Importance of Proteins

Proteins at a Glance

Composition:

• Complete Proteins
• Amino Acid
• Essential Amino Acids

Role:

• Growth and repair of skin, nails, bones, hair, tendons, ligaments and muscles
• Enzyme production and maintenance of strict acid based balance

Recommended Intake:

• 20-35% of total caloric intake
• .83 grams per kilogram of body weight

• 4 calories per gram of protein

Sources of Protein:

• Lean Meat
• Poultry
• Nuts
• Fish
• Beans
• Eggs
• Soy

Protein is an essential part of anybodies diet for many reasons. One of which being that its in nearly your whole body, in places like your hair, nails, muscle and skin, to name a few. You'll always hear about how it makes you strong and how its in milk, but most importantly, it helps repair your body and is used to make things like the production of hemoglobin or cardiac muscle (your heart).

We eat protein rich foods because they have complete proteins which contain essential amino acids in them. Essential amino acids are the only 9 amino acids that the human body can only get from protein rich foods. Complete proteins can be found in meat, fish, poultry, dairy products and eggs. Soybeans are also a good source of complete protein and are the only plant which have them. Even though there are a total of 22 amino acids important to human health, our bodies can create 13 of them.

Those 22 amino acids are called the essential amino acids. Those amino acids are just a few of many found by scientists in protein. Our body takes those amino acids from foods and uses them to make protein. Then the protein can be used for other things like the production of hemoglobin which is part of a red blood cell that carries oxygen to everywhere in your body.

Our recommended daily caloric intake percentage for proteins is 20-35%. That means that of all the calories that you have consumed, 20 to 35 percent of them should be from protein.

«Posted by Adam Pating