Can Vegetarians Get Enough Protein?

When I tried my first go at vegetarianism when I was 16, my mom instantly brought up her concerns as to whether I would get enough protein in my diet. There was talk of taking supplements, buying "meat substitutes," and all sorts of special alterations to my diet in order to compensate for the lack of protein via meat. Needless to say, after that, I strayed away from being a vegetarian, not wanting to go through all that trouble.

After becoming a vegetarian in college, working at a natural food store, and now preparing a lot of my own food, I've come to realize that it really isn't that difficult to fulfill your recommended daily intake of protein if you choose to abstain from eating meat/seafood. And meeting this daily amount doesn't really involve that much special planning on my part/ preparation of particular foods I know will give me a large dose of protein. As long as I am mildly conscious of the food choices I make, I can easily get my protein fix.

To illustrate this, I'll share with you the dinner I made last night. It's nothing special, nothing freakishly healthy, and pretty simple to prepare. It consisted of two veggie burgers that I fried up, a slice of cheese, and a guacamole I made on the fly. I took me about 15 minutes to prepare and gave me a beautiful amount of protein:

On a 2,000 calorie diet a day, one is supposed to consume 50g of protein. Here's how my dinner measured up:

Veggie burgers: 2 x 12g = 24g
Slice of Kraft cheese: 4g
Guacamole: ~3g (average amount of protein in 1/2 cup of guacamole)

In one meal, I consumed 31g of protein, about 62% of the daily amount. Add in the other two meals I had that day, I easily was able to ingest enough protein without any meat products. Maybe it required a little more awareness of what I was choosing to eat, but I would argue that it didn't require any additional effort on my part.