New vegetarian here, I have a boring question about protein intake.
I've read that I should eat "a variety of foods" to get all the essential amino acids I need, but I find this a bit vague.
Are there any foods that contain all the amino acids needed? Does anyone have a list somewhere that says what foods contain what types of protein? I googled around but failed miserably to find anything. Any help or advice appreciated.
Posted Jul 17, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC
Soy also has a complete protein profile. Don't worry, as long as you're not doing something silly like eating nothing but asparagus, all your amino acids are going to be covered.
Yeah, you really don't have to worry much about it. I know 'a variety of foods' sounds vague, but that's pretty much all there is to it.
All but one essential amino acid are plentiful in fruit, vegetables, fungi, and grains. The remaining one, lysine, is in all sorts of legumes—soy, beans, peas, and lentils—, plus the 'whole proteins' like soy, kale, collards, quinoa, buckwheat, oats, and eggs and dairy if you're ovo-lacto-.
Really, so long as you include grains, vegetables, and legumes regularly in your diet, you'll be fine.
Rice and beans together contain all the amino acids. Soy, hemp, amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa, and spirulina are all complete in themselves.
Bragg's also makes a soy sauce alternative that is actually liquid amino acids. I use it in Asian-style dishes and on popcorn!
Quinoa has complete protein. A staple for me since starting vegetarian two years ago. You can also combine beans rice and get a complete protein.
You don't need a complete protein at every meal. If you eat rice on Monday and beans on Tuesday then your body will put it all together by the weekend.
Thanks that does make sense. I'll look into Quinoa.
Any suggestions on what kind of beans are good? I'm trying to build up a good stock of things :) I've used black beans and pinto beans the last two weeks, that all I know of beans at the moment.
I can't stand any beans besides black and garbanzo. So...if you're cool you'll start with those.
All kinds of beans are good!
I regularly use garbonzo beans (aka chickpeas) for many things (salads, hummus, felafel, mashed, roasted as crunchy snacks), red beans (chili, cajun or creole red beans), mung beans (salads, soups, sprouts), black beans (chili, refries, coconut rice, burger patties), pinto beans (chili and refries), and all sorts of whole lentils and split peas (I like whole brown or French green lentils for salads, stews, and mince beef replacements and split lentils or peas for soups like dal and split pea soup). Plus, those frozen sweet peas—they count, too, even though they're soft and green.