[dgr]

Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist or a doctor. I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn last night. I'm just a guy that likes numbers and likes a challenge. So, if you find this valuable, thank MikeK for , in the nicest way, telling me to go look it up myself :thumb: All weights below are dry weights. I glommed most of the information from World Health Organization.

Essential Amino Acids (“EAAs”) are those amino acids that the human body cannot synthesize thus they need to be supplied in the diet. The EAAs are, leucine, isoleucine, valine, lysine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, phenylalanine, histidine, (cysteine and tyrosine)*. The World Health Organization's recommended daily intake of these EAAs is listed below.

Amino acid(s) mg per kg body weight
Isoleucine 20
Leucine 39
Lysine 30
Methionine
+Cysteine 10.4 + 4.1 (15 total)
Phenylalanine+
Tyrosine 25 (total)
Threonine 15
Tryptophan 4
Valine 26

I took these numbers and multiplied out for an 80 KG (176 lb) person because that is close to what I should weigh.

Then I found the values for the following items that I often see as being stored as the staple item in a prepper's storage plan.
White rice, Whole wheat, Beans, Lentils, (Soy beans).

WHO states that Lysine is likely the limiting amino acid in cereals and it is the EAA that has received the most attention. They also make it clear that the study of amino acids is a fuzzy science and the numbers are not necessarily accurate but likely valid.

Here is what I found. Excluding Tryptophan, you can get ALL of the EAAs if you eat enough of any single item in your staples. I found this very interesting as the oft chanted mantra is that you need to eat grain and beans in order to get a complete protein. That mantra will make sense further down.

The limiting EAAs for these staples are as below. In other words, if you want to get the minimum RDA of all the EAAs, you have to consume excess of the other EAAs in order to hit the minimum for the below EAAs:

Rice and wheat -- Lysine
Beans, Lentils, Soy Beans -- Methionine

If you were to eat just white rice, you would need to consume 940 grams a day in order to hit all the numbers. This 940 grams will provide exactly the recommended Lysine level and exceed the other EAAs numbers.

If you were to eat just beans, you would need to eat 356 grams of beans to hit the minimum RDA for Methionine.

If you were to eat just lentils, you would need to eat 429 grams of lentils to hit the minimum RDA for Methionine.

If you were to eat just whole grain wheat, you would need to eat 642 grams to hit the minimum RDA for Lysine.

If you were to eat just soy beans, you would need to eat 159 grams to hit the minimum RDA for Methionine.

Now it gets a little more complicated. If we eat 400 grams of rice, we will get a certain percentage of our RDA for all the EAAs. We would need to add 99 grams of beans to make up the largest deficit which, in beans, is Methionine. If we eat 300 grams of rice, we need to eat 163 grams of beans. If we eat 200 grams of rice, we need to eat 227 grams of beans. If we eat 100 grams of rice, we need to eat 292 grams of beans. If we eat 50 grams of rice, we need to eat 324 grams of beans. At some point, we will hit zero grams of rice and 356 grams of beans. Which, for this combination, is the best return on pounds stockpiled.

Either way, that's a lot of rice and/or beans to eat.

Since I like soybeans and I don't believe they will make my junk invert, here are some ratios for rice and soybeans to get all the EAAs.


400 grams rice and 44 grams soybeans
300 grams rice and 73 grams soybeans
200 grams rice and 101 grams soybeans
100 grams rice and 130 grams soybeans

Moving on, of the commonly discussed staples on here, the only cereal/legumes that provide tryptophan are Soy beans (532 mg/100g), Bulgar wheat (127 mg/100g) and parboiled rice (87 mg/100g). Oddly, soybean, cake shows zero tryptophan. I have no idea why processed wheat (bulgar) and rice (parboiled) provide tryptophan while processed soybean loses all the tryptophan.

If you stock soy sauce, you should know there are two different types. One is made with wheat and soy and is called shoyu. The other is made with just soy and is known as tamari. While they both provide lysine, tamari provides 132 mg/tbsp while shoyu provides 57 mg/tbsp

Other ways to get your EAAs. As Lysine seems to be the limit in cereals, it is really easy to get elsewhere. Any meat/poultry/dairy that you stock will likely get you close to your RDA with one serving. Watercress, Spirulina and Parsley are listed as good sources of Lysine.

Linkies:
FAO Amino-acid content of foods
PROTEIN AND AMINO ACID REQUIREMENTS IN HUMAN NUTRITION
Report of a Joint (2002) WHO/FAO/UNU Expert Consultation
List of foods high in lysine

Finally, it's tricky finding the amino acid levels of a lot of foods. An example is I found a site that showed a serving of tamari contained 2300 mg of Lysine and 1.8 grams of protein. Obviously this is impossible. So be careful out there.

* These can be created by the body by utilizing EAAs. However, their RDA is often specified as a sum of their RDA and their precursor's RDA in the literature I found.

 

[dgr]

Sorry I forgot Oats. I found oats, meal from FAO.

Limiting EAA is Lysine. You need to consume 464 grams to meet the RDA.

 

[JayGriff13]

Very interesting! Good information to know regarding the basic staples. I guess this just underlines the need to prep diversely so that we don't have to eat pounds of rice per day just to get the nutrients we need. Also helpful when trying to stretch supplies/cash into a more realistic plan for those of us who are not independently wealthy.

 

[Zombie Hunt Club]

Wall of words!

 

[Z06Dave]

Cliff Notes?

 

[Ben]

This is some great info, now to apply it and build upon the research with our other common food preps, etc.

Thanks for the tremendous legwork.

 

[dgr]

Z06Dave,
I really wanted to post a table. Would make it a lot easier for everyone to read. L'emme see if I can provide a quick outline.

If you want to obtain your recommended amount of Essential Amino Acids (except tryptophan) from your long-term stored items, you would need to eat one of the following every day:

White Rice -- 940 grams
Oats -- 464 grams
Beans -- 356 grams
Lentils -- 429 grams
Wheat -- 642 grams
Soybeans -- 159 grams

This is assuming that one of the above is your only source of protein.

 

[urban]

i asked one of the Army doctors here what he thought would be the bare minimal to survive. heres the list he gave me.

10lbs bag of rice
8 cans of tuna
5lbs beans
1 large can of peanut butter

All this for one month. He also commented that many around the world live on far less and survive.

 

[lanahi]

There's so much that science still doesn't know about nutrition, that I would not plan my meals around what they suggest. They keep discovering more enzymes and what each of the vitamins and minerals do, how much we need, and what the signs are of deficiency.
If you eat a variety of foods, you'll likely get the protein and other nutrition you need.

I do wonder how eating MORE of a food will provide balance. If corn lacks lysine, you will not get enough lysine by eating more of it...it will still be out of balance with other amino acids, and because they have to have reasonable balance to be effective, you will never have enough lysine if the corn doesn't have enough of it. So, add beans, and it will likely be alright.
It's a matter of balance and not so much quantities.

 

[lanahi]

i asked one of the Army doctors here what he thought would be the bare minimal to survive. heres the list he gave me.

10lbs bag of rice
8 cans of tuna
5lbs beans
1 large can of peanut butter

All this for one month. He also commented that many around the world live on far less and survive.

What did he suggest you put the peanut butter on?

Most of the people around the world also forage on green plants and roots.
You probably would get all the protein you need from the above, but not the vitamins unless you sprouted a lot of those beans.

 

[wldrbob]

i put the peanut butter on a spoon with a bit of honey.. mmmmm good

 

[W.Lynn]

Use the peanut butter to make a spicy Thai peanut sauce, throw it on the rice with the mystery meat of the day and any wild onions you can find, and you have gourmet eats.

 

[dgr]

I do wonder how eating MORE of a food will provide balance. If corn lacks lysine, you will not get enough lysine by eating more of it...it will still be out of balance with other amino acids, and because they have to have reasonable balance to be effective, you will never have enough lysine if the corn doesn't have enough of it. So, add beans, and it will likely be alright.
It's a matter of balance and not so much quantities.

You bring up an interesting point. The answer for Lysine and Methiosine is 4:1 rice:beans. But that's only two of the amino acids. When you balance those, you end up with 90% excess cystine and 99% excess of Phenylalanine + Tyrosine. I just don't think that your going to find a "reasonable balance" using real world diets.

The extra amino acids are surplus and either used in other metabolic processes or excreted from the body as nitrogen. That's pretty much how they run the tests. Feed you a nitrogen balanced diet that is lacking in protein then feed you protein with specific amino acids and measure your nitrogen output.

I guess what I'm saying is that I didn't find anything that suggested that if the amino acids aren't balanced, the body would for some reason ignore the under-balanced EAAs and not be able to utilize them.