Vegan Sports Breakfast - No Eggs!

To begin with, let's figure out with whom, who is a vegan. They position themselves as strict vegetarians, excluding all animal products from their diet, including meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products. Vegans do not use animal fur and skin, silk, and oppose the killing of animals for the sake of experiments and entertainment.

The vegan food culture is quite complex and it takes a lot of imagination to come up with vegan brekfast ideas.

A vegan sports breakfast can be a rich source of essential amino acids.

Making a vegan sports breakfast with whole grain breads, soy foods, mushrooms and peanut butter provides you with enough protein you need.

How to replace eggs for a sports breakfast

From the point of view of the layman, a vegan sports breakfast is either a myth akin to the ambrosia of the Olympic gods, or a euphemism for something slightly edible and certainly not nutritious.

Meanwhile, the first successful experiments on the preparation of a strictly plant-based and at the same time physiologically complete sports diet were carried out at least 50 years ago in Britain.

Since then, nutraceuticals have progressed far ahead. Theorists have created, and practitioners have tested dozens of options for morning meals that give the athlete's body a full range of amino acids, a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, healthy fats, as well as vitamins and minerals.

In the mass consciousness, however, the image of a bodybuilder having a dozen egg whites omelette for breakfast is persistently cultivated; an athlete laying a spoonful of caviar on a half of an egg; a sumo wrestler chopping tough eggs into a bowl of noodles. Yes, and in the traditional cuisine of many nations, it is customary to serve eggs in the morning - in the form of oriental shakshuka, French poached on croutons, English scrambled eggs and bacon.

How tradition arises

There are at least six reasons for the popularity of eggs as the main component of breakfast.

• The first is the speed of preparation of egg dishes.
• The second is the ease of digestion of cooked eggs.
• The third is the balance of the amino acid composition of chicken egg proteins.
• The fourth is the presence of fat in the yolk, which is also necessary for the complete assimilation of amino acids.
• Fifth - vitamins, micro- and macroelements contained in eggs.
• Sixth - the wide availability of chicken and quail eggs.

Replacing eggs with protein products of plant origin allows the athlete to get the required amount of amino acids. However, one should take into account both the relative complexity of assimilation and the incompleteness of the amino acid composition of plant proteins ...

Important calculations

100 g of egg mass, freed from the shell, contains 12.5 g of proteins. This amount of pure protein is found in two C-1 eggs. The digestibility coefficient of the egg white amino acid complex is 0.95. Thus, from each egg of an average price category, a person receives about 6 g of a complete set of amino acids. Three eggs for breakfast provide only 18 grams of protein.

A well-crafted vegan sports breakfast recipe provides the body with the right amount of essential amino acids. Therefore, the selection of products should be carried out so that the inferiority of plant proteins is compensated by a variety of ingredients, and their incomplete digestibility is covered by the volume of the portion eaten.

If you are not involved in high-performance sports and do not participate in setting world records, you will not need a particularly accurate calculation of grams, percentages and the resulting effect. Eating a bowl of buckwheat with lentil gravy is enough to replace 18 g of egg white. Dessert made from assorted nuts, washed down with soy milk, is guaranteed to fill the protein deficiency!

Compatibility and digestibility

It is known, for example, that gluten (a protein of cereals) is low in valine. However, combining bulgur (durum wheat cereals) and lentils or soy products in one dish easily solves the problem. The tables of the percentage of essential amino acids in foods will help you navigate the composition of plant proteins.

When compiling a diet, it is necessary to take into account the relatively low digestibility of vegetable proteins. If legume proteins are absorbed by an average of 70% (peas by 60%, beans by 75%, soy isolate by 91%), then the body is able to extract from gluten (wheat protein) from 25 to 42% of the amino acids it contains.

A proven way to increase the digestibility of plant proteins is to stimulate the production of digestive juices with spices. A mixture of kurukuma and black pepper goes well with boiled peas. Beans and other legumes become more nutritious in the presence of tomato and red pepper. Soy meat cooked in vegetable broth stimulates the appetite with both its appearance and aroma.

Special attention is paid to mushrooms

Mushrooms, as an important source of vegetable protein, require deep culinary processing. Fresh champignons used to make a salad will give a person only a small part of the proteins they contain. The human digestive system is practically powerless over cellulose, which forms the cell walls of fungi! But if you dry the mushrooms, grind them into a fine powder and add them to meals in this form, the digestibility of protein rises to 88%!

Mushrooms grown on a woody substrate are most nutritious in the initial phase of growth of fruit bodies. Large clusters of oyster mushrooms, all varieties of honey mushrooms, many Chinese-made mushrooms hardly part with the accumulated proteins even after drying and grinding into powder.

Is the future for algae?

Spirulina is an excellent source of a complex of essential amino acids. True, the concentration of three of them, namely methionine, lysine and cysteine, is somewhat reduced. The addition of tofu, sesame seeds, or pumpkin seeds to spirulina compensates for the amino acid imbalance.

An important advantage of spirulina is the presence of B vitamins and iron in it. The relatively high price and lack of established standards for the production of spirulina products make this source of complete plant protein less attractive.

Vegan Sports Breakfast Recipes

An endless variety of plant-based products allows you to prepare breakfast for athletes for all tastes!

Salad, sandwiches, tea

1. Salad with seasonal vegetables, boiled chickpeas, fresh root vegetables, sesame seeds, lemon juice and olive oil.
2. Toast with peanut butter. To prepare, take a toasted slice of whole wheat bread with peanut butter, sprinkle with fresh herbs and finely chopped sweet red onions.
3. Flower tea. In hot weather, tea can be seen with berry smoothies with spirulina powder.

Pancakes with almond milk with orange jelly and vegan sour cream

To prepare the dough, take a glass of semolino whole grain flour, a glass of almond milk, a little cinnamon, a few shavings of nutmeg, half a teaspoon of soda, two or three tablespoons of coconut oil. Bake in a preheated pan.

Orange jelly is made from evaporated juice and agar.

Porridge

Vegan porridge for breakfast is made from sprouted durum wheat, green buckwheat, whole-grain oatmeal in vegetable or mushroom broth. Served:

• with soy meat in a vegetable marinade;
• with linseed oil and nuts;
• with falafel or peas;
• with green beans and green peas;
• with mushroom sauce.

Oats go well with soy milk, banana, blueberries and nuts.

Avocado with peanut butter

Salt and pepper half of the avocado and fill with peanut butter. If desired, sprinkle with soy sauce or tabasco on a layer of ground peanuts. Green tea with a slice of vegan cheese will complement breakfast.

Assorted cabbage with beans

Broccoli and cauliflower inflorescences, Brussels sprouts, cut lengthwise, dip in salted vegan milk, roll in breadcrumbs, fry in peanut butter until browned. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, serve with red beans, stewed with onions and carrots in tomato sauce.

Lentil pate

Boil red or brown lentils until tender in salted water, put in a colander, place in a blender, add onions fried in Provencal oil, chop until smooth. Serve with crispbreads and any warm salad.

Bulgur with eggplant and peas

Cut the eggplants into longitudinal plates, salt and keep under pressure. Cut into cubes, fry in vegetable oil with onions and fresh milky peas. Add pre-boiled bulgur, a teaspoon of mushroom sauce, a small clove of garlic to the fried eggplants. Heat in a frying pan until the moisture evaporates.

Warm broccoli salad with carrots and peanut butter

Cut the carrots into thin cubes and fry in vegetable oil until half cooked. Turn off heat, add halved blanched broccoli to carrots. Mix. Having laid out the vegetables in a deep plate, add to them bell pepper, apple, young shredded cabbage or lettuce, a handful of pomegranate seeds and dill. Dilute thick peanut butter a little with boiling water, mix, pour over the salad.

Buckwheat cutlets with vegetable stew

Boil buckwheat, mix with chopped walnuts and grated potatoes. Add spices and salt, stir until sticky. Form small cutlets, fry in hot vegetable oil. Serve with a stew made from frozen vegetables.

Cauliflower with cashew nuts

Divide the cabbage into inflorescences, blanch in a little water. Soak cashews in fresh water. Let stand for 10-12 hours. Drain the water, rinse the nuts, place in a blender. Add some cabbage broth. Beat until sour cream consistency. Place the cabbage in a cooking dish, add salt, season with a mixture of turmeric and black pepper, pour in the nut mass. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

Stewed vegetables with wave

Rinse the mash, soak for several hours, boil until tender. Chop vegetables at random, place in a deep frying pan, cook over medium heat until moisture is completely or almost completely evaporated. Add salted and spiced mung bean to the ready-made vegetables, mix, close the lid, turn off the heat, leave for a quarter of an hour to mix the aromas and harmonize the taste.

Tofu omelet with mushrooms and spinach

Put the frozen spinach in a pan with chopped mushrooms and tomatoes, add olive oil, cook until most of the moisture has evaporated. Crumble tofu, put in a pan with mushrooms and vegetables. Stir occasionally and continue cooking until the tofu is noticeably softened. Salt and pepper the finished omelet, garnish with sesame seeds.

Vegan dumplings

Dumplings dough is made from flour and soy milk. For minced meat, boil lentils with mushrooms, drain the broth, grind in a blender with a small onion, a few cloves of garlic and butter. Cool the salted minced meat in the refrigerator. Further preparation of dumplings does not differ from the traditional one.

Remember when composing a vegan breakfast

As a vegan athlete composing a weekly menu, remember that your morning meal should account for 25-30% of your daily protein intake. Consuming vegetable protein evenly throughout the day helps the body absorb amino acids completely.