Complete protein

Last updated

A complete protein or whole protein is a food source of protein that contains an adequate proportion of each of the nine essential amino acids necessary in the human diet. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Contents

Amino acid profile

People who eat a varied diet generally do not have to consider the completeness of proteins of single foods. Different protein sources that are each incomplete on their own, typically are complete when combined. [6]

The following table lists the optimal profile of the nine essential amino acids in the human diet, which comprises complete protein, as recommended by the US Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition Board. The foodstuffs listed for comparison show the essential amino acid content per unit of the total protein of the food, 100g of spinach, for example, only contains 2.9g of protein (6% Daily Value), and of that protein 1.36% is tryptophan. [2] [7] (note that the examples have not been corrected for digestibility)

Essential amino acidmg/g of proteinpercentage of total proteinraw, whole chicken egg [8] quinoa [9] raw spinach [10]
Tryptophan 70.7%1.33%1%1.36%
Threonine 272.7%4.42%3.2%4.27%
Isoleucine 252.5%5.34%4.2%5.14%
Leucine 555.5%8.65%7.3%7.8%
Lysine 515.1%7.27%6.1%6.08%
Methionine+Cystine 252.5%5.18%2.7%+1.3%1.85%+1.22%
Phenylalanine+Tyrosine 474.7%9.39%4.3%+3.6%4.51%+3.78%
Valine 323.2%6.83%5%5.63%
Histidine 181.8%2.45%3.1%2.24%
Total28728.7%50.86%41.8%43.88%

Total adult daily intake

The second column in the following table shows the amino acid requirements of adults as recommended by the World Health Organization [11] calculated for a 62 kg (137 lb) adult. Recommended Daily Intake is based on 2,000 kilocalories (8,400 kJ) per day, [12] which could be appropriate for a 70 kg (150 lb) adult.

Essential amino acidRequired mg/day for a 62 kg (137 lb) adult
Tryptophan 248
Threonine 930
Isoleucine 1240
Leucine 2418
Lysine 1860
Methionine+Cysteine 930
Phenylalanine+Tyrosine 1550
Valine 1612
Histidine 620
Total11,408 milligrams (11.408 g)
Total Protein 46 to 56 grams (46,000 to 56,000 mg)

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pantothenic acid</span> Chemical compound

Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) is a B vitamin and an essential nutrient. All animals need pantothenic acid in order to synthesize coenzyme A (CoA), which is essential for cellular energy production and for the synthesis and degradation of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isoleucine</span> Chemical compound

Isoleucine (symbol Ile or I) is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an α-amino group (which is in the protonated −NH+3 form under biological conditions), an α-carboxylic acid group (which is in the deprotonated −COO form under biological conditions), and a hydrocarbon side chain with a branch (a central carbon atom bound to three other carbon atoms). It is classified as a non-polar, uncharged (at physiological pH), branched-chain, aliphatic amino acid. It is essential in humans, meaning the body cannot synthesize it. Essential amino acids are necessary in the human diet. In plants isoleucine can be synthesized from threonine and methionine. In plants and bacteria, isoleucine is synthesized from pyruvate employing leucine biosynthesis enzymes. It is encoded by the codons AUU, AUC, and AUA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietary fiber</span> Portion of plant-derived food that cannot be completely digested

Dietary fiber or roughage is the portion of plant-derived food that cannot be completely broken down by human digestive enzymes. Dietary fibers are diverse in chemical composition, and can be grouped generally by their solubility, viscosity, and fermentability, which affect how fibers are processed in the body. Dietary fiber has two main components: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber, which are components of plant-based foods, such as legumes, whole grains and cereals, vegetables, fruits, and nuts or seeds. A diet high in regular fiber consumption is generally associated with supporting health and lowering the risk of several diseases. Dietary fiber consists of non-starch polysaccharides and other plant components such as cellulose, resistant starch, resistant dextrins, inulin, lignins, chitins, pectins, beta-glucans, and oligosaccharides.

A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excreted by cells to create non-cellular structures, such as hair, scales, feathers, or exoskeletons. Some nutrients can be metabolically converted to smaller molecules in the process of releasing energy, such as for carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and fermentation products, leading to end-products of water and carbon dioxide. All organisms require water. Essential nutrients for animals are the energy sources, some of the amino acids that are combined to create proteins, a subset of fatty acids, vitamins and certain minerals. Plants require more diverse minerals absorbed through roots, plus carbon dioxide and oxygen absorbed through leaves. Fungi live on dead or living organic matter and meet nutrient needs from their host.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human nutrition</span> Provision of essential nutrients necessary to support human life and health

Human nutrition deals with the provision of essential nutrients in food that are necessary to support human life and good health. Poor nutrition is a chronic problem often linked to poverty, food security, or a poor understanding of nutritional requirements. Malnutrition and its consequences are large contributors to deaths, physical deformities, and disabilities worldwide. Good nutrition is necessary for children to grow physically and mentally, and for normal human biological development.

An essential amino acid, or indispensable amino acid, is an amino acid that cannot be synthesized from scratch by the organism fast enough to supply its demand, and must therefore come from the diet. Of the 21 amino acids common to all life forms, the nine amino acids humans cannot synthesize are valine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, histidine, and lysine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietary supplement</span> Product providing additional nutrients

A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement a person's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources, or that are synthetic. The classes of nutrient compounds in supplements include vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, and amino acids. Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, and so are not nutrients per se, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols. Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, such as collagen from chickens or fish for example. These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients. The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe and appropriately labeled.

A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds between the carbon atoms. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched chain of carbon (C) atoms. Along the chain, some carbon atoms are linked by single bonds (-C-C-) and others are linked by double bonds (-C=C-). A double bond along the carbon chain can react with a pair of hydrogen atoms to change into a single -C-C- bond, with each H atom now bonded to one of the two C atoms. Glyceride fats without any carbon chain double bonds are called saturated because they are "saturated with" hydrogen atoms, having no double bonds available to react with more hydrogen.

The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is a system of nutrition recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) of the National Academies. It was introduced in 1997 in order to broaden the existing guidelines known as Recommended Dietary Allowances. The DRI values differ from those used in nutrition labeling on food and dietary supplement products in the U.S. and Canada, which uses Reference Daily Intakes (RDIs) and Daily Values (%DV) which were based on outdated RDAs from 1968 but were updated as of 2016.

A low-protein diet is a diet in which people decrease their intake of protein. A low-protein diet is used as a therapy for inherited metabolic disorders, such as phenylketonuria and homocystinuria, and can also be used to treat kidney or liver disease. Low protein consumption appears to reduce the risk of bone breakage, presumably through changes in calcium homeostasis. Consequently, there is no uniform definition of what constitutes low-protein, because the amount and composition of protein for an individual with phenylketonuria would differ substantially from one with homocystinuria or tyrosinemia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wheatgrass</span> Freshly sprouted first leaves of the common wheat plant

Wheatgrass is the freshly sprouted first leaves of the common wheat plant, used as a food, drink, or dietary supplement. Wheatgrass is served freeze dried or fresh, and so it differs from wheat malt, which is convectively dried. Wheatgrass is allowed to grow longer and taller than wheat malt.

Protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) is a method of evaluating the quality of a protein based on both the amino acid requirements of humans and their ability to digest it.

Biological value (BV) is a measure of the proportion of absorbed protein from a food which becomes incorporated into the proteins of the organism's body. It captures how readily the digested protein can be used in protein synthesis in the cells of the organism. Proteins are the major source of nitrogen in food. BV assumes protein is the only source of nitrogen and measures the amount of nitrogen ingested in relation to the amount which is subsequently excreted. The remainder must have been incorporated into the proteins of the organisms body. A ratio of nitrogen incorporated into the body over nitrogen absorbed gives a measure of protein "usability" – the BV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protein (nutrient)</span> Nutrient for the human body

Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body. They are one of the building blocks of body tissue and can also serve as a fuel source. As a fuel, proteins provide as much energy density as carbohydrates: 4 kcal per gram; in contrast, lipids provide 9 kcal per gram. The most important aspect and defining characteristic of protein from a nutritional standpoint is its amino acid composition.

Protein combining or protein complementing is a dietary theory for protein nutrition that purports to optimize the biological value of protein intake. According to the theory, vegetarian and vegan diets may provide an insufficient amount of some essential amino acids, making protein combining with multiple foods necessary to obtain a complete protein food. The terms complete and incomplete are outdated in relation to plant protein. In fact, all plant foods contain all 20 amino acids including the 9 essential amino acids in varying amounts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fried potatoes</span> Fried or deep-fried slices of potatoes

Fried potatoes are a dish or a component of other dishes essentially consisting of potatoes which have been fried or deep-fried in hot cooking oil often with the addition of salt and other seasonings. They are often served as a side dish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vegan nutrition</span> Nutritional and human health aspects of vegan diets

Vegan nutrition refers to the nutritional and human health aspects of vegan diets. A well-planned vegan diet is suitable to meet all recommendations for nutrients in every stage of human life. Vegan diets tend to be higher in dietary fiber, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, and phytochemicals; and lower in calories, saturated fat, iron, cholesterol, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12.

Protein quality is the digestibility and quantity of essential amino acids for providing the proteins in correct ratios for human consumption. There are various methods that rank the quality of different types of protein, some of which are outdated and no longer in use, or not considered as useful as they once were thought to be. The Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS), which was recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), became the industry standard in 1993. FAO has recently recommended the newer Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS) to supersede PDCAAS.

Vitamin B<sub>3</sub> Class of chemically related vitamers

Vitamin B3, colloquially referred to as niacin, is a vitamin family that includes three forms, or vitamers: niacin (nicotinic acid), nicotinamide (niacinamide), and nicotinamide riboside. All three forms of vitamin B3 are converted within the body to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). NAD is required for human life and people are unable to make it within their bodies without either vitamin B3 or tryptophan. Nicotinamide riboside was identified as a form of vitamin B3 in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vegetarian and vegan dog diet</span> Adequate meat-free or animal-free nutrition

As in the human practice of veganism, vegan dog foods are those formulated with the exclusion of ingredients that contain or were processed with any part of an animal, or any animal byproduct. Vegan dog food may incorporate the use of fruits, vegetables, cereals, legumes including soya, nuts, vegetable oils, as well as any other non-animal based foods.

References

  1. "Protein in diet". Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia. U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health. September 2, 2003. Retrieved 2006-10-28.
  2. 1 2 Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. Food and Nutrition Board of Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press. 2005. p. 691. doi:10.17226/10490. ISBN   978-0-309-08525-0.
  3. "All About the Protein Foods Group". US Department of Agriculture. 3 November 2017. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  4. Mariotti, François; Gardner, Christopher D. (Nov 2019). "Dietary Protein and Amino Acids in Vegetarian Diets—A Review". Nutrients. 11 (11): 2661. doi: 10.3390/nu11112661 . PMC   6893534 . PMID   31690027.
  5. Young, VR; Pellett, PL (May 1994). "Plant proteins in relation to human protein and amino acid nutrition". The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 59 (5 Suppl): 1203S–1212S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/59.5.1203S . PMID   8172124.
  6. "What's a Complete Protein and Should You Care?". Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved 2024-04-19.
  7. "Protein quality". Conde Nast, Nutritiondata.com. 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  8. "Egg, whole, raw, fresh, nutrition facts per 100 grams". Conde Nast, Nutritiondata.com. 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  9. "Quinoa, cooked, nutrition facts per 100 grams". Conde Nast, Nutritiondata.com. 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  10. "Spinach, raw, nutrition facts per 100 grams". Conde Nast, Nutritiondata.com. 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  11. "Protein and Amino Acid Requirements in Human Nutrition" (PDF). World Health Organization . 2007. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  12. "Guidance for Industry: A Food Labeling Guide". U.S. Food & Drug Administration. US FDA. Archived from the original on 2017-10-31. Retrieved 14 January 2017.