Complete Proteins from Plant based sources

Hey everyone :)

Seems i've read that people who eat a vegetarian diet without animal/fish foods or products can become deficient in some proteins? 

Or... some proteins are not complete and that it is important to include certain plant foods or to combine certain plant foods in order to get all the complete proteins necessary to keep your body healthy.

Anyone have a good link or source of information on this that is easy to understand and a good reference including suggested foods, perhaps even gr8 recipes?

thanks bunches!

Well it's not necessarily true.  It depends on whether you include enough dairy and beans products in your diet.

Say in the morning, I have skim milk and low fat cheddar cheese as source of proteins.

Lunch would have beans/ lentils/ hummus/ cheese on top of salad or inside a sandwich

Dinner I might not have beans at all if I have enough at lunch.

Simple recipe, you mix hummus/ red-kidney beans to your salad.  Add lentils to cauliflower to make a curry salad., cheese sandwich, you name it.

Joey

It's a myth.  Eat healthy vegetarian and you don't need to worry about  it.

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myt hs-complementary-protein-myth-wont-go-away.ht ml


 

Thats a great link you posted, but didn't seem to work for me.  Let see if this works, otherwise I'll edit it out:

complimentary protein myth

Agreed.  Myth.  I've been veggie for 10 years and vegan for 2 and have never "food combined" and I haven't keeled over yet...

That's it, thanks.

Man... I never believed that was true, but then at work (a natural health food/supplements store), some of my coworkers insisted that it was true, and I figured they would for sure know. I'm really glad and relieved to know it's a myth though--thanks for posting that link!

Yes, that is a myth from the 70's, as stated above.  As long as you get protien for a variety of sources, there is no need for concern. 

The recommended daily amount of protien is only about 50 grams.  Most Americans eat wayyyy more than that.  As long as you aren't primarily getting calories from sugar, alcohol, or fruits, you probably don't need to worry about your protein intake.

Complete proteins generally only come from animal products.  But there are enough vegetable sources of incomplete proteins that eliminating complete proteins doesn't really matter.  The classic combinations that will give you all the amino acids in complete proteins are rice-beans and whole wheat bread-honey.  If you have a good variety of vegetables, legumes and grains, you're probably getting everything you need.

Again: myth.  Usually perpetuated by the "reasons vegans are wrong because I'm threatened by anything different than my own lifestyle" crowd.

The Harvard School of Public Health doesn't think it's a myth, and I don't believe they just have a "thing" against vegans:

All protein isn't alike

Some of the protein you eat contains all the amino acids needed to build new proteins. This kind is called complete protein. Animal sources of protein tend to be complete. Other protein sources lack one or more amino acids that the body can't make from scratch or create by modifying another amino acid. Called incomplete proteins, these usually come from fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts.

Vegetarians need to be aware of this. To get all the amino acids needed to make new protein - and thus to keep the body's systems in good shape - people who don't eat meat, fish, poultry, eggs, or dairy products should eat a variety of protein-containing foods each day.


http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/p rotein.html

But this doesn't mean vegans are "wrong," by any means.  It just means they, like everyone else, are better off eating a varied diet.

Unfortunately, the information that the School of Public Health is giving out is inaccurate and misleading. I don't think that they have a 'thing' against vegans, however, the information that they are perpetuating is not helpful to vegans because it leads people to think that protein is a serious concern for vegans when actually it would be exceedingly difficult for a person to satisfy their caloric needs without automatically getting enough protein.

Dr. Fuhrman explains as follows:

"All vegetables and grains contain all 8 of the essential amino acids, as well as the 12 other non-essential ones. While some vegetables have a higher or lower proportion of certain amino acids than others, when eaten in amounts necessary to satisfy your caloric needs, a sufficient amount of all essential amino acids is available. Because digestive secretions and sloughed off mucosal cells are constantly recycled and re-absorbed, the amino acid composition of post prandial (after meal) blood is remarkably complete in spite of any short term irregularities in the dietary supply of amino acids".

Here is an interesting link where Dr. McDougall finds himself debating the American Heart Association on this subject in the Correspondence section of 'Circulation', which is the peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Heart Association. There are some references there you can look up if you want to research this further:

http://www.circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/...e197#R 4-109992

Here is what I found interesting:

1) Dr. McDougall gave solid references to back up what he was saying.

2) The AHA person who responded to his remarks stated that he was wrong, but gave no references to back up anything they were saying. I guess if something gets repeated enough times then it automatically becomes true and accepted!

3) The response ended by stating "We certainly agree with Dr McDougall that a vegetarian diet based on the AHA guidelines of 5 to 6 servings of whole grains and 5 or more servings of vegetables and fruit would, in fact, supply all of the amino acids necessary for health." So, they are saying that eating lots of grains, vegetables, and fruit is quite sufficient! They didn't even mention any of the foods that are considered to be more protein dense, that vegetarians seem to worry themselves about getting enough of, such as beans, and nuts. Seems to me that the bottom line really is that if you eat enough servings of all manner of vegetarian foods to satisfy your caloric needs, you will be just fine! In practice, I think that the AHA was actually agreeing with McDougall, but they were doing it in a kind of backhanded way, which allowed them to simultaneously pat themselves on the back for their dietary recommendations.

cbullock, I would love to read this article but the link doesn't work.  Can you tell me the name?

Never mind, I found it - you meant the letter/response titled Plants Foods Have a Complete Amino Acid Composition, right?

What a great letter!  I also found this article that reaffirms that protein combining isn't necessary and describes several studies:
http://www.vegsource.com/articles/ProteinRequ ie.htm

So, I stand corrected.  I guess now instead of worrying about combining foods I'm just going to make sure I don't eat the same thing all the time.

Here are good links for the article(s) and information mentioned by cbullock :)

the article on Plant Foods Have a Complete Amino Acid Composition (published in Circulation, (Circulation. 2002;105:e197.) © 2002 American Heart Association, Inc. in Correspondence, and the Circulation publication is peer reviewed... 

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/ 105/25/e197

and for the article: Misinformation on Plant Proteins.  (Circulation. 2002;106:e148.) © 2002 American Heart Association, Inc.

and click here for the the link about the Misinformation article (had to do link this way b/c it was so long it would not work properly)

i'm really glad to have a better understanding.  Thanks everyone for sharing the information :)

Lysistrata and United2Gether,

Thanks so much for those additional links. You guys are great!