Unless you’ve been living in the middle of nowhere, I’m sure you’ve been privy to the explosion of protein, protein, protein!! You must have more of it to help you lose weight, to keep you active, yada yada yada. Okay, yes. Protein is super, duper important but you must have also heard about amino acids, yes?
This is a particularly touchy conversation between meat eaters, vegetarians, and vegans. “But, where do you get your protein?” is usually the go-to question posed by meat eaters. Over the years, many vegans and vegetarians have come up with answers ranging from straight up scientific to some pretty disarmingly funny ones (“Same place the cow you ate got its protein” is one of my favorites.)
Truth is, every living organism has protein or amino acids. Animal products have complete proteins while plant products, for the most part, have pieces of proteins called amino acids. Amino acids have to be eaten with other amino acids (think of a spring salad with raw veggies on top, sprinkled with walnuts, and drizzled with a peanut based dressing) to come together and create a complete protein. All of this with the exception of the following plants, which have complete proteins:
- hemp seeds
- quinoa
- buckwheat
- soybeans (including tofu and tempeh)
- pumpkin seeds
So, why should you care if plants have protein or not? Thinking it’s just easier to eat a 
steak and get your protein that way? Plants also have phytonutrients that meat (including chicken and fish) do not have. These phytonutrients come backed with a lot of science to show how beneficial they are to good health and longer healthspans. And, yes, we do need a certain amount of protein everyday because our bodies use it for a good deal of processes in our bodies, from building/repairing tissues, to making hormones and enzymes, etc. Generally speaking, 20 to 25 percent of your daily food intake should be protein or a combination of amino acids to build those proteins.
After Thought: More like “Random Thought” but not sure if this is scientific or not… if your body has to build the proteins from plant amino acids, doesn’t that burn even more calories? I might go look into that now or I can just believe that and think that helps my body keep up its edge 😀
Hart Health 