Amino Acids: What are they, and why all the buzz?
To help explain what amino acids are I'm going to give the simple analogy of the English written language.
The English language is made up of 26 different letters; those letters are put in different combinations and lengths to assemble words. Those words than work together to build works of art like books, poems and even Facebook posts.
In this analogy, amino acids represent letters, proteins are words, and cells are books/poems/blogs.
There are 20 different amino acids that make up the human proteome (all the proteins our cells need to function properly, or all the words of the English language). These amino acids are assembled together in different combinations and lengths to build proteins, and finally those proteins work together to build our cells.
Just as in the English language many letters are used more than others, the human proteome requires more amino acids than others. I may be able to write a whole book without the letter "x," but struggle to write a simple post without the letter "e." Likewise, our body requires certain amino acids more abundantly than others. Unfortunately, in many cases our food chain is depleted of those amino, causing our bodies to try to craft a book without those valuable letters.
When we consume our protein shakes, eat our eggs, or any other protein source; what we are really consuming are the amino acids that assembled those respective proteins. We are metaphorically eating the "words" of the respective source, breaking them down into their basic letters, and reassembling those letters into the words our cells are needing.
So when people are referring to a "complete" protein they are referring to the amino acid profile those respective proteins offer. A complete protein offers all the amino acids our body can't provide on its own, or in other words, all the essential amino acids. These essential amino acids in turn give our body the ability to craft any protein that our cells see fit.
Where can one find complete proteins?
- Moringa oleifera
- Beef
- Milk
- Egg
- Soy
- Seafood
- Quinoa
