Being a vegetarian can be extremely healthy, as long as all the right nutrients are included in your diet including protein, iron, and essential fatty acids. Some vegetarians find it hard particularly when undertaking exercise routines to take in enough protein in their regular diet as protein is necessary for building muscle. Extra protein is needed when muscle building and exercising, and nutritionists recommend that you take in at least one gram of protein for every pound of body weight.
If you’re looking for a protein supplement and are a vegetarian, then whey protein may be a good option for you. Whey protein isn’t something new, it’s been available for hundreds of years, but during the last 20 years or so, the value of whey protein has become more widely known especially within sports nutrition. Today, products formulated from whey protein are easily available, and are offered for use by people who are on weight loss programs, for infant nutrition, and for a number of other reasons.
Whey protein is made from cow’s milk. It is suitable for vegetarians as it does not come from animal flesh. Obviously it’s always best to check the details on the product you are looking to purchase, but whey protein is a co-product of the cheese making process, and in most cases a microbial type of rennet is used in the manufacturing process rather than animal based rennet. This means that whey protein made in this way is acceptable for any type of vegetarian diet that allows dairy products including lacto-ovo, lacto, and ovo types of vegetarian.
You may wonder why you can’t just drink lots of milk instead, but it’s not quite that simple unfortunately. When you drink milk, although it is highly nutritious, it only contains about 1% of whey protein, and is quite high in fat which you may wish to avoid if you’re trying to lose weight and get fit. In order to get all the benefits of whey protein, you need to take a concentrated whey protein powder such as a whey protein isolate.
When we’re trying to build muscle, protein is necessary to the process, and whey protein is one of the purest forms of protein that you can take, and it doesn’t generally come with additional fat as part of the supplement. This means that as well as helping to build lean muscle mass, it can also help with weight management, muscle loss from aging, wound healing and improved physical performance.
