Multi-ingredient vegan proteins

I’ll apologize if this is already a well-worn topic. But I’m sorting out in my head the idea of single-ingredient foods, a minimum of 200 grams of protein daily, and whether or not highly-processed soy products are a good idea. To prove how uninformed I am, I’m not sure whether or not a lot of soy is still considered a bad idea for men, in terms of hormones and stuff.

In terms of priorities how much should real single-ingredient unprocessed foods be weighed versus unnaturally higher-protein highly-processed, potentially man-boob-growing (again, sorry if I’m ill-informed), soy products. I looked at a variety of high-protein beans and grains but it looks like the calories necessary to get the protein would make losing weight pretty hard for me right now.

For the record I have no trouble eating tons of meat and eggs and milk, but my wife eats vegan and enjoys cooking and eating with me. So I can get around the protein requirements with whey powder I guess. Still I wouldn’t mind not spending extra time and cash on buying and cooking meat if soy and beans (I’m aware of the need to mix different protein sources, I’ve read other discussions here about leucine, etc., thanks) are just as good, and if the processing of it into tofurkey and textured vegetable protein is just fine.

Steve,

Recommending folks eat less-processed foods via trying to eat more “single ingredient” foods is a behavioral strategy I like to sometimes employ. I don’t think that multi-ingredient foods are bad per se’, though I do think they have a higher potential to be more palatable and energy dense than single ingredient foods.

It’s not a perfect heuristic and I’d consider most protein supplements to be a single ingredient food even though they’re not.

Soy is a fine source of protein and does not raise estrogen levels in any meaningful way. If you want to get most or all of your protein from vegetarian sources, that’s fine too.

-Jordan

Makes sense to me, thanks very much.