Combining for Complete Protein
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 by Michelle LeSueur
Combining for Complete Protein
I was asked to write on how to do combining to get complete proteins. Although I prefer animal protein because it is complete, there are many people that for different reasons prefer to avoid animal protein and do combining. You are probably thinking, what determines whether something is a complete protein? Well it has to have an ample amount of the nine essential amino acids.
If you are deficient in just one of the nine essential amino acids you may suffer from serious health implications that can result in reduction of the body’s proteins. What does this mean? Well the body will have to go after muscle and other protein structures, catabolizing them in order to obtain the one amino acid that is needed. Unlike fat and carbohydrates, the human body does not store excess amino acids for later use, which is why amino acids must be in our food daily.
The 9 amino acids that are considered essential that we can’t produce, that need to come from a food source are isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. Another amino acid – histidine is considered semi-essential because the body does not always require dietary sources of it.
The body makes nonessential amino acids from the essential amino acids or normal breakdown of proteins. The nonessential amino acids are arginine, alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamine, glutamic acid, glycine, proline, serine, and tyrosine.
Leucine, isoleucine, and valine are called branched-chain amino acid (BCAAs) because human beings cannot survive unless these amino acids are present in the diet. The combination of these three amino acids makes up approximately one-third of skeletal muscle in the human body. I am a firm believer in BCAA’s and take them daily.
Protein is essential to the body. It is what helps cuts heal, muscle grow and make other proteins. Many people do not get enough. If you don’t like to eat meat, drink protein drinks or are vegan/vegetarians, then combining is a great way to accomplish this.
Here is a list, which by choosing from two columns will create a complete protein.
Sources of Complementary Proteins
| Grains | Legumes | Nuts/Seeds |
| Barley | *Beans | Sesame seeds |
| Bulgur | Lentils | Sunflower seeds |
| Cornmeal | Dried peas | Walnuts |
| Oats | Peanuts | Cashews |
| Buckwheat | Chickpeas | Pumpkin seeds |
| Rice | *Soy products | Other nuts |
| Pasta | ||
| Rye | ||
| Wheat |
What is really great is if you take anything from any of these columns; add a little animal protein and that will give you a complete protein.
*Note: I am not a big fan of soy and I like black beans the best.
If you want to see how much protein is in certain foods, check out this link. It has a pretty good list.
http://www.indoorclimbing.com/Protein_Foods.html