Tuesday, June 5, 2018

What's the Hype About Pea Protein?

I've always loved green peas. To this day, for lunch, I'll grab a frozen bag and cook a cup of them to go with whatever. Back in my 20's single days, my go to meal was frozen peas and fish sticks. Some people might call that pathetic, but it was fast and fairly healthy. And though there are many amazing treats from a home garden, I've always considered freshly shelled peas to be one of the best.

These days Silicon Valley types are hoping to get rich off of what they dub impossible burgers and similar names, often using "pea protein". Since I've loved peas, and would no doubt prefer to eat them the way Nature intended, I've always wondered "What is pea protein?"

One commercially available bag of "pea protein blend" has a label that says "Made with sustainably sourced peas, sacha inchi, quinoa and hemp seeds". I was not surprised to see that it was more than peas for ingredients. (What is "sacha inchi"? According to Wikipedia... "Plukenetia volubilis, commonly known as sacha inchi, sacha peanut, mountain peanut, Inca nut or Inca-peanut, is a perennial plant with somewhat hairy leaves, in the Euphorbiaceae.")

The "pea powder" protein bags and cans that are readily available in health stores these days are intended for smoothies and cooking.

There are also black eyes peas and split peas in addition to whole peas.

The rest of this post offers a few info graphics related to this subject. The smoothie recipe at the bottom looks great, but I'd want to share it with someone since it has 500 calories.