La Salut – Proteins

WHAT ARE PROTEINS?
The word protein comes from Greek and means first. As its name implies, proteins are essential, no protein, no life. If your body were a house the proteins would be the bricks and the replacement parts when it needed repair.
Proteins are the essential material from which we are built and are part of the structure of all tissues and have key activities throughout the body, from brain function to the formation of defences. Moreover, our body can use protein as fuel (energy source) when needed.
Almost all foods contain protein to a greater or lesser amount, but not all are considered high-protein foods. For example, fats (oils, margarine, etc.) contain no protein, and fruits and vegetables contain only trace amounts.
Dairy products are rich in protein but are classified as foods rich in calcium. The same applies to cereals, it is true that they have vegetable protein content but are noted for their high content of carbohydrates (sugars).
Foods rich in protein can be of vegetable or animal origin:
Proteins of animal origin: meat, fish, eggs and dairy. 
Vegetable protein: legumes, nuts, seeds and grains (especially whole grain). Moreover, one must take into account all derivatives of these foods such as tofu, veggie burgers, etc.
Given that in our body there is no reservoir of proteins and that there is a high turnover of proteins in organs and tissues (e.g., liver and intestinal mucous are regenerated in a few days), we can appreciate the importance of a daily supply of protein through food.
The protein intake should be split into three meals a day, because if you eat too much protein, it becomes fat, and excess nitrogen is excreted through the kidneys as urea and uric acid.
It is important to know where proteins are to learn how to eat better. Vegetarians have long practiced the complementation of proteins, because they reduce the consumption of animal protein (lactovegetarians) or even eliminate them completely from their diet (vegans).
This protein supplementation is to join two plant proteins (for example, a legume and cereal: beans on toast), or to pick a vegetable protein and animal protein (e.g. milk and cereal: cornflakes with milk).
For non-vegetarians it is interesting to know this to understand that there is no need to eat as many meats, fish, eggs and dairy products every day and still be well nourished. In industrialized countries there is an excessive intake of animal protein, so the current recommendation is that at least 50% of the protein foods we consume are of plant origin.
To understand how this complement of proteins works we have to imagine the proteins as if they were "words". These "words" consist of "letters" which are amino acids. Animal proteins have all the "letters and can form "complete words".
However, vegetable proteins were usually missing one or more "letters" (amino acids) and therefore are "incomplete words" (incomplete proteins). Nevertheless, proteins have the property of being able to complement each other, so that vegetable proteins (legumes, cereals, nuts) which need a "letter" can join with other vegetable or animal protein which has that missing " letter " and form a complete protein.
The following combinations of proteins are complete proteins that substitute perfectly for a steak:
o Vegetables & Cereals: lentils with rice, beans on toast
o Legumes + nuts / seeds: hummus, white beans with chopped almonds (picada catalana)
o Legumes + dairy: chickpea salad with fresh cheese o Nuts / seeds & cereals: muesli
o Nuts / seeds + milk: yogurt with nuts o Cereal + milk: rice pudding, bread and cheese
You need only add one further item to make better use of the nutrients and plant proteins to enable them to replace a steak. For example, a salad and a dish of lentils and rice are a perfectly balanced menu, however, to make it more complete you would have a salad with lemon dressing or eat a piece of fresh fruit, as well as fruit fresh lemons are rich in vitamin C.
Why do this? Vitamin C helps our body to absorb and make better use of the iron in lentils and vegetables. Foods high in animal protein (meat, fish …) have an "animal" iron that we can absorb without problem, so no need to add vitamin C, however it is necessary when we eat plant protein (legumes, nuts …).
A clear traditional example is humus; it is a puree of chickpeas with crushed sesame seeds (also known as tahini) with oil, garlic, salt and lemon. It’s perfect, nutritionally speaking, as it is a legume together with one seed, two incomplete plant proteins that lack a "letter" that together form a "word" or complete protein. In addition, lemon is added in order to better absorb the plant iron.
Recommendations:
FAO / WHO recommend a protein intake of between 12-15% of the total daily calories, of which at least 50% should be of plant origin (vegetables, nuts …).
How do you translate these many hundreds of protein and calories into real food?
How do you know how much and how often you eat these foods high in protein?
For simplicity we talk about daily food rations. The daily food recommendations by SENC (Spanish Society of Community Nutrition) for a healthy adult are 2 servings per day of meat, legumes and / or nuts.
One serving equals the following amounts of food, all weights are net (without bones, spines, shells, etc.):
1 serving of lean meat = 100-125 g
1 serving of white or oily fish = 125-150 g
1 serving of eggs = 2 eggs
1 serving of cooked legumes = 1 plate of 150-200 g (60-80 g raw)
1 serving of nuts = 20-30 g, unshelled
CONTINUED ON PAGE 19…

SENC weekly recommendations for a healthy adult:
Oily fish (mackerel, sardines, tuna, salmon …): 2 servings / week
White fish (hake, grouper, monkfish, cod …): 2 servings / week
Eggs: 3 or 4 a week
White meat (chicken, turkey, rabbit …): 2 servings / week
Red meat (beef, lamb, beef …): 1-2 servings / week
Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts …): 3-7 servings / week

Legumes: 2-4 servings / week
ARANCHA COROMINA DIETITIAN-NUTRITIONIST

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Posted by editor on 2010-03-01 Filed under March 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry