I don't eat meat at all but I get plenty of protein. I love beans though. I'd definitely try ways to sneak it in.

I make a promasil protein shake a lot - it's a scoop of chocolate flavored protein w/ a cup of skim milk and some ice and it tastes AWESOME - seriously, not as good as a chocolate shake of course, but pretty freaking good & it's loaded w/ protein and low fat/cal!

Just wanted to add some of my favorites;

- Chicken: I also cook it up in batches and put it in the fridge to use for the next few days.
- Pre-cooked chicken: You can buy it at ANY grocery store already cooked!
- Tuna: comes in pouches that don't even need to be drained (they make canned chicken too)
- Greek Yogurt
- Cottage Cheese
- Whole eggs
- Egg whites
- Protein powders
- Nuts (though I would consider them a fat source moreso than a protein source but they do have a bit of protein)
- Beans
- Low fat cheeses
- Fish: Can buy it pre-cooked and frozen if it's more convenient for you
- Milk
- Soybeans (edamame)
- Tofu

Getting protein is super easy!

I'll just ditto what everyone else has said - but for quick and easy protein, it doesn't get much easier than opening a can or pouch of tuna. And I cook an oven full of chicken at a time. Take out the bones and skin and freeze in single serving baggies that is then is available in about 1 minute for chef salads.

Keep working at finding what works for you. It will fall into place.

Lin

As for protein shakes, what's the best kind? My doctor told me to avoid soy, and I have some hemp protein shakes, but they taste HORRIBLE. Is there anything tasteless?

What hemp ones do you have? The ones I have are a mix of hemp, brown rice and pea protein. I guess I have odd tastes but I like them. I eat soy foods but soy protein shakes are soy isolate which I'm not a fan of and I,m not a fan of whey protein shakes either for a similar reason. I generally say check your local health food store, they may even allow you to return them if you don't like.

I have the Nutiva hemp shakes. They're awful, I don't think I've tasted anything worse.

I use a lot of protein as that is how I feel my best (it also burns more calories in digestion than carbs and fats so it aids my weight management). I do protein shakes and also just wanted to mention re lowfat cottage cheese that it is very versatile, great instead of mayo for tuna salad and other cold dishes, and really great as a smoothie base with fruit or anything, which makes kind of a cheesecake shake.

There are a number of specialized snackie type products around that give a hit of protein in a low glycemic, usually gluten free, product while making you feel you are eating chips.

Also you can bake things like brownies and muffins or whatever and add protein powder or beans or cottage cheese or eggs (for ease, I sometimes use frozen or refrigerated egg product instead of fresh eggs).

Most of my favorites have been mentioned. I keep whey protein around for protein shakes, and I love greek yogurt. I also use tvp (textured vegetable protein, also called tsp, textured soy protein - looks like grape nuts cereal or beige aquarium gravel).

To use tvp you just have to reconstitute it with roughly equal parts hot water or broth. It's also easy to add to other foods. For example I brown a huge batch of not-so-lean ground beef with onion, celery, and garlic and throw in about 1 to 2 cups of tvp per pound of ground beef. I don't add any water until the ground beef has lost it's pinkness. This way, the tvp soaks up the meat juices (yes a little fat, but the tvp has no fat, so I still end up with a low-fat mixture. If the beef is quite fatty, I'll brown the ground beef first, drain off the fat and then add the dry tvp). I then freeze the mixture in ziploc bags and "moosh around" the bag every 20 to 30 minutes so that it freezes in "crumbles" and I can just scoop out what I need to make spaghetti sauce, taco meat, sloppy joes, casserole ingredients, loose meat for sandwhiches...

Some people say that too much soy can cause problems, but that a serving or two per day usually isn't a problem unless you have hormone issues like hypothyroid. I do have a borderline low thyroid, so I don't eat soy every day, but do have about three to five servings a week in the form of tvp and edamame, and once in a while a soy-based protein bar.

I don't eat a lot of starchy veggies and grains (no more than 4 servings a day on my higher protein, lower carb exchange plan), but I try to make them higher protein choices like quinoa, wild rice, oats, amaranth, millet, and teff.

My huband makes a really good grain mix he calls his "pilaf" from brown rice and a mixture of assorted grains. He cooks it all together in a big pot with twice the liquid (broth or water) usually called for in grain cooking and lets them all simmer until tender. Then he drains off any extra water (because some of the grains are tiny, he uses a fine mesh strainer, not a collander).

That may seem like a lot of cooking, but by making a huge batch on a Saturday, we can get weeks worth of servings (because this too can be frozen like the beef/tvp mixture, you just have to be more careful if you want to try to freeze it in a scoopable form. Instead of mushing it around in a freezer bag you store the mixture in tupperware or freezer bags very loosely only about 1/2 full and then shake the container rather than "moosh".

I know you don't like beans and lentils. I didn't either (except for my grandmother's bean and pork hock soup, chili and my mother's baked bean recipe that contained cooked ground beef) until I experimented with them and found some really good recipes. You might find that you like them too, served in different ways than you're used to.

For example, I love lentils cooked with ground beef and onion (or the tvp/beef mix) and cooked in spaghetti sauce, and poured over pasta - unless I use lots of lentils then I eat it just like stew). The lentils stretch the ground beef. They also make a nice sloppy joe with the ground beef or ground beef/tvp.

I do tend to still tend to prefer beans and lentils when they're cooked with meat rather than when they replace meat (although I do love Indian dal - a vegetarian yello split-pea soup).

Another kind of weird way I like beans, is mixed into a tuna salad. They're pretty good mixed into a traditional tuna salad (with light mayo), but they're even better in a salad made of canned albacore tuna, sliced sweet vidalia onion, and a good italian dressing with a shaving of asiago cheese.

Hmm, I'm getting hungry. Think I'll go see if we have the makings for the tuna salad.

Hope some of my ideas help.

You mentioned a need for fiber in addition to protein, so I'll throw one more suggestion out there: Quest protein bars (http://www.questproteinbar.com/). Someone mentioned them in a thread on here recently, and I tried them and think they're quite good (especially microwaved for 15 seconds ). Most are 170 calories with 20g protein and 17g fiber, and they're an easy way to get more protein in when you need something to grab that doesn't require any work. As far as I know you can only order them online, but you can order single bars in any flavor to try and the shipping isn't outrageous. If you google "Quest protein bar reviews" you'll find some independent reviews out there on them.