Five High-Calorie Plant-Based Food Items for Your Diet

Healthful Vitality | 08/21/2021 | By Lifestyle Contributor | Five High-Calorie Plant-Based Food Items for Your Diet

Certainly, including high-calorie plant-based food items in your diet can help you in different ways. It can assist you in losing weight, and if your goal is weight gain, these food items can aid you there. Here are five food items with high-calorie content you can include in your diet.

1. Quinoa for Versatility and Health

Available in different types ranging from white to yellow, quinoa is a food item rich in calories. When cooked, one cup of quinoa can offer you 220 calories. Quinoa also helps you gain iron, manganese, and magnesium required for enhancing your health.

By including quinoa in your diet, you can help yourself in reducing high cholesterol and blood pressure. With quinoa, you can prepare a variety of dishes ranging from soups to pasta. You can even pop it like popcorn and have it as a snack.

2. Nuts as a Must-Have High-Calorie Plant-based Food

Nuts are rich in protein and high in calories. Even though they have high-calorie content, this doesn’t mean that they can lead to weight gain. Several studies show how nuts can help in your weight loss journey even when you are on a low-calorie diet.

Nuts can offer you nutrients, anti-oxidants, and minerals. When we look at the calorie content, 100 grams of almond has 622.5 kcal. A 100 grams of cashew nuts contain 584.5 kcal, and the same quantity of hazelnuts has 655.0 kcal.

However, you don’t need to have these many calories per day, and it would depend on the quantity in one serving.

3. Legumes for the Nutrients

Belonging to the Fabaceae family, legumes are dense in calories. They are an excellent addition to your high-calorie plant-based meals. Lentils, beans, peas, peanuts, fava beans, and cranberry beans are some of the legumes you can have in your diet.

For instance, one cup (151 grams) of bamboo shoots has 41 calories. When it comes to black beans, one serving has 41 calories, and one cup of green grams, which is 207 grams, has 718 calories. You can gain proteins, carbohydrates, and several micronutrients from legumes. You can include legumes in your diet as salads, baked food items, or stir-fries.

4. Sweet Potato as a Starchy Root Veggie

These starchy and tasty products are excellent additions as a high-calorie plant-based food item. You can get 86 calories from 100 grams of sweet potato. Besides that, sweet potato offers antioxidants, Vitamin C, lower your GI, improve your gut health.

With sweet potatoes, you can create several dishes, ranging from baked products to steamed ones. They include chips, toasts that you can top up with ingredients like avocado and mashed sweet potato. On another note, many confuse sweet potatoes with yams in many parts of North America. But, in reality, they are two different vegan food items.

5. Rice to Build Your Balanced Diet

Rice can act as an essential part of your balanced diet. There are different kinds of rice, including wild rice, jasmine rice, wild pecan rice, and brown rice. In general, it is best to include brown rice in your diet as part of your high-calorie plant-based meals. It is because brown rice is rich in fiber and unprocessed. These whole grains can improve your colon, bone, and muscle health.