and wasn't really up for swapping recipes but the ambulance attendant says,"You don't eat chicken?" "No," I said. "Then where do you get your protein?" I usually don't snap at people, especially people I don't know, but the combination of everything that was happening was just too much. I yelled,"It's in all whole foods goddammit!" After which he decided to try to tell me how to cook chick peas while trying to put an IV into my arm on a bumpy road. It was awful.

Ugh! People ask me this so many times huge pain in the A$$! The answer is FOOD. Like Soy!

"From food."

Dark leafy greens are high in protein.

The essential amino acids that form a "complete protein" are abundant in plant-based foods.

Hemp, wheatgrass, blue-green algae, amaranth, quinoa, natto... I don't expect them to know what any of these foods are, but they're all "complete sources" of protein.

"Beans, seeds, nuts, legumes, and about a thousand other foods.

Where do you get your B and K vitamins, fiber, and anti-oxidants?"

You could show them this cartoon. It always makes me smile, anyway.

I usually smack them in the face because they know the answer