Summary
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Peanuts get recommended a lot as a budget friendly protein source, especially for vegetarians. By weight, peanuts do contain a meaningful amount of protein, around 25g per 100g. The problem is what else comes with that 100g.
Peanuts are roughly 50% fat by weight, which makes them very calorie dense, about 570 calories per 100g. When you look at protein per calorie, the metric that actually matters when you’re trying to hit a protein target without overshooting your calories, peanuts fall well behind foods like curd, paneer, soya chunks, or dal.
This doesn’t mean peanuts are bad. They’re a reasonable source of healthy fats and do contribute some protein. But treating a handful of peanuts as your protein for a meal, the way you might treat a bowl of dal or a couple of eggs, means you’re getting a lot of calories for a relatively small protein contribution.
If protein is the goal, peanuts work better as an addition to a protein source, not as the source itself.
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