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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: November 19th, 2023

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  • I’m neither a scientist nor a dietician, so if it’s important to you, you should definitely seek out some expert advice. But in very basic terms, as I understand it, you eat food. That food goes through the digestive process, which breaks that food down into its constituent parts. The very clever organs (like the liver) then send those parts off to the part of the body that needs that bit, and then it then gets utilized (assuming your body is functioning properly, of course).

    Put another way, your body isn’t analyzing your meal and saying, “hmmmm… we’re missing an amino acid, time to reject the whole shipment.” It’s doing its best with what it’s got. So when thinking about proteins, over the course of a day (and maybe even longer), your body is busy sending whatever amino acids you give it to wherever it needs to go, regardless of when it receives those amino acids. (That being said, I also think the body can handle only so much protein at any given time … so it’s all very complex.)


  • The “complete protein” directive has been shown to be a myth. You don’t need to eat all essential amino acids in the same meal. If throughout the day you’re getting your protein from a variety of sources, you’ll be fine.

    If you still want to meal prep with “complete protein” in mind, quinoa and soybeans (including tofu) have all essential amino acids.

    In short, though, eating a variety of plant-based foods (beans and legumes, grains, vegetables)will give you all the nutrients you need (B12 is an exception; plant-based eaters usually need to supplement and plant-based eaters with narrow diets need to think about other deficiencies; also see my caveat in the next sentence). If you eat dairy and/or meat, and you’re eating a varied diet, you also don’t need to be concerned about nutrients, unless you have an underlying condition that is keeping your body from absorbing nutrients properly. And then you’re going to need a medical team to help you with that.