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Author Topic: Eating Right: How To Get Started  (Read 669 times)
tombb
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« Reply #15 on: November 16, 2008, 10:09:30 PM »

find a table on protein absorption, PM it to me, and I will redo the math

I can't find the table i like and I don't feel scouring the internet again for it when the results will be fairly similar...
Well it's much easier for me to find problems in something than to give a perfect replacement for it Wink but I would at least improve it by replacing it with something like the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score, which takes into account both absorption differences from digestion and aminoacid balance in a bit more accurate way.

Keep in mind it still has its limitations:
-foods like whole soy have special chemicals that prevent absorbption of proteins which are not factored in this value
-effect of combining food with complementary aminoacids is not taken into account.
-all these are approximations. We do have exact values for just a handful of foods where we actually measured nitrogen retention directly instead of just making assumptions and approximations.

But keeping those points in mind the values are still very useful, and I can somewhat correct for them here. The link to a summary and the original paper describing PDCAA and resulting table is here, and for convenience I am copying and correcting (in green) the list below:

whey (1.0)
egg white (1.0) (!) (if cooked, just 0.5 if raw)
casein (1.0)
milk (1.0)
soy protein isolate (1.00)
beans + grains (~1.00) (!) (if consumed in relative amounts on the same day)
beef (0.92)
soybean (0.91) (!) (actually lower than 0.91 due to tannins, fibers etc)
kidney beans (0.68)
rye (0.68)
whole wheat (0.54)
lentils (0.52)
peanuts (0.52)

I have read from some credible sources that protein "completion" by eating a complete amino profile was totally whack.  If you can provide counter-evidence I will consider it -- since the person who conceptualized that idea is also the main opponent for it is compelling evidence for me that its crap...so...
That's a common misunderstanding unfortunately. The only part about this that is, as you say, "totally whack" is that you must eat those foods in the same meal to improve protein value. You don't.
(well, you can too, but it's not necessary to get this benefit).

What is absolutely correct and undeniable is all proteins will be broken down into the same sets of aminoacids and the body doesn't keep track of which food they came from, so once they are circulating in your body they will all be available (mixed) and it's only the total combined proportion that matters.

So, in a way, Protein Combining is both absolutely correct and wrong or unnecessary, depending on what you mean by it (see the link I give at the start of this sentence for more discussion, sources and references).

So again eating something like grains and beans in the same day makes both protein sources better, but they don't have to be mixed in the same meal, that doesn't really matter.

I am sure the sources you allude to either understand and agree with all this or likely don't have any scientifically plausible argument against it. If you can find even a single argument or fact against it I will be glad to look it over and discuss it with you.
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Chris Salvato
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« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2008, 04:51:01 AM »

With non-animal sources you still have the following flaws:

1) Overwhelming amounts of carbs compared to protein concentrations (which is what I was trying to illustrate).  Even if you ignore the "net protein" calculations, there is significantly more (multiples more....) carb vs. protein which is the real main issue.
2) Lack of nitrogen necessary for putting proteins to "good use" in the body that can only be provided by animals sources that produce nitrogen that we cannot.

Re: protein sources.

NITROGEN. All amino acids have nitrogen in them and they must have nitrogen in them to make peptide bonds. Nitrogen is highly toxic to our bodies (like most other things), so we have a pathway called the urea cycle which processes amino acids into urea which our body excretes into urine.

UNFORTUNATELY, since nitrogen is toxic, there are pretty much no other biological sources of nitrogen that we can intake besides proteins that our body can process. Therefore, if you have no extra nitrogen sources, your body cannot make amino acids which is the take 99% of the time (the few exceptions are DNA which have nitrogenous bases.. but this is very, very, very small amount compared to how much you get from meat, fish, eggs, etc.). Thus, these protein metabolism pathways are mainly for getting rid of nitrogen OR if you have too much of say one amino acid it can convert it into another non-essential amino acid.

All humans MUST have adequate protein intake... not just essential amino acid intake. You can't just randomly "create" amino acids like you're thinking of because the parts are scarce (nitrogen) and only really abundant in meat, fish, eggs, etc.
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tombb
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« Reply #17 on: November 17, 2008, 12:07:05 PM »

With non-animal sources you still have the following flaws:

1) Overwhelming amounts of carbs compared to protein concentrations (which is what I was trying to illustrate).  Even if you ignore the "net protein" calculations, there is significantly more (multiples more....) carb vs. protein which is the real main issue.
2) Lack of nitrogen necessary for putting proteins to "good use" in the body that can only be provided by animals sources that produce nitrogen that we cannot.
Well I definitely agree that beans and grains come with a lot of carbs which is not always desirable (usually a 1:1 ratio or more). That's the same reason why I wouldn't recommend egg yolks, because they come with a lot of fat (2x fat for each gram of protein) which is also not desirable and makes it harder to balance your calories and energy sources.

However I don't think I follow you at all on nitrogen, because animal sources are not any different in terms of nitrogen. You also don't need extra nitrogen in any form to make peptide bonds, you just need to put any 2 aminoacids close together.
Animals don't produce nitrogen either, generally the only thing that fixates nitrogen and creates new aminoacids are plants and bacteria, not animals (they simply consume it and store it).

There is no special difference in nitrogen in proteins from different sources, nitrogen is just contained in the chemical structure of each aminoacid, so if you are getting 5 grams of soy protein or 5 grams of beef protein you get the same amount of nitrogen in your body as proteins.

The only advantage that meat has is in creatine and maybe any extra hormones you might get for free, but those are unrelated to the issue of proteins and nitrogen.
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