Natural Sources of Protein to Help You Hit Your Protein Goals (without Supplements)

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I have written about the macros and supplements on my blog before, but I wanted to make sure I took the time to outline some great natural sources of our macros. As I mentioned in my blog about supplements, we should always try to achieve our macro targets using natural sources as they offer additional health benefits including vitamins, minerals, and the oh-so-important part of digestion know as chewing!

So here are my top natural sources of protein (and we do not discriminate between animal and plant sources here!)

Animal Sources

As someone who comes from nordic/scandinavian/germanic roots, eating high fat, high protein meat just works best for me. My skin doesn’t break out, my energy is amazing, my workouts at the gym feel great and I feel like my brain works better when I am eating a healthy amount of animal proteins. The key is to make sure I am eating a variety of animal protein sources, as each offers it’s own unique benefits.

Chicken/Poultry

Cut of Chicken	kCals	Protein Content	Other Info
Breast (boneless, skinless)	165	31g	30% of daily vitamin B6, which is important for brain health and metabolism. 5% of daily iron, which is important for women who are menstruating
Thigh	177	24g	25% of daily vitamin B6, and 6% of daily iron
Wing	288	26.64g	26.64g of protein, ~4g shy of your standard scoop of protein powder 7% of daily recommended iron
Bone-in, Skin on	184	27.39g	This has the highest fat content, at 7g/100g, but it is also the most flavourful

Kicking things off with ol’faithful. Chicken is a great lean protein, meaning it isn’t highly marbled – or high fat – source of protein. Lean protein is great for building muscle while keeping calories under control. As a reminder, protein offers 4kcals of energy for every gram of protein, while fat offers 9kcals of energy for every gram of fat. So the leaner the meat, the fewer calories you’ll be adding to your total calories-in equation.

The trade-off is flavour. Fat is what gives a lot of protein rich flavour. So when we eat chicken, we typically need to add seasoning and fat to the chicken to lock in and enhance the little flavour this lean protein has to offer.

If possible, I would recommend looking for ethically sourced chickens. Chickens from large, mass production farms are typically stressed for their whole lives and are fed low quality feed, which is meant to help them gain weight quickly so they can be processed faster. Think about you when you are stressed and aren’t eating well. You feel weak, typically you end up with an upset stomach, and the rest of your body isn’t functioning optimally. The same is true of these poor mass-produced chickens.

So support local if you can, or try our a delivery service like ButcherBox.ca, TruLocal, or Farm2Fork, who sources their proteins from local farmers and typically delivery is right to your doorstep.

Pro Tip: By using the Farm2Fork link, you’ll get $40 off your order! Or try TruLocal and get 25% off your first subscription.

Beef

Cut of Beef (100g)	kcal	G of Protein	Other Info
lean ground beef	269	25.5g	14% of daily iron
ground beef (70% lean, 30% fat)	332	14.3g	9% of daily iron and 30g fat
100g roast beef	267	25.9g	14% of daily iron. Also important to note that how you cook your roast beef, including sides and seasonings will contribute to protein, fat, and overall calories
Steak	251	27g	25% of daily vitamin B6, and 36% of cobalamin (B12), which is important for red blood cell development and brain cell development. If you want 8 free steaks, check out this offer from TruLocal.

Moving on to a controversial type of animal protein – beef, or red meat. I always like to recommend all things in moderation. You can see from the table above that steak offers some pretty significant amounts of protein, plus very important vitamins and minerals that help us ladies get through our menstrual cycles and keep our brains and blood vessels healthy.

Similarly to poultry, it is really important to check the source of your beef. Beef is one of the most mass-produced animals on our planet, which increases the likelihood of disease and has a major impact on our environment.

I’d recommend doing research into local farmers who follow the Joel Salatin method of farming. This cycles important livestock on the same area of farm-land, supporting natural feeding and resource recycling processes that help raise happy, healthy, and nutrient-rich livestock. You can learn more about this in the Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of my favourite books.

I was lucky enough to find a farmer through my mom who followed this method of farming, and it made me realize that you really don’t know the difference between happy cows and mass produced cows until you’ve eaten the beef from a happy cow (a bit morbid, but such is the circle of life). Plus the happier cow, the more those nutrients are able to accumulate, so the protein, vitamin, and mineral content mentioned above are likely in richer supply in the happier cows.

It really is crazy how we’ve altered the quality of our food – all for convenience. But I digress – moving on!

Pork

Cut of Pork (100g)	kcal	Protein (G)	Other Info
Pork loin	242	27g	25% B6, 13% vitamin D, known as a vitamin and a hormone and important in many processes and systems in the body
Pork Belly	518	9g	This delicious cut of pork boast 53g of fat. Again, the higher the fat content, the better the flavour. So if you’re going for taste, this is the cut. But if you’re looking for protein, best to opt for another option.
Pork chop	231	24g	25% vitamin B6 5% of magnesium, another important mineral for women’s health and an excellent mineral to help with sleep
Pulled Pork (with BBQ sauce)	168	14g	15g of sugar in this one, but I wanted to make sure I included this so you could compare against other forms of pork.

Another controversial animal protein, again due to it’s high fat content but also the farming practices used to raise and sell pork. I personally don’t eat or cook a lot of pork, but only because I haven’t quite figured out the right technique for cooking pork.

With that, I remember pork being a stable protein source when I was trying the keto diet. It is filling, and full of all kinds of nutrients. As I mentioned above, pork offers a notable amount of vitamin D, which is such an important vitamin it has been given hormone status! So there’s certainly benefits to including pork in your animal protein rotation.

The quantity of protein will vary on the cut of pork, but at it’s highest amount it is on part with lean chicken breast and most types of beef, so you won’t be losing our on any protein by switching to pork for a night.

Fish

Type of Fish (100g)	kcals	protein	other info
Salmon	146	21.6g	65% of vitamin D – a huge amount of such a vital nutrient. Despite fewer calories, and slightly less protein, the additional benefits are great with Salmon
Haddock	90	20g	this fish is low fat, and comes with ~7% of your daily potassium needs, which is an important nutrient for exercise recovery
Shrimp	119	23g	9% of daily magnesium. Important to note that magnesium is one of the nutrients that is deeply impacted by contraceptive pills, as the pills limit the absorption of magnesium.
Lobster	143	26g	8% of daily iron. Out of the various seafood you can eat, Lobster is one of the better sources of iron
Tuna	132	28g	50% of B6, and 36% of B12, this fish is a great addition to your diet if you are look for healthy blood vessels, healthy brain cells, and more protein for fewer calories than a piece of steak!

I am such a big fan of fish as a source of protein because I know how important the omega-fatty acids are to my health. Which seem counter-intuitive since we are talking about protein here, but if I can get protein benefits along with healthy fatty acids and crucial B vitamins, then I’m just being smart and efficient about my diet!

I have to be honest – I didn’t realize just how nutrient dense these different types of seafood were. I used to always eat salmon and shrimp because it was easy to cook and I knew it had some benefits. But after digging into the nutrient facts, I think I am going to look into adding more tuna to my diet.

As with all forms of animal protein, the source will always dictate the quality and therefore nutrient density of the fish. The fresher the fish, the better. ie. the less time it has spent between leaving the water and getting to your plate, the better. I have a great local grocery store that ships in salmon overnight and flash-freezes it, locking in the flavour and quality.

For salmon and tuna, you can ask the fish monger if it is sushi-quality. This means you could eat the fish raw like you would with sushi (not raw, but “raw” after a quick bath in some lime juice, salt and water). For things like sushi and lobster, you’ll want to see where the shrimp and lobster are coming from to understand the quality and try to find out where it was caught and how long ago it was packaged, or added to that creepy tank at the grocery store.

If you’ve gotten to this point – thank you! I am still working on this article, but do appreciate you being one of the first to read it! I’ll try to finish it as soon as possible so you can learn more about plant-based proteins.