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What's the most important thing to think about regarding protein? Many people think it's quantity. The more, the better. In fact, what's more important is quality. Your body does need the macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fat), but micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are just as important, along with phytonutrients, bioflavonoids, water content and above all the ratio of all these components to each other.
Before worrying about how much of any food or nutrient category to get, think about the food's quality first. How close to its natural, whole state is it? How was it grown, and how does that affect its nutrient levels? How does the cooking method I use affect those nutrients? How does my body utilize this food?
The quantitative side with calorie counts and grams of protein is impossible to be exact with and gets relied on too heavily, but it's useful as a guideline and for comparison. There are two ways to look at the amount of protein needed in your diet.
1. Percentage of Daily Calories
The most common way to calculate protein is in relation to your daily calories. A calorie is a unit of energy, and everyone has different energy needs for their body type and their level of activity. Nutritional information labels on foods use 2000 calories per day to calculate the percentage of Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of nutrients, but your personal calorie needs could be much higher or lower than 2000 calories. So the first thing you need to do is to calculate your actual energy requirements.
Once you know approximately how many calories you should be eating, you need to split them up so that you get some from carbohydrates, some from fat and some from protein. Your body's main source of energy is carbohydrates, and it should make up 50-70% of your calories. Fat is just as important in your diet as carbs and protein, and should make up 25-30% of your calories. Protein needs are between 10 and 20% of calories.
So if you eat 2000 calories a day, and you want 10-20% of your calories from protein, you'll need 200-400 calories of protein. Every gram of protein gives you about 4 calories worth of energy, so dividing your 200-400 calories by 4 means you need to eat 50-100 grams of protein a day. Read that again if you need to. It's pretty easy once you get it.
There are other diets at the extreme end of the spectrum that do work for some people, especially for a short time, such as 80-10-10 (80% carbs, 10% fat, 10% protein) or the ketogenic diet (80% fat, 10% carbs, 10% protein), but these are not long term diets. They can be helpful to correct an imbalance, particularly from a diet of concentrated, refined carbohydrates and proteins, but are themselves imbalanced. Once an extreme diet brings a person back to balance, they aren't usually able to maintain that diet. My figures from the previous paragraph, on the other hand, point to a diet that is healthy and sustainable for most people over the long term.
2. Grams Relative to Body Weight
The next method is to multiply your weight (in kg) by a factor for your activity level. For adults, the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) is 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram of ideal body weight. So if you weigh 60kg (132lbs), you should eat 48 grams of protein based on this calculation.
As an aside, ideal body weight is based on the Body Mass Index (BMI), which estimates a healthy weight range based on your height. Your ideal weight is one that falls within a BMI of 18.6-24.9. BMI is only one way of evaluating healthy weights, and doesn't take body composition into account (i.e. fat vs. muscle mass), but is fairly accurate for most people.
By definition, the RDA is enough to make sure that most (97- 98%) healthy people have enough protein for their body's needs. It's basically a minimum. The calorie calculation we did earlier usually comes out higher than the body weight calculation, which means that it more than covers your minimum needs.
Incidentally, children and athletes require more than the 0.8g/kg average, and pregnancy and other factors come into play.
It's always a good idea to take both calculations of your daily protein needs to make sure that you're getting enough protein both to maintain your body's functions and for an appropriate percentage of your diet.
 If you want to skip all of this math, I'll help you figure out your protein needs with this simple, free calculator.
Also, check out my healthy vegan recipes on video. Prepare dinner with me as I discuss holistic nutrition and healthy vegan cooking. http://www.healthyveganrecipes.net
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