What Makes a Healthy Protein So Healthy?
Tuesday August 26, 2008
You might have read about good carbs vs. bad carbs and good fats vs. bad fats, but what about protein? Not so many articles talk about good proteins vs. bad proteins. That's probably because the proteins that are found in the foods you eat are all pretty similar. Your body will happily break most of the the proteins down into their tiniest components, which are then used to make new proteins in your body.
So what makes a protein source healthy? The fats that naturally accompany the protein and the cooking methods you use to prepare your them. So, baked salmon is a terrific protein source, but a fish stick isn't.
Not all of the best protein sources come from animals. Nuts, seeds and legumes, such a soybeans and dry beans are good protein sources too. Learn more about what makes a protein source healthy.
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Daily Nutrition TipPhoto © Mitch Hrdlicka / Getty Images
Comments
Greens are the best source of readily absorbable proteins/amino acids. The trick is you just have to eat enough of them.
Whether a protein is incomplete or not has become irrelevant as new knowledge is showing that the liver has amino acid stores and simply combines them into proteins over the course of the day, regardless of the type of protein eaten at a specific meal.
My final comment has to do with animal proteins. When you cook or heat them, their proteins become denatured. As a result, your body has a much tougher time at digesting them and most the time the eventual amino acids are no longer usable.
Think of what happens to an egg when you fry it!
Yuri
http://www.EatingforEnergy.ca
Thanks for your comment Yuri, but cooking only changes the tertiary and quaternary structure of the proteins, and that changes the shape of the foods — and is why egg change from soft and squishy to firm.
The amino acids are not destroyed by cooking. The primary structure, or the bonds between the various amino acids are not going to be changed under normal cooking conditions. If this were the case, there would be many people suffering from kwashiorkor, or protein malnutrition, than there is.