Five Baking Ingredients to Add More Protein to Your Diet
When most think of diets, what might come to mind most immediately is a general refusal to engage with carbohydrates that go straight from the stomach into the bloodstream. Still, eating fewer carbs is not enough. You must compound this effort by adding protein to your diet. Adding protein reduces hunger pangs and cravings because protein-rich foods keep you full for more time. Simply, they are that much more difficult for the body to break down. When you visit restaurants or the grocery store, you can certainly pick out the most protein-rich foods, but you can also purchase the very ingredients with which to prepare a protein-rich dish, so here are a few suggestions with regard to adding more protein-friendly ingredients to your next meal.
1. Healthy Chocolate Chips
Healthy chocolate chips do exist. More specifically, these are keto friendly chocolate chips with low carbohydrate content. The keto diet forces your body to tap into fat as if fat has swapped places with sugar, the human body’s typical source of energy. Whether you are doing keto or performing another low-carb diet, of which there are many, keto-friendly chocolate chips might make your dessert resonate a lot better with the rest of what you have been eating all day. Tone down your dessert’s sugar content with a nice dose of chocolate. If you have been dieting all week, this article suggests that you have earned a treat!
2. Join The Greek Yogurt Cult
If you have not had a spoonful of Greek yogurt, then once you do, you will never touch high-fat alternatives ever again. This is a guarantee. Instead of putting sour cream on your next baked potato, use Greek yogurt. It tastes as good as sour cream if not better and contains much more protein. This is not where Greek yogurt’s versatility begins and ends: Incorporate it into pancake batter for a fluffy breakfast that does not send you into a coma for the rest of your Saturday. Perhaps the most amazing thing about high-protein pancakes being too good to be true is that they are not too good to be true, and you can make them. You can even make alfredo sauce with Greek yogurt, if you are really looking for a genuine swiss-army knife of flavor. Incorporating Greek yogurt into your daily diet will make high-fat options seem like the substitutes.
3. Make Everything Out of Chickpeas
Chickpeas have informed the entirety of Mediterranean cuisine for one very obvious reason: They are amazing. You can do anything with them. Of course, falafel is wonderful, as is foul moudammas, whose variations are myriad across Africa, but chickpeas offer a potent substitute for more modern options. Enjoy chickpea pastas. Many vendors offer chickpea pastas in many shapes, so you need not settle for spaghetti exclusively. You can also make cookies from chickpeas, and those cookies will still offer sweetness along with a great texture. Where there is bread, there may as well be chickpeas. Variations of food that swap bread for chickpeas may not taste better than the real thing, but they will not taste worse, and they will not taste dry. Whether you are making dessert or serving up a plate of pasta, chickpeas can help you stick to your protein-rich diet.
4. The Plowman’s Lunch
Sandwiches are some of the most decadent foods in which human beings can indulge. One might be in order when you are done with your diet! Still, you might be able to enjoy a substitute by making a “plowman’s lunch” for yourself. A plowman’s lunch is a makeshift charcuterie board for one person. Put some salami and cheese on a plate. Give yourself some mustard, if you are feeling particularly decadent, and there you have it: a sandwich without the most unhealthy part. Literally, the only part of a sandwich that is bad for you is the bread due to its high amount of carbs! By removing the bread, the unhealthiest thing about your sandwich is the meat: The more processed a meat is, the more likely it is to be carcinogenic, but as long as you take the time to swap the Italian greats for fresh turkey and roast beef, you are generally in for a healthy lunch that keeps you from falling asleep at two o’clock.
5. Go Vegan
Going vegan means refusing to engage with animal products, including milk. Unless you enjoy something as dense as Greek yogurt, your dairy product probably contains more fat than it does protein, so going vegan might be as effective as it is ambitious. Employ those chickpeas more conservatively, and you may find that you enjoy such a diet. You might even hang onto it for the rest of your life, though you may want to stop eventually.