complete vegan proteins

One of my favorite flavor combinations is chocolate and peanut butter. Since I don't eat Reese's peanut butter cups anymore, I have to get my fix from other treats. Fortunately, peanut butter is a good vegan protein source. So with this recipe, I can have my flavors and get my protein too! (Feel free to substitute out the chocolate chips for nuts or dried fruit if chocolate's not your thing).

Recently I wrote about vegan protein and getting enough of each amino acid. If you haven't seen that post, you can find it here. Adding complete proteins to our diets can help us avoid amino acid deficiencies. While there aren't a lot of vegan foods that are naturally complete proteins, we can make our own complete proteins by combining protein from different sources. This recipe does exactly that.

Everyone talks about how much protein vegans are getting.... but I rarely hear anyone discussing what kind of proteins vegans should be eating. And no, not all protein is the same!

Yes, protein is used to build muscle. But our body uses proteins for so much more than that. For example, our bodies produce the protein keratin for our hair, skin, and nails. Our skin also uses the proteins collagen and elastin, which you may know are responsible for giving our skin its elasticity and fullness.

Proteins are also used in our organs and bones. They help us see, they produce hormones, and assist with replicating our DNA. Antibodies are a type of protein—these proteins are critical for our immune response to outside invaders that shouldn't be in our bodies, like viruses and bacteria.