Among the critical nutrients in vegan diets are proteins, to which we must pay special attention to prevent their deficit and guarantee their presence in both quantity and quality. Therefore, we show you How To Get Quality Protein From A Vegan Diet By Combining Foods, And 15 Recipes That Offer It.
What is a high quality protein
We call quality proteins, complete protein as well as high biological value, those that They offer all the essential amino acids. That is, they provide all those amino acids that the body requires to build a new protein.
There are certain amino acids that the body can only obtain through food and it is those that we must prioritize in our usual diet.
Foods of animal origin offer all the essential amino acids and provide complete and high-quality proteins or high biological value, whereas the same does not happen in the case of plant-based proteins.
How to get high-quality protein in vegan dishes
We can find many foods of plant origin rich in proteins, but in all cases there is always some essential amino acid that is not present in insufficient quantities, that is, it is a limiting amino acid.
The good news is that the diet is considered as a whole and therefore, we can combine plant foods in such a way that amino acids found in insufficient proportions in one food are provided by another; and thus we obtain all the essential amino acids.
Complementary proteins or how to obtain quality proteins by combining foods
By combining food we can get all essential amino acids present on a plate or in the daily diet when we eat a vegan diet.
For this we must know that, just as legumes are deficient in methionine, cystine and tryptophan, cereals offer high levels of these amino acids and that is why they are complementary proteins.
Thus, some vegetable proteins that are complementary are:
- Cereals and legumes
- Legumes with nuts and seeds
- Whole grains with mushrooms, greens and vegetables
- Cereals with nuts and seeds
Combining the complementary proteins in the usual diet, without having to combine them in the same dish, we will obtain the amino acids that the body needs to build a new protein or what is the same, we will achieve a high quality protein in vegan diets.
It is important to clarify that unlike other legumes, Soy is the one with the best amino acid profile and the highest quality of proteins.Therefore, it is a legume that we can use alone or in combination with cereals to obtain all the essential amino acids.
The best vegan dishes for quality protein
Taking into account the amino acid profile of different foods with vegetable proteins and the possible combination with other ingredients, we leave the following vegan recipes for quality protein:
This is how you can achieve quality protein in a vegan diet by combining foods, and we leave 15 recipes that offer them.
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