1s2: Complimentarity of different food sources to meet amino acid requirements

Abstract

Different food sources have different indispensable amino acid (IAA) profiles. While a single food source might lack one or more specific IAAs, the mixing different food sources can compensate the lacking IAA to meet the total requirement of IAAs. To meet the amino acid requirements, digestibility of IAAs should also be considered as not all IAAs present in the food are fully digested. Cereals (wheat, rice and maize) are one of the major sources of global protein consumption. Cereals are reported to lack one or more IAAs (specially lysine). To investigate the complementarity effect of mixing two food sources, we studied combinations of cereals (wheat, rice and maize) with pulses (beans, peas and soybean), milk, chicken, pork, beef and egg.