| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 2:02:33 PM | | Ive always strongly thought that by mixing different types of protein food, you can produce full protein , with all the amino acids, like found in meat, i always believed ,(if done correctley) after alot of research, you can do this on a vegan and vegetarian diet. I used to be a vegan and used the gym alot for muscle gain, i fell pregnant had another baby and started eating dairy products again, im sure after starting the gym again my muscle is coming back much quicker than when i trained as a vegan. Now im wondering am i wrong??? I know it sounds logical that dairy are better quicker proteins, but im pretty sure before i was eating such a good large combination of nuts, soya, tofu, beans, pulses. I thought this was enough. Can i have some views please................................... | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 2:24:46 PM | Yes, you can get all the amino acids you need on a vegetarian diet. Look at the strong vegetarians, such as the plains bison, they have no problem getting strong eating just vegetables. This doesn't mean that other sources of nutrients aren't more efficient or bio-available. Take calcium, for example. Humans and cats are the only mammals which ingest the dairy form of calcium, and it turns out to be a very good form of calcium. But most mammals have no problem getting enough calcium from other dietary paths.
But, if you are a vegetarian, the legumes and things like soybean are things you should eat. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 3:13:32 PM | bison are bad example, since they have very different GI than humans, can process leaves and cellulose that we can't.
massive, super-strong vegetarian gorillas are a better example.
mixing plants amino acids to produce complete or nearly complete protein was introduced and made popular in the 70s by this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345321200/ref=pd_cp_b_1?pf_rd_p=317711001&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1585422371&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0F69955JS6HK05JE7DNF | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 3:19:10 PM | And they eat allot of it too. Those trace amount add up. On a more reasonable food volume level you'll need to be more particular.
"These 20 amino acids are biosynthesized from other molecules, but organisms differ in which ones they can synthesize and which ones must be provided in their diet"
"Nine amino acids are generally regarded as essential for humans: phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, isoleucine, methionine, histidine, leucine, and lysine." -wikipedia
That should shorten you list. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 3:40:24 PM | Well being vegan would seriously limit your sources (no eggs, whey e.t.c) thus you would have to turn to soy or mycoprotein. I am not sure whether you would be able to get all of your essential aminos from these sources as I haven't researched it.
But from what I have read eating alot of soy leads to an increase of estrogen levels which can potentially cause another host of problems.
I wouldn't compare other animals to ourselves due to wildly varied diets, eating habits and biology.
I guess I haven't really answered your question, but if you can get your essential aminos from soy and mycoprotein then I should see no problem in that respect! | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 4:03:52 PM | I have also heard most soy can cause increases in estrogen levels(as well as other negative things), except for fermented soy products such as misu, tempeh and natto.
http://www.criticalbench.com/soy_products_supplements_athletes.htm
http://www.westonaprice.org/faq.html | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/11/2008 4:17:12 PM | Most food "experts" recommend against unfermented soy, because the supposed health benefits from soy consumed by Asians come from fermented soy. The American/Brazilian soy industry is only interested in pushing volumes, not your nutrition.
And yes, phtyo-estrogen is available from soy, not something a man would not want to consume, nor a woman before or during early pregnancy. There's a epidemic of hypospadia and the suspects are phyto-estrogens and estrogen analogs in the mother.
Now what about perversely feeding soy and soy oil to beef? Will there be phyto-estrogen in the beef? hmm There's so much sh!t that goes into industrial beef, pork, chickens, turkeys.
Some nutritionists are vehemently anti-soy. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 4:18:58 AM | | Plant protein, found in fruits/veg, nuts, seeds and beans do not always have all the essential amino acids; these can be improved by eating low sat fat animal proteins such as low fat milk and cheese, yoghurt, eggs and fish (if you're a fish eating veggie). You should include legumes/pulses and wholegrains such as tofu, quorn, soya products, beans on toast/veg & nut roast/lentil curry & rice/houmous etc. A good intake of 4-6oz of protein over the day for a good intake of essential amino acids. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 8:48:19 AM | "Plant protein, found in fruits/veg, nuts, seeds and beans do not always have all the essential amino acids"
Yes, each has an essential amino acid profile which doesn't match the amino acid profile of humans. The basic concept of the book Diary for a Small Planet is that eating a meal with a variety plant foods each with incomplete profile will deliver an complemented, aggregate amino acid profile that the body can use for its protein requirements, without supplementing with animal foods. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 2:10:54 PM | Avocados alone would do it.
"Avocados are bursting with nutrients--vitamins, A, B-complex, C, E, H, K, and folic acid, plus the minerals magnesium, copper, iron, calcium, potassium and many other trace elements. Avocados provide all of the essential amino acids (those that must be provided by our diet), with 18 amino acids in all, plus 7 fatty acids, including Omega 3 and 6. Avocados contain more protein than cow’s milk, about 2% per edible portion."
From: http://www.living-foods.com/articles/avocadoarticle.html
Otherwise the old advice used to be that you should combine beans and grains because beans are higher in one amino acid and grains are higher in another but they've since recognised that you don't need to consume both at the same time.
A site you'll probably find useful would be the site for vegan athletes and body builders: http://www.veganfitness.net/
Dairy might be an easy source of protein but it's a food that nature has designed to support the growth of young cows and if you think about their body structure it's not really about lean muscle. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 2:16:48 PM | Your body doesn't care where the amino acids came from in the original food.
Glutamine is glutamine, esp after passing through the liver, no matter whether it came from steak or beans.
To synthesize protein, the body only needs to find the right ratio of amino acids in the bloodstream at the time of synthesis. I cannot find a good reference about the half-life of amino acids, ie, how long they are useable. If half-life was many hours, then your breakfast could have an incomplete amino acid profile, then your lunch would have a complementary amino acid profile, but the two meals would be complementary.
The Small Planet book gives combos of plant foods that have complementary amino acid profiles. There may be other, later vegan/vegetarian books have such recipes.
It's not complicated, nor does it take a huge volume of food. Your need only 2 - 4 oz of protein/day for maintenance.
My guess is that people waste some of the excess protein by stressing out over insufficient protein.  Protein for vegetarians is simply not a problem. It's just totally different from the sickening Standard American Diet. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 2:30:56 PM |
Your body doesn't care where the amino acids came from in the original food.
Glutamine is glutamine, esp after passing through the liver, no matter whether it came from steak or beans. The amino acids in the steak might be just as good but what about the saturated fat, cholesterol and other goodies that are part of the deal? Even chocolate has some protein in but it tends to come with rather a lot of sugar. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 2:31:33 PM | Found a site that lists half-lives for mammalian amino acids:
http://www.clcbio.com/index.php?id=44
Take-home-msg: complementarity of plant amino acids would be most effective if eaten at one meal. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 8:28:55 PM | If you are comparing muscle strength eating dairy products and not eating dairy products, you might consider that many dairy products are not just a combination of different nutrients like calcium and proteins.
Dairy products have hormones from the mother cow in them because she had to be pregnant to begin lactation. There are many hormones designed to help a calf to grow, and any mammal's milk is a primary way to pass on immunity to various things. Yet these immune factors might be to things our human system does not get exposed to or is not susceptible to.
A calf grows to nearly a full-size cow in one year. Cow's milk is designed to do that. If you are wanting to grow, perhaps drinking a very large mammal's milk is a way to do it! However, I suspect that we humans as adults are finished growing upward, and end up growing outward!
Milk products might assist someone in regaining lost muscle mass, but I think is unnecessary to maintain it, particularly after adulthood. Our human bodies stop producing the enzymes needed to process milk proteins in adulthood, making milk increasingly harder to digest, and causing other problems.
Milk has residual medicines such as various antibiotics, anti-fungals, and pesticides from "cow dips" that they are dunked into to kill fleas and parasites. These might not be approved for human consumption, yet can be in the milk in residual form.
Milk has residuals of growth hormones and other things given to the cow to make her produce more milk. Also, the cow was bread to be physically capable of producing massive amounts of milk, consuming many extra calories to do this. It is possible that her lactation hormones are very strong and abundant, and could be present in her milk. There are some theories that breast cancer in humans is linked to these factors that milk producers have been using to increase milk production in cows.
Also, if the cow has an infection or inflammation of some kind, there is all of her body's responses to that in the milk. If the cow is stressed, there can be elevated stress hormones such as cortisol and andrenalin.
There are many good sources of calcium and vitamin D that don't have all of these "biological additives."
After all, we wean the calves from the cows very early so we can take the cow's milk. The calf then grows just fine without it. (Perhaps missing its mother, though.) | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/12/2008 11:05:51 PM | Like stated before, bison, being a ruminant animal, is a VERY bad example. Because of the microbes in their stomach they are able to synthesize microbial protein which will complete their amino acid profile for them. This is why you don't formulate ruminate diets on limiting amino acids like you would for monogastric animals such as pigs. Instead you take fiber and protein into account.
For vegans and vegetarians especially, they need to utilize protein complementation which is when incomplete-protein foods, each of which supply the amino acids missing in the others, combine to yield a complete protein profile. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/13/2008 12:36:39 AM | Why are we comparing ourselves to animals? We are not bulls, or elephants, or gorillas, we are PEOPLE. We do not have the same DNA as them. It's ridiculous. The smallest adult male gorilla in the world probably weighs at least 600lbs or something and no human being will ever deadlift probably half what it could, and they're all vegetarian. But they are GORILLAS.
As someone said in another thread, there are no vegan bodybuilders half the size as those bodybuilders who ingest animal protein.
Now, vegetarian bodybuilders are another matter, but to be able to consume whey, casein and eggs instead of just plant protein is a HUGE difference. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 6/26/2008 9:26:26 PM | | Too many dairy products can cause weight gain due to the high amount of fat in them and are poor iron sources, but they are good for protein. The reason why I mention iron is because vegetarians and vegans are at increased risk of iron deficiency. I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian (I eat BOTH dairy and eggs) and I believe strongly in combining proteins to get all your amino acids for the day. A former veg friend of mine gave me a link with different protein combinations on it, and I will post it as soon as I find it. Some excellent protein combinations are macaroni and cheese (or macaroni and soy cheese if you choose to stay vegan or go back to being vegan) and beans and rice, which you can easily put into a burrito or any Mexican dish. Tofu is definitely a good (and versatile) source of protein. You can put that (and nuts) into stir fries, salads, or soups to build up your protein intake. You may also want to look into protein-fortified soy meats (try Quorn chicken), cooking oils, or energy bars (they have TONS of protein, vitamins, and minerals per bar). | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 7/13/2008 2:46:59 PM | Satx78218, with regards to Frances Moore Lappe's work, I just wanted to point out that she herself has long-since recanted on the necessity of combining different proteins. Do a Google search for "protein myth Lappe" and you'll find numerous articles about this. The general consensus these days is that eating a varied diet rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains and legumes is more than enough to satisfy people's protein requirements (which are incredibly low, actually -- PCRM has a great article on this on its website, in case you're interested).
Im the 10th anniversary edition of Diet For a Small Planet (1982), Lappe admitted that she was being overly conservative at the time to avoid criticism from nutritionists and that she regrets putting emphasis on it in retrospect, since it's now known that it's in fact unnecessary. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 7/13/2008 4:03:35 PM | "Chlorella is a complete food that provides sustenance to each and every cell in your body. It contains all eight essential amino acids and is rich in vitamin B12, beta carotene, minerals, anti-oxidants, DNA/RNA, enzymes, fiber, essential fatty acids, chlorophyll, and Chlorella Growth Factor (CGF). "
source:
http://www.vistamagonline.com/articles/page.php?tp=4&p=1&id=34&s=chlorella_-_the_perfect_green_food_for_your_health
who says we have to eat meat to get all the amino acids? rubbhish | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 7/13/2008 5:27:55 PM | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/benefits-of-vegetarianism_n_112431.html
The qualification is that nutrition is very complex and extremely difficult to study.
But looking around at your average overweight/obese American inflicting themselves with avoidable diseases, you just know something is horribly, horribly wrong. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 7/14/2008 10:35:08 PM | The general consensus these days is that eating a varied diet rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains and legumes is more than enough to satisfy people's protein requirements
BINGO!
From a physiological perspective, Q is defined as amino acid turnover. Nitrogen balance is where Q is stable and that point for most people is about 35 grams of protein per day, a little over one ounce. | |
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| Can you get all the amino acids on a vegetarian diet?
Posted: 7/15/2008 12:09:42 AM | I've been a vegetarian for a long time now and I've never had a problem... but I've had friends that had some issues, mostly women. The common factor amongst those with issues seemed to be that they were never really vegetarians... they became pasta-tarians and soy-tarians... eating loads of those processed 'faux' meat products rather than a widely varied range of veggies.
I don't think you can pull of the vegetarian thing if you don't like eating vegetables... lots of different kinds... raw as well as cooked. | |
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