Teen + Protein

My beautiful teenage daughter has been digging in to some healthy exercise and eating habits lately. I am so proud of  her! A little bit of hot yoga, lots of miles on the treadmill and quite a few crunches. She is into it, so the natural next step is some good healthy eating habits. She has always been a major carb girl, which means fitting protein into her food wheel is a conscientious effort on her part. She is ready to take on. Not having the the taste buds for loads of steak and chicken she asked me about supplementing her diet with protein bars instead.

To clarify a bit about this vitally important food group, everybody needs protein.  It is the stuff that builds and repairs muscles, it makes hair and skin, fights infection and carries oxygen to the blood.   Proteins are made up of amino acids, about twenty of them which your own body produces. But  there are nine you can only get from the foods you eat. Can’t really live without a healthy daily dose of this basic food group.

For most teens between the ages of 15 and 19, 45 to 70 grams of protein are needed to sustain good health. The way to figure this out is to divide your teens weight by 2.2 to determine kg and then multiply by  1.1 to 1.3 gm/kg body weight. For example, an 18 year old girl who weighs 120 lbs would need between 60 to 70  grams of protein (120/2.2=55. 55kg x 1.1 to 1.3 grams of protein per kg = 60 to 71 grams of protein per day)

With this in mind I turned to my dietitian guru, Susan Dopart, www.susandopart.com, to weigh in on my daughters protein bar question. Susan is a real back to basics kind of nutritionist, she believes we should all be eating 100% real deal foods instead of the fake and fabricated kind. Products that contain ingredients that we cannot pronounce shouldn’t be on our list of foods to include in our daily diets. Especially not for growing and maturing teen bodies. She explained that most protein bars are full of fabricated foodstuffs. They have loads of ingredients I know I can’t say without stumbling through it. There are a few however that Susan finds acceptable, which included Lara Bars since it is only made of 2-3 ingredients. Her favorite flavors are Peanut Butter and Jelly and Carrot Cake. She also recommended Kind Bars with the Nut and Fruit bar having the best ingredients.

It’s also important to keep in mind that there has to be balance in the food you eat and too much of anything isn’t good for you, including protein. If your teen decides to dive into the protein bar world you/she will need to keep an eye on how much protein she’s consuming. The majority of protein bars contain between 25 to 35 grams of protein per serving which is about a daily serving, too much for just a snack or even one meal replacement.  If your kid is thinking that her body can store the protein for later, she’d be wrong. Instead the extra protein gets stored as fat. Which is exactly the opposite affect I’m sure she is hoping to accomplish with all that great gym time she’s just put in. Certainly true for my girl.  So unless your teen is in training for an Olympic event or is a serious athlete burning thousands of calories at one sport practice, protein bars are not the best option.  If your teen is like mine and not a fan of traditional protein sources try some healthy fruit and nut snack mix, nut butter sandwiches, cottage cheese on whole wheat english muffin or mixed with bowtie noodles. We sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon on the cheese and pasta mixture and it taste like a delicious noodle pudding. Nuts (watch the fat content though)  and cottage cheese are packed with protein. If she just must experiment with the protein bar, have her try half a portion following a workout session to help rebuild the exercised muscles.

Of course the best source of protein is meat, poultry and fish.

Below is a quick and easy ounce for ounce protein gram guide to follow.

Tuna (3 ounces)    22

Hamburger (3 ounces)   21

Chicken (3 ounces)   21

Shrimp (3 ounces)  18

Tempeh (½ cup)  15

Yogurt (1 cup)   11

Tofu (½ cup)   9

Lentils, cooked (½ cup)   9

Cow’s milk (1 cup)  8

Peanut butter (2 tbsp)   8

Kidney beans, cooked (½ cup)  8

Cheese (1 ounce)   7

Egg, cooked (3 ounces)   7

Soy milk (1 cup)  6

Hummus (1/3 cup)   6

Miso (2 tbsp)   4

Quinoa (½ cup)  4

Bulgur, kasha, oats, cooked (½ cup) 3