RE: specific amino acid restriction does the same thing as calorie restriction?

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sat Apr 19 2003 - 17:22:33 MDT

  • Next message: Harvey Newstrom: "(OFFLIST) RE: specific amino acid restriction does the same thing as calorie restriction?"

    I am intrigued with the idea that building new proteins is better than
    reusing old proteins. A vegetarian diet may do this more than a meat diet,
    and I have previously researched this issue to see if this was a good thing
    or a bad thing. My conclusion is that it was a good thing. But I had not
    considered the idea that new proteins may have less defects than old
    proteins. This sounds even better than what I had concluded.

    Here is a brief explanation of the difference between animal proteins and
    veggie proteins. Animal proteins are "complete" proteins in that they are
    constructed of aminos preformed into the exact ratios required to make
    flesh. Therefore it is perfect for human consumption and direct
    utilization. However, veggie proteins are "incomplete" proteins. They do
    not contain all the amino acids in animal flesh, but contain subsets of the
    "essential" aminos. The "essential" aminos are those that cannot be created
    in the body, but must be eaten. Vegetarians then have to create other
    "non-essential" aminos out of the "essential" ones. Then, vegetarians have
    to assemble the aminos to create new proteins to be utilized in the body.
    This is the big difference between vegetarian protein sources and animal
    protein sources.

    I had a lot of worry that having to build all my own proteins from scratch
    would be harder on my body. Older nutritional knowledge thought that
    vegetarians had to combine protein foods to make complete proteins in each
    meal. Later research showed that aminos last many days in the body so that
    food combining is not necessary. I also decided that it seemed better to
    build new proteins as they were needed instead of eating excess protein and
    storing it beyond what was actually required. This idea of new proteins
    being less damaged than older, reused proteins may be an added benefit for
    me. It adds more support to my personal choice to eat essential aminos over
    a lot of non-essential aminos or pre-formed complete proteins. 

    --
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC
<www.HarveyNewstrom.com>

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