One of the biggest factors of not including meat in your diet, is being able to maintain your protein intake. This is especially difficult for those who depend on meat consumption to hit their recommended daily protein levels.

Protein is important for you simply because every cell in your body contains it. Protein is a “macronutrient”, which means that in order for the body to function appropriately, it needs a fairly large amount of protein. It impacts your weight loss and fitness goals, hair, nails, bones, skin, and blood. Your body uses protein to protect, build and repair muscle tissue so it greatly impacts your muscle strength. Protein also affects your hormones, enzymes, and amino acids. Without protein, your body won’t be able to break down your food, and you’d develop serious health issues because the cells in your body would constantly break down.

According to The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), the ideal protein amount someone should consume, is at minimum, 0.8 grams per one kilogram of body weight, or 0.36 grams per pound. All this depends on factors like your gender, weight, height, age and activity level. It is suggested that protein intake should consist of 10% – 35% of an adult’s total daily calorie amount. For women it’s about 46 grams, and for men its about 56 grams. To accurately calculate protein amounts specific for you, visit the US Department of Agriculture.

In an effort to become more vegetarian with an eventual goal to stop eating meat, I needed to know how I could make up my protein levels. Semi-vegetarians and pescatarians can still effectively obtain all their required protein through meats like fish and chicken, but for ovo-lacto (lacto-ovo) vegetarians and vegans, it can be much more challenging.

Here is an extensive list for those who do not want to eat meat (chicken and fish included), in order to reach their appropriate protein amount. Items like eggs and dairy products are included, even though eggs are arguably considered an animal life, and cows are treated horribly for the milk they produce.

It’s much easier to create meals high in protein than one may think. Combining these ingredients together can make delicious meals that will give you the necessary protein amounts you need. For example, oats and yogurt, kale smoothies, curries, eggs and cheese on wheat bread, almond milk, rice and beans, and much more.

Making the switch and not eating any meat products is difficult for an individual to do, particularly if items like beef, chicken, fish and other meats are all staple foods in a diet. But switching sides can improve your health, make physical appearance changes, give you more energy, leave you feeling better inside, and most importantly, save the lives of animals because every life matters.

As humans, we do not require meat from animals in order to survive. In fact, recent studies have shown that eating certain red meats in particular, is actually bad for us, and that vegetarians statistically live longer.