Trying to get information about your diet online, you often hear conflicting opinions. Many preach that animal foods are the only way to get quality protein, elsewhere they hear that meat is bad and we should only eat plant foods, others will read that we should consume a lot of fat because it seems to have magical benefits for our health and corresponding similar, extreme views. Since a lot is heard about proteins and essential amino acids, today I would like to clarify in your mind once and for all the concept of quality and complete protein.
As I have said repeatedly I am not here to prove to anyone that there is a way of eating that is ideal for everyone. I believe that ideal nutrition is individualized to each of us and that is the most important part of my job when I work with patients and clients to help them with their nutrition. One of the questions I hear all the time is whether plant foods have quality and complete protein.
In a previous video I have explained that the concept of complete protein is completely unfounded and completely unscientific. There are no supplemental proteins and the proteins found in plant foods are super complete.

The other misconception I often hear is that only meat has quality protein because it contains essential amino acids. This is not the case because plant foods also contain essential amino acids. In order not to remain in theory, however, I would like to show you the essential amino acid content of some plant foods and compare them with the corresponding content in animal foods.
In the table we are looking at right now, representative foods from each food group are shown on the left. The horizontal axis shows the percentage content of the 20 amino acids. On the left are the essential amino acids and on the right are the nonessential amino acids. I have drawn a red line showing the maximum content of essential amino acids found in animal products. Let's see what conclusions we can draw from this table.
First conclusion is that all foods contain all 9 essential amino acids. Even in rice, which many say does not contain complete protein, this is not the case, because rice has all 9 essential amino acids. So, rice does not contain incomplete protein. No other food has less than the 9 essential amino acids. Even blueberries, which have very few essential amino acids in quantity, contain all 9 essential amino acids. So put the concepts of incomplete and complete proteins out of your mind. The second conclusion is that almost all plant foods contain many essential amino acids. Let's look at some examples:

• Legumes contain protein whose content of essential amino acids varies between 40 and 42%. This is shown by the vertical black line I have drawn. This percentage in animal feed with the highest content of essential amino acids is 42 to 44%. The difference really is negligible! So it is silly to say that legumes are inferior in protein quality compared to animal foods.
•However, even vegetables are not as lacking in protein quality as some people try to convince you. Beans, carrots and lettuce reach 40% in percentage of essential amino acids, i.e. a breath from the 42 to 44% that are animal foods, while potatoes, or sweet potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower exceed 36% . they are not that far from 42%.
•Also, the very high content of essential amino acids that mushrooms have is confirmed, which is 42% that is, as much as animal foods.
And finally, even fruits, which those who have not sat down to look for it as I have, consider that they do not have quality proteins, will be surprised to see that the content of essential amino acids in some fruits such as banana and mango exceeds 40 %. But even those that have few essential amino acids their content exceeds 30 to 35%. In other words, we cannot say that this difference is unbridgeable in relation to animal foods.
Overall we can say that several plant foods have a similar content of essential amino acids as animal foods, and those that do not have such a high content fall short by only 10 to 20%.
Although we have seen that animal foods have a similar content of essential amino acids to plant foods, they have one big difference: plant foods do not contain any cholesterolraising saturated fats. However, not all plant foods are equally beneficial in reducing cholesterol. In the video now showing to my right I explain to you which foods lower cholesterol and I think it's worth watching. Thank you very much.