First suggestion: learn to listen to your body. Stop trusting books and diets that change every few months. Your body will tell you what to eat.

Two, when first going vegetarian I think most people are worried about protein. Really, unless you're body-building, it's a non-issue (assuming your NOT vegan).
Good sources of protein:

Eggs,
Beans,
legumes, (inc. quinoa)
cheese,
Seitan,

Personally, I wouldn't recommend soy products for many, many reasons, but that's up to you to research.

Reading all these posts makes me proud of my garden and hungry too. Cooking a nice mess of turnips and greens tomorrow. High in nutrients, low in calories but using leftover hambone and ham to season with so I guess the calorie count will go up. Lets EAT!!

I've been vegan for the last 5 years (vegetarian for many before that). There is no shortage of protein, calcium, iron, or any other essential nutrient to be found in plants. Some vegans suffer from a B12 deficiency, but I have been tested and do not have that problem.

Being vegan (or vegetarian) doesn't cause any dietary issues for athletes, even bodybuilders - google Denise Nicole or Robert Cheeke for more info...

I would suggest you check out https://www.brendanbrazier.com/book/index.html for more info about non-meat diets and athletes.

+1. I've been a vegetarian for 20 years, getting enough iron is my biggest dietary worry.

nitpick, vegans are vegetarians, not all vegetarians are vegans. Vegans are not different than vegetarians, being that the main point of being a vegetarian is not consuming meat. You just 86 the dairy/eggs/honey out, too.

As a lacto-ovo vegetarian going on 20 years, this kind of thing annoys me.

Yey for labels.

Sorry to annoy you. But, as you pointed out, there is a distinct difference between vegan and vegetarian. And it goes way beyond food. I don't wear, sit on, or buy anything made from animal products.

The best way to make sure that you're getting all your essential amino acids on a vegetarian (or vegan) diet is to combine grains (wheat, rice, corn, etc.) with legumes (beans, soy, peanuts, ets.) Grains are generally lacking in lysine, while legumes lack methionine. It seems that many cultures have discovered this trick, almost instinctively. Examples range from red beans and rice to peanut butter on wheat bread.

complete protein - one containing the essential amino acids in the proportion required in the human diet. The only vegetable that has that is soy. And even that has worse Bio-availability than something such as whey.

The chart shows that brown rice has as much lysine as you need, and you consider that "weak in lysine"? And the chart shows that every plant food listed has as much or more of each amino acid as we need.

The benchmark for what proportions we need comes from the definitive work on the subject, The World Health Organization report on protein and amino acids (referenced in the article).

No. Plant foods are not lacking. They contain at least enough, usually more, of every single amino acid, as the article I've mentioned before clearly shows: https://michaelbluejay.com/veg/protein.html

For the umpteenth time, wrong, wrong, wrong! ALL vegetables are complete. The data is staring you right in the face. Run the numbers yourself if you don't believe me.
Anyone can do this analysis:

(1) Take the requirements for each amino acid from the WHO report (available online).
(2) Use the USDA food and nutrient database (online) to see how much of each amino acid is provided by any single vegetable if that vegetable provides all caloric needs.

The article did that analysis for you already, but if you don't believe it, you can do it yourself.

Yes, weak in relation to other amino acids in brown rice.
That's has no bearing on the proportions of amino acids in a given food (eg. brown rice).

The term "complete protein" (based on any definition I've been able to find), refers to the proportions of the different amino acids in a given food. It is an amino acid to amino acid comparison, not an amino acids/per calorie comparison (which seems to be what you're comparing).

Based on your chart, I don't disagree with this statement:
"According to the WHO's numbers, brown rice contains enough of each amino acid to satisfy protein needs when solely eaten as the diet"
I do disagree with you calling it a "complete protein". Complete protein has a specific meaning, and that's not it.

Of course the definition refers to the proportions of amino acids. That proportion is the one *necessary for human biology*. What other proportion would it be?!

That's what the standard definition is: a food that contains *sufficient* amounts of each amino acid for humans. However, some sources say that a complete protein is any source that simply contains all the essential amino acids, in any amount or proportion. (i.e., It's complete if it's not lacking a specific amino acid.) I use the first, stricter definition. I don't know what definition you're seeing that's different from these.

The reason that calories are involved is simply because *that's the standard unit of measurement for food*! We use a day's worth of calories of a food to *demonstrate* that the food's amino acid pattern meets the minimum needed by humans. Otherwise the amount of food you're picking would just arbitrary, and impossible to relate to human needs.

Wellsphere says "A complete protein is a protein source that contains all eight essential amino acids in the sufficient proportions to support normal biological functions."

Medline says "Complete proteins contain all nine essential amino acids," and says nothing about proportion. It says incomplete proteins lack one or more essential amino acid. (EAA)

Wikipedia (which should never be used as a source), says "A complete protein (or whole protein) is a source of protein that contains an adequate proportion of all of the essential amino acids for the dietary needs of humans or other animals," but their footnote is to Medline, which uses the less strict definition.

The Go Ask Alice project (health educators at Columbia University) says "A complete protein is a protein that contains all nine essential amino acids...an incomplete protein contains fewer than all nine essential amino acids."

i've been reading this thread with great interest because i have changed my eating habit recently and the posts about what is missing from a vegetarian diet is what caught my interest most.

Though i can't really describe my diet as vegetarian, it is very close to it. I've cut out all animal products except skimmed milk and low fat yoghurt and fish for the last 5 weeks to try and change my cholesterol levels. Other changes are a great increase in the seeds, nuts and beans that i now eat. Fruit and veg i had already been in the habit of eating plenty of before this change anyway.

In the past cutting out meat would inevitably lead to cravings within 2 or 3 days. This time because of the seeds/nuts/beans that i eat so much of, i have not had a single craving, even when i watch meat dishes being prepared. Of course the eating of fish means i do get meat protein but past occasions also included fish. Someone earlier said to listen to your body. i hope this advice is sound because i have not planned my vegetarianish diet by considering what is included and what is missing. I eat soley to decrease LDL cholesterol and raise HDL as a priority, but it appears my body is not telling me i am missing anything major.

In my first post on the subject, I went out of my way to state what the definition of complete protein I was using to try and avoid what has just happened with this semantic debate. If you were using a different definition (which seems to be the case), you should have just said you disagree with my definition.
If the definition of complete protein is one of the definitions you posted, then brown rice is a complete protein. If it's the definition I posted, it's not a complete protein.

Thanks for the hammernutrition link, Carbonfiberboy. Although I use both whey and BCAAs, you don't need really huge quantities of amino acids to prevent muscle catabolism. Maintaining blood glucose levels, as well as starting out with good liver and muscle glycogen stores is probably more important. The stuff that I drink while cycling has so much maltodextrin and waxy maize starch that it's almost like a syrup. I'm talking about 40-50g complex carbs per 750ml.

The info on nutrient timing was also good. I've lately been reading "Nutrient Timing - The Future of Sports Nutrition" by Ivy & Portman. Very interesting reading.

I discovered quinoa a couple weeks ago, good stuff! Great to mix in with stir fry. I've always been a "meat and potatoes" country boy, but decided to try a 28 day vegan diet. That was 6 weeks ago today. I'm feeling better, and have lost almost 17 pounds in those 6 weeks. As the saying goes, "Nothing as permanent as a temporary wall".

Thanks for the HT and the book. No, it doesn't take huge quantities, though if you are on a long ride the totals of everything get quite large. I use one bottle with almost 200g of carb/protein, and one bottle of plain water. I've found flexibility to be key over long distances and yes, before, during, and after the ride, timing is critical.

[QUOTE=MacCruiskeen;9957631]+1 on this book. Goes into a great deal of detail about the relationship between agribusiness and the regulatory agencies (FDA and USDA).

I'd recommend In Defense of Food (Pollan) to those who liked the above book.

Here's an interesting quote from an interview with author:

OR: You talk about how corn, soy, wheat and rice account for over two-thirds of the calories we eat and how these crops have taken the place of more diverse crops. What's ironic is that while we're seeing a shift to nutritionism -- as we try to supplement foods with the supplements naturally found in foods -- supplements in natural foods are declining.

MP: Over time the nutritional quality of many of our foodstuffs has gone down for a couple different reasons. One is we have been breeding for qualities other than nutrition. We've been breeding for yield, looks and ship-ability. Also, over time, our soils have been simplified by the use of chemical fertilizers. For plants to create all these interesting phytochemicals that nourish us, they need a complex soil. So crops that get lots of nitrogen fertilizer and little else tend to be less complex and less nutritious. In a way, this gives the advantage to the food scientists because they can add as much nutrients as they want to their processed foods. But on the other hand, there is this trend towards organic foods, which restore a lot of those nutrients partly by nourishing the soil with organic matter and party by using older varieties that are often more nutritious.

I only eat products made from breast milk. My favorite way to have it is right from the tap.

I grossly underestimated the carbs in the stuff that I drink while riding. What I actually use is:

Cytomax - 45g (44g carbs)
Twinlabs Amino Fuel - 45 ml (15g protein, 11g carbs)
maltodextrin - 50g
waxy maize - 20g
AAKG (arginine alpha-ketoglutarate) - 3.5g
L-glutamine - 5g
---------------------------------------------------
per 750 ml serving
125g total carbs
23.5g total protein

save your money and ditch the glutamine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17111006
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10410846
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11822473

That's sure an interesting recipe. What's it taste like?

Tastes pretty good. The main reason I started adding complex maltodextrin & waxy maize was that cytomax alone was just too darned cloyingly sweet when mixed at higher concentrations. The only things that have very much flavor at all are the cytomax and the amino fuel. Leave out the amino fuel, and it tastes just like cytomax, only thicker.