You are probably well aware that you need to get enough protein in your diet for optimal health. As easy as that is to understand, there are of course many things that may make it more complicated. We hear discussions on things like animal vs plant proteins, incomplete vs complete proteins, or essential vs nonessential amino acids. Hopefully this article will clear a few things up.
So the first step is, making sure you get enough protein in your diet on a daily basis. Depending on your goals, age, and how active you are this number may vary. The RDA for protein is .8g per kg of body weight or .36g per pound of body weight. If you are active and/or older this is definitely too low.
More research is coming out showing the need for much higher recommendations. More likely you will want to get 1-1.5g of protein per kg of body weight. So if you weigh 160lbs or 73kg, you would shoot for 73-110g of protein per day. Consuming 3 meals per day you would be aiming for around 25-35g per meal.
Now let’s look at protein. Protein is comprised of amino acids. These are the building blocks that create proteins. Nonessential amino acids are those that your body can create on its own without consumption. Essential would be amino acids your cannot create and must be consumed through diet.
When we look at many different foods they often have amino acids in them. We call them complete proteins when they have all of the amino acids (essential and nonessential). Incomplete proteins are foods that have some amino acids but not all of them. Your body needs all amino acids to build proteins, so complete proteins are nice because they are all in there.
Looking at plant versus animal sources, keep in mind that amino acids are the same regardless of the foods they are in. The difference is if all of them are there and in what amounts. Plant based sources of protein tend to be incomplete, meaning they are missing some amino acids. This is why it is important to get a variety of plant sources to can get all of the amino acids through different foods. The example often used is rice and beans. Separate they are incomplete, but when you combine them you get a complete protein.
We don’t store amino acid for later use but they will hang out in the blood stream for a bit before they are taken up and used for something. So the good news is that if you are trying to get protein from plant based sources, you have a few hours to make sure you are getting all of the amino acids in. It does not seem to have to be consumed all at once.
Of course animal sources are more convenient since they will be complete proteins. Remember the amino acids are the same in plant and animal. What tends to differ of the amounts of other things like saturated fats.
Now to make it more confusing, each protein source will have a different amino acid profile. This means they have higher or lower amounts of certain amino acids. For example collagen protein and whey protein have different amounts of certain amino acids. Collagen protein is particularly high in glycine and proline. These amino acids are important for collagen structure in the body and help support joint repair.
So does this mean you can just consume amino acids? Yes you can. While we don’t want to forget, there are other things in foods beside amino acids that we want in our diets, you can consume amino acids to help increase your protein intake. Since your body already can supply nonessential amino acids, it could be a good idea to add essential amino acids. The nice thing about adding essential amino acids to your routine, is that it add very little if any calories with it.
If you find that it is difficult to increase the amount of protein you are eating throughout the day regularly, you may want to think about adding essential amino acids. This may be particularly important as you age. Unfortunately you body is not as good as digesting and utilizing protein as you get older. To make up for this you need to increase your protein intake even more, or you can add essential amino acids to help increase the amino acid supply in the body.
If you are not sure how much protein you are eating throughout the day, it is always a good idea to use a food tracker to find out. Keep in mind this is more difficult if you are following a plant based diet. You will want to pay attention to what high protein foods you are eating and which amino acids they have or don’t have so you can balance it out.