Do you understand the essential amino acids?

[90802]

If so, please do help!

You see, I've been exercising and want to increase my protein intake. I'd like to get to 150-200 mg a day.

However, there is one problem.

I don't eat meat.

But I do rather enjoy a tasty meat alternative called seitan. It's wheat based, so it's low in lysine.

In what I know about the complete proteins, beans are a great complement to wheat.

The thing is,I can't eat enough beans to match seitan in protein (seitan is about 80% protein).

So, I did some searching and found that there are lysine supplements (called L lysine).

Instead of overdosing on beans, could I take a pill supplement? How much would I need to take to make the seitan a complete protein?

Man, I hope someone here can answer this!

Thanks for reading

[ginkgo]

"You see, I've been exercising and want to increase my protein intake. I'd like to get to 150-200 mg a day."

200 mg is 1/5th of a gram. There are 28 grams in an ounce so you want to increase your protein intake by 1/150th of an ounce. That is a tiny speck. I can do that too. I would like to increase my income by 3 cents a day.

All foods have complete protein. You are looking to get it closer to a perfect ratio. No food has the perfect ratio of amino acids. But eggs are closer to it than anything. Acai berries has the same ratio as eggs.

Here are foods high in lysine:

Foods High in Lysine

Like potato, asparagus, corn, peanuts, walnuts and cashews.

[90802]

Damn typos!!

150-200 grams a day.

Currently get around 100-125 a day.

Yup, looking to get a more perfect ratio. I know other foods can help balance it out, but I really can't handle that many beans

[ssandra]

Have you looked into protein shakes?

Sorry can't help you with the other question, cause I don't understand much about it . But protein shakes, as well as eating more eggs might help.

[russianrocket]

That gluten laden seiten is some nasty stuff.

[scorpio1980]

Go with hemp seeds and eggs for the win.

[kat]

Green The Methionine + Lysine Complete Protein Cheat Sheet has some good lists of vegan sources of lysine and methionine.

I second the suggestions of hemp. I find adding hemp protein powder to smoothies to be one of the easiest ways to drastically increase my protein intake as a vegan. Hemp has all of the essential amino acids, but the ratios aren't entirely ideal (tryptophan is the limiting one). There are several commercial mixtures which correct for this - most seem to contain hemp, rice, and pea protein.

Russianrocket also has a point, although he put it rather abrasively. A high percentage of people don't tolerate gluten well, and I'm yet to hear of anyone who thrives on huge amounts of processed wheat in any form. Eating a bit of it won't kill you, but it's probably not wise to make it a huge part of your diet.

Good luck.

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by kat

Green The Methionine + Lysine Complete Protein Cheat Sheet has some good lists of vegan sources of lysine and methionine.

I second the suggestions of hemp. I find adding hemp protein powder to smoothies to be one of the easiest ways to drastically increase my protein intake as a vegan. Hemp has all of the essential amino acids, but the ratios aren't entirely ideal (tryptophan is the limiting one). There are several commercial mixtures which correct for this - most seem to contain hemp, rice, and pea protein.

Russianrocket also has a point, although he put it rather abrasively. A high percentage of people don't tolerate gluten well, and I'm yet to hear of anyone who thrives on huge amounts of processed wheat in any form. Eating a bit of it won't kill you, but it's probably not wise to make it a huge part of your diet.

Good luck.

I don't know if it's abrasive, as it was directed towards the item, and not towards the OP. it's nasty stuff to be having as a major part of your diet. Truth is truth. I'm also one who doesn't think processed foods are wise to eat in the first place.

[kat]

Originally Posted by russianrocket

I don't know if it's abrasive, as it was directed towards the item, and not towards the OP. it's nasty stuff to be having as a major part of your diet. Truth is truth.

Abrasion and truth are orthogonal. Abrasion is about style of delivery, not the truth content of what you say, or what it is directed at. Being right does not preclude being abrasive.

Originally Posted by russianrocket

I'm also one who doesn't think processed foods are wise to eat in the first place.

It's a matter of degree. I'll keep peeling my bananas, and if I ate beef, I'd remove the hair before trying to digest it.

That said, we agree that highly-processed foods aren't a great idea, even if we'd probably disagree on some details.

And some foods, like wheat, don't seem to be particularly healthy unless you compare them with alternatives like chronically getting insufficient calories, but I digress...

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by kat

Abrasion and truth are orthogonal. Abrasion is about style of delivery, not the truth content of what you say, or what it is directed at. Being right does not preclude being abrasive.



It's a matter of degree. I'll keep peeling my bananas, and if I ate beef, I'd remove the hair before trying to digest it.

That said, we agree that highly-processed foods aren't a great idea, even if we'd probably disagree on some details.

And some foods, like wheat, don't seem to be particularly healthy unless you compare them with alternatives like chronically getting insufficient calories, but I digress...

Using the word nasty? It's just a word. I can use any word and people can take it personally and feel that it's abrasive. But it gets the point across much better then " not so nice poopy headed meany stuff" lol.

Now, degree is one thing, but you are just playing with semantics, when you know just what I meant by processed food. Processed is taking one type of food and transforming it into another form. No one would bring up bananas when talking about processing food by peeling it. That's just called preparing food. Again, nothing but mere semantics that's not necessary in this conversation.

Now, when you are including normally inedible food processed into edible, then we get into the highly processed foods that we'd agree isn't healthy for anyone and I really doubt we'd disagree on very much when it comes to processed foods being unhealthy. At least, not AS healthy as non processed foods.

[kat]

Originally Posted by russianrocket

Using the word nasty? It's just a word. I can use any word and people can take it personally and feel that it's abrasive. But it gets the point across much better then " not so nice poopy headed meany stuff" lol.

"I like bananas" "Eww, bananas are nasty" is an abrasive way of interaction, compared to "I like bananas", "Hm. Check out this research saying that they cause problem X, Y, and Z.", assuming that you have a reason to raise health information in reply to a simple statement of food preferences -- doing so is, in and of itself, abrasive in many social contexts.

I don't take it personally in the slightest.

How well a point comes across and abrasion are also (almost) orthogonal.

You seem to be confusing personally insulting comments with abrasive ones, but those too are orthogonal (sick of the word yet? )

You, like everyone else, are free to express your points in any way that you want to. Personally, though, I think you often have interesting things to say, and I find it a pity when your delivery subtracts from your content.

Originally Posted by russianrocket

Now, degree is one thing, but you are just playing with semantics, when you know just what I meant by processed food. Processed is taking one type of food and transforming it into another form. No one would bring up bananas when talking about processing food by peeling it. That's just called preparing food. Again, nothing but mere semantics that's not necessary in this conversation.

No, I probably don't know just what you meant; this is an area where it is very easy for two people to use exactly the same words and mean rather different things. My example was intentionally extreme, and my intent isn't to play semantics, though I can see how it could come across that way.

Photosynthesis, or the sheer act of transforming plants into meat via having an animal eat and digest them are pretty radical forms of processing, but a world lacking either would be a world without humans.

Originally Posted by russianrocket

Now, when you are including normally inedible food processed into edible, then we get into the highly processed foods that we'd agree isn't healthy for anyone and I really doubt we'd disagree on very much when it comes to processed foods being unhealthy. At least, not AS healthy as non processed foods.

Here we have an area of disagreement. I don't consider cooked kidney beans to be highly processed, or particularly unhealthy, for example, even though raw kidney beans are poisonous. And I'd gladly eat them instead of any number of raw but dangerous foods, such as any contaminated with a particularly virulent strain of E. coli.

I don't think there's anything magically good or bad about processing food. I simply think that humans have evolved to do tolerably well on what's available, and that the state of nutritional science is nowhere near a place where we can even assess what we're doing wrong when we try to process stuff.

I suspect that where we actually agree is more limited to examples such as "items on the shelves in supermarkets with shelve lives of years and ingredient lists consisting primarily of white flour, processed sugar, and hydrogenated oils are a really bad idea", and a pragmatic agreement that we're better off eating relatively 'whole' foods, though we partially disagree about which.

[90802]

Ok, I found the information I need, thanks for playing.

Kat and Russianrocket, feel free to continue w/o me

[firenexx]

WOW, this thread got ridiculous pretty quick. If my opinion counts, I think russianrocket made his point about seitan in an effective manner. I would have said the same thing.

Anyways, I second the bit about hemp protein powder, and also pea and rice protein. However, be wary of protein shake products that are pre-mixed - they tend to contain loads of corn sweeteners, preservatives, texturizers, and other crap that is not for human consumption.
I prefer to make a fruit smoothie and add my protein powder to it - protein powder being pure hemp, pea, or rice protein, not some drugstore concoction with WHEY in big, scary, armor-claden letters on it with fire around it and pictures of ripped guys on the label. (Next time you're at a chain drugstore or supermarket you'll see these in the diet/supplement aisle and you will laugh)

[LoveConsciousness]

Hemp oil/seed, beans, almonds, kale and other dark leafy greens, chia seed, and any other nuts and seeds.

And don't worry about protein too much. A lot of the mainstream beliefs about getting as much protein as your bodyweight is simply not true. There are bodybuilding vegans who only get 50-100g of protein a day and they look fantastic!

Peace

[firenexx]

Ooh don't say that around here, you'll get people posting pictures of stick figures and saying stuff like "Yeah, low-protein is ok if you want the skinny man look and aren't actually a body-builder! You need 5g of protein per gram of bodyweight and creatine supplements if you want to get anywhere!"

[LoveConsciousness]

Lol that's fine, people can think as they please. I personally don't want to build massive muscles and ruin my health, so I stick to raw foods. And even if you do want to build muscle mass, you can do so on a raw food vegan diet...just check out this guy for example.

YouTube - ‪RawFoodMuscle's Channel‬‏

And plus I thought the protein myth was well known? You dont want animal protein because your body uses a lot more effort and energy breaking it down and getting it into a useful form. You want plant based amino acids and let your body create it's own protein. When you eat a piece of chicken, you are consuming the proteins that the chicken made itselfs from it's food and so your digestive system has to break all that down and then rebuild the protein for your body. With the amino acids from the plants, it's much easier on your digestive system and you naturally create your own protein. So when you know which raw foods to build that protein, you don't need to eat all that meat and take all the creatine and supplements. The only reason you would ever need to take a supplement like that is if you want to get unnaturally huge and you aren't focused on your health, but on looks.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by firenexx

Ooh don't say that around here, you'll get people posting pictures of stick figures and saying stuff like "Yeah, low-protein is ok if you want the skinny man look and aren't actually a body-builder! You need 5g of protein per gram of bodyweight and creatine supplements if you want to get anywhere!"

Yes do not be saying that around here. Like said above a 150 pound bodybuilder needs to eat his 750 pounds of protein per day! He would get too skinny if he only got 500 pounds of protein per day!

To convert things you can use conversion factors and pounds divided by pounds cancels out pounds. For example a 5 pound weight is multiplied by grams divided by pounds and you are left with grams. 5 pounds X 16 oz/1lb X 28 gm/1oz = 2,240 grams.

So a 100 lb man weighs 100lb X 16oz/1lb X 28 gm/1oz = 44,800 gm. So 5 times that is 224,000 gm. 224,000gm X 1oz/28gm X 1lb/16oz = 500 pounds. Or a simple way is that if a person needs 1 gm per gm of bodyweight then he needs 5 lb per lb of bodyweight. So a 100 lb man needs to consume 500 lb of protein per day!

[russianrocket]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Yes do not be saying that around here. Like said above a 150 pound bodybuilder needs to eat his 750 pounds of protein per day! He would get too skinny if he only got 500 pounds of protein per day!

To convert things you can use conversion factors and pounds divided by pounds cancels out pounds. For example a 5 pound weight is multiplied by grams divided by pounds and you are left with grams. 5 pounds X 16 oz/1lb X 28 gm/1oz = 2,240 grams.

So a 100 lb man weighs 100lb X 16oz/1lb X 28 gm/1oz = 44,800 gm. So 5 times that is 224,000 gm. 224,000gm X 1oz/28gm X 1lb/16oz = 500 pounds. Or a simple way is that if a person needs 1 gm per gm of bodyweight then he needs 5 lb per lb of bodyweight. So a 100 lb man needs to consume 500 lb of protein per day!

Oh enough already!

[ginkgo]

As far as the discussion above it is like soybeans and tofu. They have similar amounts of protein but when making the soybean into tofu, it loses most of its fiber. I love soybeans but tofu was created for a better and more flexible taste, not for health reasons. Unlike soybeans, tofu can be addictive. Tofu absorbs the flavors of spices.

So you can eat soybeans with a bunch of other foods. But if someone learns your tastes and fries up some tofu with spices like garlic, soy sauce and other spices and gave you, at a meal, more than you can eat, you would eat all that you could with no other foods. Then when you were full, you would eat more.

I used to live with 4 other vegetarians and we bought tofu only once in a while since we were too highly skilled at making it taste good! So we would buy like 20 pounds of it. We would fry some up and put it on 5 plates and eat it while more is being fried up with no side dishes of anything. We would continue doing this until the 20 pounds were gone at one meal. It was nuts! It was like a feeding frenzy with sharks!

Seitan is highly processed but its purpose is to taste good and similar to meat. So a guy with a steak sandwich restaurant makes it with seitan in place of steak. The purpose of most Americans with food is to eat what tastes best, not what is healthy. So seitan tastes great.

Also if you are against killing animals then you do not need to kill animals to make it. Plus it has 70% protein which is twice the amount of protein in meat for deluded people who imagine that they are not getting enough protein.

Have you ever eaten cake? You eat it because it tastes good not because it is healthy. Seitan tastes great and it is OK for vegans to eat just like jelly beans and pretzels.

As far as seitan being nasty, wheat is not that healthy and seitan is the wheat gluten that gives thousands of Americans severe problems. The funny thing is that if you sprout the wheat, it is no longer a grain and becomes healthy-- wheat grass. Please note that you do not eat the wheat grass but drink the juice of it.

[firenexx]

Sounds like ginkgo did some crazy things in his college days, binging on tofu and whatnot