Forums: January 2010 Kickstart Forum Archive: amino acids
Created on: 01/04/10 12:29 PM Views: 2338 Replies: 13
marcia Joined: 01/01/10 Location: Rockford, Il Posts: 101	amino acids Posted Monday, January 4, 2010 at 12:29 PM How do you get amino acids on a vegan diet? I'm new to all this.
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VeganRecipeGuy Joined: 01/03/10 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 131	RE: amino acids Posted Monday, January 4, 2010 at 1:21 PM Greens are the best source of a full protein profile. Consider this comparison between spinach and chicken on an amino acid for amino acid basis. One gram of spinach protein: Tryptophan 13mg Threonine 40mg Isoleucine 49mg Leucine 74mg Lysine 57mg Methionine 17mg Cystine 12mg Phenylalanine 43mg Tyrosine 36mg Valine 53mg Arginine 53mg Histidine 21mg Alanine 47mg Aspartic acid 79mg Glutamic acid 113mg Glycine 44mg Proline 37mg Serine 34mg Hydroxyproline~ (I guess that means zero?) So if you have no baseline for comparison, you might want to put that side-by-side with chicken, right? One thing is clear right away, 42 grams of protien in just a single cup of roasted chicken breast. So you need to eat way less to get to 40 grams. Interestingly it takes 200 calories to get to 30 grams of protien with spinach OR 260 calories to get to 40 grams of protien with chicken. That seems pretty similar. I didn't expect that. One gram of chicken protien is broken down as follows: Tryptophan 11.5mg Threonine 42mg Isoleucine 51mg Leucine 74mg Lysine 83mg Methionine 27mg Cystine 13mg Phenylalanine 39mg Tyrosine 33mg Valine 49mg Arginine 62mg Histidine 57mg Alanine 57mg Aspartic acid 90mg Glutamic acid 149mg Glycine 58mg Proline 45mg Serine 35mg Hydroxyproline~ That is astonishingly similar. I guess that makes sense that greens have so much protien. How else do elephants build muscle? The trick is getting enough greens in you then chewing it well enough that you get the protien out of it. We only have the one stomache, and all that cellulose would be hard to break down and utilize fully. Luckily I have that Vitamix. I feel better about my diet already. www
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shanna Joined: 12/30/09 Posts: 287	RE: amino acids Posted Monday, January 4, 2010 at 1:31 PM you don't really need to worry about individual amino acids--they are just the building blocks of protein, and all vegetables and grains and beans have them. see the protein thread on the boards, and especially the FAQ page's protein page here: http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/protein.html basically, if you eat a varied whole-foods vegan diet and are getting enough calories, you are getting enough protein, and there's no need to worry about combining foods for certain "complete" amino acid profiles. that's outdated info from the '70s. have fun!
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marcia Joined: 01/01/10 Location: Rockford, Il Posts: 101	RE: amino acids Posted Monday, January 4, 2010 at 2:55 PM Thanks for all the info. I do love veggie. Fixing meals from meat,potato,vegetable is so different then beans, vegetable, grain. I'll get use to it though. Milk and cheese are hard to give up; I live a few miles from Wisconsin.
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metopt Joined: 01/06/10 Posts: 2	RE: amino acids Posted Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 12:51 PM sorry, figuring out how to save info in these threads to my hd
	Edited 01/06/10 12:53 PM Quote | Send PM | Link | Top | Bottom
freshstart Joined: 01/07/10 Posts: 10	RE: amino acids Posted Friday, January 8, 2010 at 6:23 PM I believe the real issue is complete vs incomplete protein. There are 22 amino acids. We need to get 9 amino acids from foods...these are called essential amino acids because our body can not manufacture them so we must get them through what we eat. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Protein's main function in our body is to build and repair cells but our body needs "complete" protein. Besides soy, animal protein is the only source of complete protein. Other foods, such as spinach, provide some amino acids but not all to make a complete protein. This is why it is essential that vegans eat a variety of foods.....grains, beans, veg. etc. One food item will contain an amino acid that another food is missing....this then forms a complete protein. You do not need to eat them together (example beans and rice) but you do want to get them at some point. So...eat a variety of food items so that you get a complete protein. A sign of not getting enough complete protein in your diet is loss of eyelashes.
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VeganRecipeGuy Joined: 01/03/10 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 131	RE: amino acids Posted Friday, January 8, 2010 at 7:10 PM Freshstart, what essential amino acids are not provided by spinach? (In other words, scroll up) http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2626/2 www
	Edited 01/08/10 7:18 PM Quote | Send PM | Link | Top | Bottom
freshstart Joined: 01/07/10 Posts: 10	RE: amino acids Posted Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 4:38 PM Hi VeganRecipeGuy, The amino acids that are missing in spinach are asparagine, cysteine,and glutamine. Spinach added to miso and rice will form a complete protein.
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VeganRecipeGuy Joined: 01/03/10 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 131	RE: amino acids Posted Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 5:07 PM Those are all present in spinach protein in the very similar proportions that they are in chicken. I used the USDA for the first set of numbers, but let's use nutritionaldata.com and see if we get similar results: One gram of spinach protein contains 10.5 mg cysteine, 72 mg asparagine (as aspartic acid) and glutamine is an amide of glutamic acid, which our spinach gram of protein has 103 mg of. (this is actually a low number as the closest I could get the site to go was a portion that had .9 gram of protein.) Chicken protein would have about 12 mg cysteine, 100 mg asparagine (also as aspartic acid) and 150 mg of glutamic acid. Chicken comes out barely ahead. www
	Edited 01/09/10 5:11 PM Quote | Send PM | Link | Top | Bottom
LaniMuelrath Joined: 12/30/09 Location: California Posts: 557	RE: amino acids Posted Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 5:30 PM You've gotten some great replies, and here's another fabulous resource for you! Dr. McDougall's commentary: "When friends ask, 'Where do you get your protein?' Here's more from Jeff Novick, resident nutritionist at McDougall Health and Medical Center Forums: "The Notion of Incomplete Protein" Both important reads, so I hope you get the chance to go through them. But simply stated, there are enough aminos between those in a variety, plant diet and those floating in our bodie's amino pool that mixing and matching foods to make "complete" protein is an outdated notion. Glad you brought this up, it is not an uncommon question! Lani Lani Muelrath, M.A. CGFI, CPBN the Plant-Based Fitness Expert McDougall Health & Medical Center 5 Minute Fitness & Plant-based Blueprint www
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sandra41 Joined: 01/03/10 Location: California Posts: 43	RE: amino acids Posted Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 5:55 PM I use Braggs Liquid Animos protein. It has 16 amino acids. It great to use when a recipe calls for Soy or Tamari sauce. 1/2 tsp = 310 vegetable and soy proteins. It's just an other way to get it in when your diet falls short for the day. Your stomach shouldn't be a waist basket.
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shanna Joined: 12/30/09 Posts: 287	RE: amino acids Posted Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 6:17 PM Thank you for posting those links, Lani. Two more pages I bookmarked for "preponderance of the evidence" file.
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freshstart Joined: 01/07/10 Posts: 10	RE: amino acids Posted Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 5:15 PM I'm a little confused....so now research is saying that there is no such thing as incomplete protein? I realize that you don't have to each combination foods as long as you get a variety but are they now saying that vegetables contain complete proteins? Anyone? I'm open to new research and changes in nutrition.
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VeganRecipeGuy Joined: 01/03/10 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 131	RE: amino acids Posted Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 5:34 PM Greens some seed crops* and soy are the only single food "complete" proteins in the plant world. I use chicken as a comparison as chicken and egg whites protein are the standard "complete" protein by which all others are judged. They have the essential amino acids that animal tissues don't/can't synthesize. So then you get the question, "How did that bull get all of those essential amino acids? Does it eat chicken?" No, it eats greens (hopefully). The trouble is, with only one stomach, we can't process greens as efficiently as a cow. I go through 5 lbs of fresh baby spinach a week, and it is a pleasure to do it. I use the HECK out of my VitaMix. I use it so much, they have to service it about once a year. I am getting my money's worth on that 10 year warranty! The most recent credible research I have seen shows that you don't need to "match at each meal" but that you should get a full amino profile inside of a six hour period or the body starts to denature the individual amino acids and stores them as fat. That is a minor process starts in six hours and can be halted by providing the missing pieces for the chain for protein synthesis to start. Nothing to get hung about. *Quinoa is a seed crop (pseudo-cereal) and not a true grain. www
	Edited 01/10/10 5:53 PM Quote | Send PM | Link | Top | Bottom

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