Meat & Beans Group

The Meat and beans group proposes a wide variety of foods with high protein content. Whether you are vegetarian or not, you need to have a variety of foods from this group to maintain a balanced nutritional diet. There are many types of food to eat having different tastes.

Types of food make up this group?

Now we move to study the foods included in this group in the below segment:

Fish including crustaceans and mollusks.
Soya substitutes (Tofu).
Beans and pulses (chickpeas, lentils)
Meaty products including offal, liver and other organ meats.
All types of eggs
Nuts and seeds, including pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and in nuts, like, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts etc.

These foods are rich in protein, they are not just required for muscle building but also to build and repair entire body. Now as you can see that this group offers variety for vegetarians as well, so that they can fulfill their nutritional needs from beans and legumes.

Health Implications:

The amount of meats and protein foods required each day is dependent on the age and gender of the individual. Meats and protein foods contain high levels of protein, B vitamins, vitamin E, iron magnesium, zinc. The recommended daily intake for this food group is dependent on the age and life stage of the individual.

	AGE	PORTION
Children	2-3years 4-8 years	0.5 0.5
Girls	9-13 years 14-18 years	2 2
Boys	9-13 years 14-18 years	2 3
Women	19-30 years 31-50 years 50+ years	3-4 2 2
Men	19-30 years 31-50 years 50+ years	5 4 5
Pregnant and Lactating Women	19-30 years 31-50 years 50+ years	3-4 2 2

Importance of Consuming Meat and Beans Group:

The meat and beans group is good for the following reason:

Good source of dietary protein which provides essential amino acids, supposed as the building blocks of blood, bones, enzymes, hormones and skin.
Proteins have muscle building properties.
The foods from this group have many important nutrients essential for good health like, B vitamins, iron, magnesium, vitamin E, Zinc.

Recommendation:

Dietary protein should consist no more than 0.75g per kg body weight of total daily calorie intake. Women who are pregnant should add another 6gm of proteins and for lactating women, they should add another 6-12g of protein per day.