5 Cheap High Protein Bodybuilding Foods You Won’t Eat
For all of you asking me about and looking for cheap high protein food sources: trust me, you won’t be caught eating these!
How Far Would You Go?
It’s been a hot and humid day here and after getting the “EC, tell me some cheap foods high in protein” question for the umpteenth time, I felt a little diabolic.
How important would building muscle be to you if you only had the below foods as a choice? All of them are high in protein and comparatively cheap – you just have to get them down.
5. Natto
Let’s start with an affordable protein source (31 g per cup!) that won’t cause any problems for vegetarians and vegans (beside having to eat it): Natto, rotten fermented soybeans that are a popular breakfast dish in Japan. Due to the strong smell and slimy texture many people say it’s an “acquired taste.” I believe that.
The slimier, the tastier.
4. Bamboo Worms
The bamboo borer (Omphisa fuscidentalis) is a moth living in the bamboo groves of Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and the Yunnan province of China. Its larvae are collected as food and despite coming with a whopping 26% protein content, queasy Westerners usually find them hard to swallow.
Fried bamboo worms.
3. Surströmming
Before you now go thinking that weird food is only found in Asia, let’s have a look at a fish specialty popular in Sweden, Surströmming:
Be happy that the internet doesn’t have smell-o-vision.
Looks harmless to any bodybuilder regularly eating canned tuna, doesn’t it? Well, this fish is deliberately allowed to rot and after being canned considered perfect for consumption once the cans start to bulge – you know, the point where you normally throw canned food away. Foreigners, much to the amusment of native Swedes, describe the smell and taste as breathtaking (when remaining conscious).
2. Balut
Now one of my pet peeves, bodybuilders and raw eggs. I frankly can’t decide if this should have come first or second on my personal disgusting scale, but if you think you are tough because you drink raw eggs, how about a “balut”? It’s a developing duck embryo boiled and eaten in the shell and a popular and cheap street food in Southeast Asia:
This balut is considered “premature” because the feathers haven’t become visible yet.
1. The Penis Fish
My personal favorite: Urechis unicinctus, in the Western world more commonly referred to as “penis fish.” In Korea it is seen as a delicacy and served raw with sesame oil and salt.
Penis fish on a Korean market.
Am I Too Queasy?
Would you eat these foods? All of them apparently are perfectly edible and maybe some of you actually thought, heah, that sounds great!
Pictures courtesy of “The Wu’s Photo Land“, “Kinchan1“, Dan Bennett, “Wrote“, “Ischaramoochie” and “ProjectManhattan“.
11 Comments
Sounds like an invaluable opportunity for protein powder. You know like that Diet Pepsi commercial, where the customers reminisce about their youths? Script:
-Kneeling over change room bench after a workout- “You know I like to earn my gains” -rubs sweaty forehead with towel- “which means eating cheap yet wholesome protein. That’s being a true paragon of bodybuilding” -imagines 5 separate restaurant servings of the above 1-5 sources, from Natto to Penis Fish-. -Appears visually dumbstruck- “on second thought, I think I’ll skip the misery and stick with my protein shake.”
Edit: Invaluable opportunity for *marketing protein powder.
Hold on to that idea! 😉
I will try most things but probably not on that list!! I have eaten grubs before and I don’t recommend it!
Jess, you are much braver than I am! What got you to try grubs?
Can’t say for sure that I had any of these!!
Did have some great seafood smorgasbord in Sweden so maybe 🙂
If that smorgasboard had surströmming, you would have noticed, J, trust me 😉
I had the chance to smell it once – if you could make cheese out of rotten fish, I would imagine it would smell something like this 🙂
Hm, Penis fish..Never got to to use this comment before, but seems appropriate: I know enough about hentai to see where this is going:-P
Might have had some of that stuff while in China 3 years ago. One waiter did make a funny face when I ordered something (by pointing on a picture of the plate, contents of which looked like nothing I knew).
I’ve had African ants and they were delicious. 🙂
I bet if the grocery stores contained only the items listed here, nobody would be obese!!!
There are two lustrous absences on the list:
a) The infamous Icelandinc delicacy that goes by the name of Hakarl. It is basically rotten shark. They catch the shark an bury it in the ground. After a couple of months they exhuminate the stuff dry/smoke it and swallow it down with hard liquor just like a proper Viking would do.
b) In China you can find a thing known as the hundred-year egg. It is basicaly an egg that has been left to ferment in mixture of clay, ash, salt and lime for months or years (longer = “better”). The yolk turns green, the white turns dark brown and the acquired smell is just slightly cadaverous.
P.S.: I wouldn’t mind the bamboo worms. They look tasty.
“Slightly cadaverous” being what I always connected with “tasty” 😉