vProtein is designed to help people identify plant based protien combinations that optimally satisfy human nutritional needs.

Below are the answers to some commonly asked questions about vProtein. If you don't see what you are looking for here, contact us at pwoolf@foodwiki.com.

FAQ

What are vProtein's recommendations based on?

The analysis done in vProtein is based on two data resources: the USDA sr22 nutritional database and the US National Institute of Medicine recommendations for essential amino acid profiles.

The USDA sr22 database is the standard nutritional reference produced by United States department of agriculture. This database contains data on over 100 nutrients in more than 10,000 foods. In vProtein we limit the analysis to only plant based foods that have complete amino acid profile measurements.

US National Institute of Medicine recommendations for essential amino acid profiles provide the basis for the daily recommend intake values commonly seen on food labels. These profiles represent a consensus view of extensive peer-reviewed research on human nutrition.

Details of the methods used to construct this site and a summary of some of the analysis results are published in PLoS ONE:
"vProtein: Identifying Optimal Amino Acid Complements from Plant-Based Foods "

Why isn't my food included in the list?

The foods that are listed on the site had to satisfy the following criteria:

• The food had to be present in the USDA sr22 database
• The food had to have essential amino acid measurements
• The food had to contain only plant based foods

In most cases, this limited the foods to single foods instead of mixtures, although there are some exceptions such as hummus.

What is the difference between minimize total calories, maximize efficiency, and minimize total weight? How do I choose?

When choosing a food pair, you can choose to see the top 100 foods that minimize or maximize some feature of the combination. The choices are:

• minimize total calories: Combinations that minimize total calories will identify both foods and ratios that minimize the total number of calories in the combination while still satisfying the protein requirement. This option will tend to select foods that are low calorie and protein dense.
Select this option if you are trying to loose weight.

• maximize efficiency: Combinations that maximize efficiency will identify both foods and ratios that maximize the efficiency with which the body can use the available essential amino acids. This option does not discriminate based on the total quantity or calories of food, so it will sometimes suggest novel but impractical combinations, depending on your appetite.
Select this option if you want to tightly control your protein intake.

• minimize total weight: Combinations that minimize total weight will identify both foods and ratios that minimize the total mass the combination while still satisfying the protein requirement. This option will tend to select foods that are physically light and protein dense, such as dried foods.
Select this option if you are backpacking.

How do I know how much protein to choose?

How much protein you want depends on who you are.

The recommended daily allowance for adults ages 19-50 is 0.8 g/kg/day or approximately 56 g/day of protein.

More recently, some have argued that this estimate is too low and humans need significantly more protein. These higher estimates put human needs between 1.4-2 g/kg/day or between 100 and 140 g/day

On a per-meal perspective, it has been suggested that meals containing between 25-30 grams of protein maximize muscle synthesis.

To put these values in perspective, one large egg contains 6 grams of high quality protein, while one roasted chicken breast contains 29 grams of protein.

How do I find out which amino acid is limiting in a particular combination?

After each food combination there is a chart icon chart icon that you can click to see the normalized amino acid profile of the food.

This normalized profile shows you how much of each essential amino acid the food or combination has relative to the amino acid requirement. A value of 1.0 indicates that the amino acid is limiting in this condition as it satisfies just the minimum requirement.

Wow! Some of these combinations are neat! How can I comment on them?

After each food combination there is a bubble icon feeback icon that you can click to make a comment on the food. If the icon is orange feeback icon, then someone else has made comments on the food already. To see all of the foods with comments click here.

How can I cite the material in this website?

Details of the methods used to construct this site and a summary of some of the analysis results are published in PLoS ONE:
"vProtein: Identifying Optimal Amino Acid Complements from Plant-Based Foods "

If you would like to cite vProtein, here is the full citation:

Woolf PJ, Fu LL, Basu A, 2011 vProtein: Identifying Optimal Amino Acid Complements from Plant-Based Foods. PLoS ONE 6(4): e18836. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018836

Why are you doing this?

We created this site to provide a science-based way to evaluate the protein quality of different foods.

All too often, we have heard people say that some plant-based foods are incomplete, or lack one or more essential amino acids. Based on this information, many people then just avoid this food because the food sounds nutritionally useless.

Alternatively, we have heard some people say that foods such as amaranth or quinoa are superior because they contain all of the essential amino acids. Based on this information, some people eat exclusively these foods. While these so called complete foods are great (I eat them all the time), there are many other foods and food combinations that are nearly as good or better.

In truth, all foods contain at least some quantity of all of amino acids, but not always in the proportion that we need. vProtein provides a way to explore these combiantions based on your own preferences.

How can I submit an idea of how to make the site better?

We are always looking for ways to improve the site. If you have any ideas, please click the link "Feedback?" in the upper right of the page.