Veggie sprouts protein and meat protein are they the same???

Hi I'm just learning about sprouting and love it, and love peas, mung beans and garbanzo sprouts with diced green onions, cucumbers and tomatoes. I eat this on  daily basis and do my own sprouting now...but I want to know if I'm getting enough protein from sprouts and is it the same kind of protein as in meat?  Thanks   Virginia

Google protein from sprouts.  A lot of interesting facts pop up.

http://www.healthyeatingadvisor.com/sprouts.html

Legumes or Beans are a great source of protein.  I love lean chili and love my beans...my nut said this was a good thing for my future protein requirements.  Overall...protein is protein..sounds like you are making some great, healthy choices.

Technically, no, not all proteins are created equal.  They have different chemical and different amino acid compositions, and some are more readily used by our bodies than others.  Proteins are given a PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) that tells you how readily the body can digest and absorb a particular type of protein.  You can do a Google search for more information (I do not know about the PDCAAS for sprouts), but here are some basics (the scale is from 0 (not at all digestible/absorbable) to 1 ("completely" digestible/absorbable)):

1.0: milk (whey, casein), egg, and soy proteins

.92: beef and soybeans

.70 - .76: most fruits and vegetables that have protein, and black beans

.64: peas

.6: most legumes

.50-.6: most cereals and nuts

.4: whole wheat protein

.08 (yes, less than .1!): collagen based protein "shots"/"bullets" (so you can see why these are useless)

As I said, I do not know about sprouts (none fo my reference materials mentions them), but I would expect them to fall somewhere in the range between .6 and .76 (which covers almost all vegetables and most beans).  That is still much lower than milk/whey protein.  So if you drink a glass of milk (PDCAAS of 1.0)  that has 10g of protein, your body will get all 10g; if you eat 10g worth of protein from a vegetable or bean with a PDCAAS of only .75, your body will only get 7.5g of that 10g of protein.

The difference between 10g and 7.5g is not terribly significant, but if you get almost all of your protein from vegetables/beans, you need to take into account that if you think you are getting 100g of protein, you are really only getting 75.  If you think you are getting 80, you are only really getting 60.  So you should adjust your protein consumption accordingly to be sure you are getting enough.

Lora

Thank you for the information.....Virginia