Topic: some questions on eggs.

[Chris Salvato]

everyone's different man

[Alec Furtado]

I heard soybeans have like 55% protein for what they are compared to meat and eggs which is like 10% or something. Is that true? (I'm sure the numbers aren't exact though)

If it is true, then I think I have a suggestion lol, unless there is a specific reason as to why you eat little to no soy.

[tombb]

So, for those who may care, ill give a brief recap of my protein intake today:

-eggs x14                           = 84
-whey powder (1.5 scoops)   = 36
-whole milk (3 cups)             = 24
-cheader cheese (1/2 cup)    = 14
-cliff bar (protein from soy?)  = 10

And I'm sure the veggies and grains had some too, but this is the jist of it.

Now, I'm not sure what all the absorbing rate of all of these are, and if any of you have a good article on it, a link would be awesome.

All in all, probably not as much as I may want, but by far more than my body is used too.

TreyThe 1g per pound of bodyweight is a good estimate coming from a few studies (I can find back the links to the original studies if you are interested in reading them), but it's still an estimate so you don't have to worry too much about that compared to absorption, that's almost factored in since it's a practical study and they had the same problem of measuring how much protein people ate and not how much they absorbed.

But in general most things you mentioned are extremely high absorption and biological value (the quality of protein in terms of correct proportion of aminoacids to rebuild them into human proteins and muscles) and other various measures corrected for absorption and other factors like the protein digestibility corrected AA score.
Whey is basically the best in those terms, about 100% or anyways at the top of the scale for everything. Then things like soy protein isolate (another great protein usually supplemented with a balancing AA), and things like egg whites, casein, milk, and then things like beef more around 80% (or 0.9 pdcaa score) etc.
Cheddar cheese should be similar to casein for the most part I think, and the only thing you mentioned that probably has a somewhat low score might be the cliff bar just because I don't know how much of that protein is from the soy protein isolate (good) and how much is from the random other grains etc that are in it (probably more along 50% BV or 0.5 pdcaas).

But also remember it's not just about absorption and protein quality but also about alternating well between slow-release proteins like casein (cheese, good for overnight), fast release proteins like whey (shakes, good for before and right after a workout), and other mixed ones (like milk).

So anyways, generally you are doing good but keep your choices open for when you get tired of one thing or another so you can vary things a bit more, and if you are in doubt just go with say 10 or so more grams over especially if you are getting good amount of muscle soreness from previous workouts.

Alec, soy protein isolate is great, pretty much as good as whey, but whole soy or things like tofu are not quite as good and might have a few other things you don't want in them, so generally the soy protein isolates are better/best.
Also, in fairness, it is true that beef (or meat/fish in general) is only ~80% BV or 0.9 pvcaa, but it has many other advantages (unfortunately for me since I can't have it hehe), like being naturally full of creatine and being a very practical and easy way to consume proteins.
The 10-20% of protein you waste from it is not the end of the world especially to someone that likes the taste enough to easily eat much more of it . But yeah if you are like me and don't want to hurt things, that's sort of a comforting plus to know there are better things in terms of protein value/quality.
Also in terms of cost, protein from beef is very bad (costly) compared to soy protein isolate, whey, etc.

[Chris Salvato]

I heard soybeans have like 55% protein for what they are compared to meat and eggs which is like 10% or something. Is that true? (I'm sure the numbers aren't exact though)

If it is true, then I think I have a suggestion lol, unless there is a specific reason as to why you eat little to no soy.

Not quite sure where you got your info.  Eggs has one of the highest absorption rates.  Meat is also up there.

Soy isolate is up there with eggs -- but not soybeans...those are down at like 55% or so.

[Alec Furtado]

It was said on one of those shows on the Science channel, How It's Made. They were making tofu.

[Chris Salvato]

It was said on one of those shows on the Science channel, How It's Made. They were making tofu.

Mainstream media is a bad source of nutrition data.

http://www.myfit.ca/archives/viewanarticle.asp?table=nutrition&id=24&subject=Protein+Absorption

Table about halfway down is fairly accurate -- i used to have a better one but I can't find it for the life of me...

[tombb]

It was said on one of those shows on the Science channel, How It's Made. They were making tofu.

Mainstream media is a bad source of nutrition data.

http://www.myfit.ca/archives/viewanarticle.asp?table=nutrition&id=24&subject=Protein+Absorption

Table about halfway down is fairly accurate -- i used to have a better one but I can't find it for the life of me...

Unfortunately I would classify that link as 'inaccurate media' or 'bad source of nutrition info' too (granted you said that this was not your best one).

The problem is the lack of details, sources, units and explanations in it, so it's again just declaring conclusions or claims that are possibly only true within a specific context.

It's ok for a start, but those values are actually inaccurate for several different reasons. For example it clearly doesn't take into account protein absorption, as you know egg even cooked is not 100%, and absorption drops to 50% if uncooked as I mentioned before. Also it claims that it uses the aminoacid ratio to estimate those % numbers, but it doesn't say which scoring assumptions or units it uses. There are a few well-established ones that I mentioned, like BV or PDCAAS, but those values don't reflect either. It seems to be BV because BV uses egg as a normalizing factor (it just gives it 100 and compares other things to it, so for example whey is 104% because it's better than egg  ). But most other values are not matching BV, milk should be around 90 and meat 70, whereas that list puts meat above it and a strangely low value for milk, etc.

The criteria of aminoacid balance to rebuild human proteins is also a bit iffy, because it depends on which proteins and in which proportions your body needs to make.  An athlete or bodybuilder will need to make mostly muscle proteins and less of other types of proteins for other tissues for example.
It also doesn't take into account the fact that if you really only look at aminoacid proportions, you can complement different sources of protein and make them much higher in BV (things like rice+beans for example are very low by themselves but much higher when combined).

So anyways my point to people interested in these comparison is: don't take these numbers too much at face value but try to keep in mind how they are calculated and what they represent.
Luckily some conclusions about the same no matter what, like whey protein, soy protein isolate and cooked egg whites are going to be at the top of any list, but the other relative entries in the list will vary depending on which criteria you are considering or leaving out and you should take them with an open mind and not too much at face value. If people want to read more and actually understand and learn about these things you can start with things like looking up actual measures used to make these lists, like BV or PDCAAS.

[Chris Salvato]

It was said on one of those shows on the Science channel, How It's Made. They were making tofu.

Mainstream media is a bad source of nutrition data.

http://www.myfit.ca/archives/viewanarticle.asp?table=nutrition&id=24&subject=Protein+Absorption

Table about halfway down is fairly accurate -- i used to have a better one but I can't find it for the life of me...

Unfortunately I would classify that link as 'inaccurate media' or 'bad source of nutrition info' too (granted you said that this was not your best one).

The problem is the lack of details, sources, units and explanations in it, so it's again just declaring conclusions or claims that are possibly only true within a specific context.

I said to use it for the table, which is fairly accurate based on my exposure to other tables that were very well cited.

It was just a link for a basic guideline so take it with a grain of salt if you must.

[tombb]

Agreed, just to be clear I wasn't criticizing you Chris or anything.  My comment wasn't really directed at you, rather I was trying to add and explain to more casual readers why sometimes you get different and seemingly conflicting tables and how to know what to look for in terms of interpreting good information or being wary of red flags.

And that table just happened to be an example of something raising red flags due to the lack of details on criteria chosen, units, cautionary notes on interpretation etc.
As I said even that one is ok as a first approximation but could lead some people to the wrong conclusions if taken too much at face value rather than in the limited context that is given by looking at just one approximate measure and not all factors that actually contribute to protein absorption and value, for all the reasons I already mentioned.