Stanford Introduction to Food & Health

Proteins are often said to act as building blocks for the lean tissues in our bodies. Still, they serve many other vital functions in body regulation, support immune function, and play a variety of other roles in our physiology. There are 20 types of amino acids needed to fulfill all of these functions, but only 9 of them are essential, meaning that our bodies can’t make enough of them – so we rely on getting these from our food. In general, animal sources of protein, like fish and eggs, provide all of the essential amino acids in high enough concentrations that these foods are called complete protein sources. In contrast, plant-based protein sources, like beans, lentils, nuts, and tofu, tend to be incomplete sources of protein.

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