This is totally not techy, but a thought I’d like to let out of my head.
So, a few years ago, we were discussing healthy food options in a class and this happened:
Me: Being vegetarian is something, but the human body needs protein and, well, meat has a lot of it.
Student: Broccoli has more protein than meat per calorie, your argument is invalid.
When that happened, I got really curious. So I thought of looking it up.
According to USDA, raw Broccoli has 2.82g of protein and 34 kcal per 100g, while a raw ground beef has somewhere between 17.44g and 247 kcal per 100g.
So, there’s 82.94mg per 1 kcal of protein in broccoli, while there’s 70.6mg per 1 kcal of protein in raw ground beef.
| Item | Protein (g) | Calorie (kcal) |
|---|---|---|
| Broccoli | 2.82g | 43 kcal |
| Ground Beef | 17.44g | 247 kcal |
Sure, the difference is ~12.34mg more protein per calorie in broccoli than raw ground beef. But that shouldn’t be the only factor to say “Broccoli has more protein per calorie than meat”. I mean, cooked ground beef has 15.29mg of protein per calorie than broccoli, not to mention steaks and cuts and different kind of meats, but I’ll stick to raw ground beef.
That being said, according to NHS (Mixing US and UK standards is weird, but they can’t be THAT different), the daily reference intakes for adults of protein is 50g.
So, you can get that by eating 286g of raw ground beef (708.14 kcals), or 1.773Kg of broccoli (602.83 kcals).
So, although broccoli has more protein per calorie than raw ground beef, do you know how much 1.773Kg of broccoli is?
Like, a US cup of broccoli is, like, 71g only! You’d have to consume nearly 25 US cups of broccoli! While 286g of ground beef is, like, a burger or something.
Nothing against broccoli, I know for a fact it has so many other benefits and all (And heck, I like it personally). But just because a fact is true doesn’t mean its useful or applicable.