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With all the talk on how you can or cannot grow with 1g of protein per lb of body wieght I thought clear some things up.
The body cannot use the protein you ingest for muscle building unless all of the necessary amino acids are present. However, the body itself can produce only some of these amino acids. The others, called essential amino acids , have to be obtained from other foods you eat.
Protein is made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen(as are other macronutrients) and one more element none of the other nutrients have - nitrogen. If you ever hear somebody talking baout being in positive nitrogen balance or negative nitrogen balance what they are referring to is whether they are in an anabolic state-able to build muscle-or in a catabolic one- losing muscle.
Sine foods contain what is called complete protein- that is, they provide all the amino acids necessary to produce usable protein. Examples of these foods are milk, eggds, meat, fish, and various vegetable products such as soybeans. But even these foods contain differing amounts of usable protein per wieght. That is, even though a food might contain, say, 10 grams of protein, your body is only able to use a certain percentage of it, for example only 7 or 8.5 grams.
Heres some foods and their protein makeup and how much of that protein your body can use to build muscle.
Food/% Protein by wieght/% Net protein utilization
Eggs / 12 / 94
Milk / 4 / 82
Fish / 18-25 / 80
Cheese / 22-36 / 70
Brown Rice / 8 / 70
Meat and Fowl / 19-31 / 68
Soybean Flour / 42 / 61
(Whey, a milk derivative, which is a refined product, has even more net protein than eggs)
This chart tells us , for example, that an egg contains only 12 percent protein by wieght. Yet because of the specific balance of amino acids present in that protein, 94 percent of it can be used by your body. In contrast, 42 percent of soybean flour is protein, but the makeup of that protein is such that your body is able to use only 61 percent of it. So there is a big difference between how much protein a food contains and how much of that protein you can actually use to build muscle.
Eggs are such a good source of quality protein that they are used as a basis of comparison in the ratinf of protein quality of other foods, with eggds given an arbitrary value of a "perfect" 100.
Food / Protein Rating
Eggs(whole) / 100
Fish / 70
Lean beef / 69
Cow's Milk / 60
Brown Rice / 57
White Rice / 56
Soybeans / 47
Whole-gran wheat / 44
Peanuts / 43
Dry Beans / 34
White Patato / 34
Incidentally, notice that I have given you the value of whole eggs. It is fashionable to eat only egg whites nowadays because the yolk contains some fat and the egg white does not. However, I never do this. The yolk actually contains as much protein as the egg white, as well as the majority of the vitamins and minerals.
Going back to the list, you can see that foods like rice, patatos, and beans give you considerably less usable protein than eggs of fish. the reason is they have some, but too few, of the essential amino acids that are required for complete protein. You can, however, combine two or more sources of this low-quality ( incomplete) protein to obtain high- quality, complete protien. That is, one food lacks certain aminos that are supplied by the other good, so in combination they give you what you need. Having incomplete protein is like trying to play a baseball game with eighteen players, five of whom are pitchers and three catchers. It doesn't matter that there are eighteen players because the two teams are incomplete.
This need to assemble a complete "team" of amino acids means that adding just a small amount of the right food to your eating plan can make a big difference. To continue the baseball analogy, suppose you have seventy-two players ready to play baseball, but none of them can play first base. Then suppose you recruit just nine additional players - all first basemen. Now instead of seventy-two athletes standing around able to do nothing, you suddenly have nine complete baseball teams ready to take the field. Thats the same thing that happends when you have a lot of incomplete sets of amino acids and add just a few of the ones that are necessary to allow the body to build additional muscle mass.
Combining incomplete protein in this way is useful because it usually involves eating foods that are relatively low in fat, thus contain fewer calories than many common complete protein sources. When you are trying to build maximum muscle mass with as little body fat as possible, this can be a great advantage.
As I said, since each of the sources of incomplete protein lacks certain amino acids, you need to be very specific in your food combinations in order to end up with complete protein.
Grains plus Seeds
Breads with added seed meals
Breads with sesame or sunflower spread
Rice with sesame seeds
Grains plus Milk Products
Cereal with milk
Pasta with milk or cheese
Bread with milk or cheese
Grains plus Legumes
Rice and beans
Wheat bread and baked beans
Corn soy or wheat-soy bread
Legume soup with bread
GET BIG!
The body cannot use the protein you ingest for muscle building unless all of the necessary amino acids are present. However, the body itself can produce only some of these amino acids. The others, called essential amino acids , have to be obtained from other foods you eat.
Protein is made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen(as are other macronutrients) and one more element none of the other nutrients have - nitrogen. If you ever hear somebody talking baout being in positive nitrogen balance or negative nitrogen balance what they are referring to is whether they are in an anabolic state-able to build muscle-or in a catabolic one- losing muscle.
Sine foods contain what is called complete protein- that is, they provide all the amino acids necessary to produce usable protein. Examples of these foods are milk, eggds, meat, fish, and various vegetable products such as soybeans. But even these foods contain differing amounts of usable protein per wieght. That is, even though a food might contain, say, 10 grams of protein, your body is only able to use a certain percentage of it, for example only 7 or 8.5 grams.
Heres some foods and their protein makeup and how much of that protein your body can use to build muscle.
Food/% Protein by wieght/% Net protein utilization
Eggs / 12 / 94
Milk / 4 / 82
Fish / 18-25 / 80
Cheese / 22-36 / 70
Brown Rice / 8 / 70
Meat and Fowl / 19-31 / 68
Soybean Flour / 42 / 61
(Whey, a milk derivative, which is a refined product, has even more net protein than eggs)
This chart tells us , for example, that an egg contains only 12 percent protein by wieght. Yet because of the specific balance of amino acids present in that protein, 94 percent of it can be used by your body. In contrast, 42 percent of soybean flour is protein, but the makeup of that protein is such that your body is able to use only 61 percent of it. So there is a big difference between how much protein a food contains and how much of that protein you can actually use to build muscle.
Eggs are such a good source of quality protein that they are used as a basis of comparison in the ratinf of protein quality of other foods, with eggds given an arbitrary value of a "perfect" 100.
Food / Protein Rating
Eggs(whole) / 100
Fish / 70
Lean beef / 69
Cow's Milk / 60
Brown Rice / 57
White Rice / 56
Soybeans / 47
Whole-gran wheat / 44
Peanuts / 43
Dry Beans / 34
White Patato / 34
Incidentally, notice that I have given you the value of whole eggs. It is fashionable to eat only egg whites nowadays because the yolk contains some fat and the egg white does not. However, I never do this. The yolk actually contains as much protein as the egg white, as well as the majority of the vitamins and minerals.
Going back to the list, you can see that foods like rice, patatos, and beans give you considerably less usable protein than eggs of fish. the reason is they have some, but too few, of the essential amino acids that are required for complete protein. You can, however, combine two or more sources of this low-quality ( incomplete) protein to obtain high- quality, complete protien. That is, one food lacks certain aminos that are supplied by the other good, so in combination they give you what you need. Having incomplete protein is like trying to play a baseball game with eighteen players, five of whom are pitchers and three catchers. It doesn't matter that there are eighteen players because the two teams are incomplete.
This need to assemble a complete "team" of amino acids means that adding just a small amount of the right food to your eating plan can make a big difference. To continue the baseball analogy, suppose you have seventy-two players ready to play baseball, but none of them can play first base. Then suppose you recruit just nine additional players - all first basemen. Now instead of seventy-two athletes standing around able to do nothing, you suddenly have nine complete baseball teams ready to take the field. Thats the same thing that happends when you have a lot of incomplete sets of amino acids and add just a few of the ones that are necessary to allow the body to build additional muscle mass.
Combining incomplete protein in this way is useful because it usually involves eating foods that are relatively low in fat, thus contain fewer calories than many common complete protein sources. When you are trying to build maximum muscle mass with as little body fat as possible, this can be a great advantage.
As I said, since each of the sources of incomplete protein lacks certain amino acids, you need to be very specific in your food combinations in order to end up with complete protein.
Grains plus Seeds
Breads with added seed meals
Breads with sesame or sunflower spread
Rice with sesame seeds
Grains plus Milk Products
Cereal with milk
Pasta with milk or cheese
Bread with milk or cheese
Grains plus Legumes
Rice and beans
Wheat bread and baked beans
Corn soy or wheat-soy bread
Legume soup with bread
GET BIG!
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