5 Things You Need to Know About the Effect of Protein on the Body

1. Reasons for Eating Protein

Many associate strength and meat with protein. As a result, they consume large amounts of meat protein to build their muscles, but their thinking is only partly correct. Protein is a vital structural and working substance in all cells throughout your body, not just muscle cells. Meat is a good source of protein, but so are eggs, milk, legumes and many whole grains and vegetables. Protein is important because it is one of the nutrients required to maintain a healthy body.

2. The Role of Protein in the Body

As your body is growing, repairing, or replacing tissue, proteins are involved. At times, protein is responsible to facilitate or regulate; at other times, protein becomes part of a structure. Proteins are one of the most versatile nutrients that the body uses and one of the many uses of protein in the body are found in the growth and maintenance of the body. For example, proteins form the primary parts of most body structures such as skin, tendons, membranes, muscles, organs, and bones, and support the growth and repair of body tissues.

3. What Do Non-Essential and Essential Amino Acids Have to Do With Protein?

More than half of the amino acids are known as non-essential. These are amino acids that the body is able to produce for itself. Foods can deliver these amino acids, but it is not essential that they do, since the body is able to produce them. And your body is able to produce non-essential amino acids as long as the body has the nitrogen form of the amino group and fragments from carbohydrate and fat to shape the rest of the structure. The other amino acids are known as the essential amino acids. These are amino acids that the body is unable to produce in amounts needed to meet the body's requirements. There are nine of these essential amino acids that must be supplied by your diet.

4. Importance of Complete Proteins

Complete proteins contain all the essential amino acids in the relative amounts which your body requires, but it may or may not contain all the non-essential amino acids. Generally, proteins derived from animal sources are complete proteins, but in comparison to plant protein sources, which have a more diverse amino acid pattern, they tend to be limited in one or more essential amino acids.

5. If Meat Is not a part of the Diet, Look for Complementary Proteins

Plant proteins are of lower quality than animal proteins and, for many vegetarians, it is easy to get quality proteins in their diets by combining plant-protein foods that have different, but complementary amino-acid patterns. This approach is known as mutual supplementation--the combining of two protein foods in a meal so that each food provides the essential amino acid(s) lacking in the other. Doing so yields complementary proteins that contain all the essential amino acids in quantities that are sufficient to support the body's protein needs. For example, consuming a meal of black beans over wild rice provide you with two complementary proteins that contain the essential amino acids lacking in the other.