Recently I watched a video on YT called “Protein is not Protein” from What I’ve learned also I’ve seen so many especially Vegans reacting and saying it’s fad, not only this I’ve seen so many debates around it, but not a proper Reddit post or Quora question about it, I personally think and feel that DIASS matters.
What’s your opinion on DIASS? Also do you all think that a vegan must take more 1g per pound of protein to maximum muscle protein synthesis? Do you think it makes sense to combine like bean and lentils with animal sources?
Note: I always try to get my 40-50% of protein intake from plants also with Other animal based protein. And the context of this post is about Building Muscle. I’ve NO HATE FOR VEGANS and I personally think there should be a balance of every thing.
Here is a good discussion on it.
It’s not that it is or isn’t a “fad,” it’s that people online who don’t have any understanding of how it’s calculated use it in ways that it wasn’t designed to be used. It was designed by the FAO to look at food insecurity in developing countries. In those cases, they’re not having an adequate variety of food, probably not getting enough calories, and therefore may not be getting enough protein. So the intent is to be able to look at the completeness of single foods for protein.
*The theory is that if you hit the protein RDA with only one food (which nobody really does, but whatever) with a DIAAS of 0.6, for example, you’ll only be getting 60% of the requirement with respect to the limiting amino acid compared to the reference protein. Of course in the developed world, people are getting above the RDA anyway. Depending on the source and country you look at you may see values up to nearly double the RDA. This is something What I’ve Learned straight-up lied about in the beginning of his video on protein. He said that some percentage of Americans “are not meeting their minimum protein requirement,” but the report he referenced specified that this only comes from the protein foods group (including meat and legumes) and that Americans are consuming enough protein when you add in the protein from grains, vegetables, etc. Of course he left that part out so he could spend the whole video bitching about plant protein (and probably get a hefty commission check from some pro-meat marketing team)
Digestibility is mainly tested in pigs by giving them raw foods. I don’t know anybody who eats raw beans. I also don’t know anybody with the gut of a pig.
The score is also additive. There are papers published that test a combined meal (e.g. rice plus beans), and the completeness score goes up. Nobody in the western world just eats one food, yet people toss around the DIAAS for rice in a rice+bean bowl, make out that you’ll be wasting 60% of it (or something like that), and completely ignore the fact that it comes with beans.
It’s also not a digestibility percentage. Digestibility is simply a coefficient in the formula. People toss around a DIAAS of 0.5 as if half of the protein contained in that food magically disappears when you eat it. This is a nonsensical misunderstanding because scores for certain foods fall above 1.0; a food with a DIAAS of 1.2, for example, doesn’t give you an extra 20% of magic bonus protein.
This all should be obvious if you have a cursory understanding of where the numbers come from and what the population data say. My background isn’t even in nutrition, but before I start tossing around numbers I make sure I know where they come from, lol
Edit: *detail for clarity. and DIAAS is additive in mixed meals
It’s from the United Nations, so it’s hardly a fad. It attempts to improve upon PDCAAS, which also finds plant-based proteins not to be as efficiently synthesized. That doesn’t mean they’re incomplete proteins, you just need more for the same effect. So it’s fine to just eat plant protein. As an omnivore, though, you may want to add fish to your diet to get DHA, EPA, and DPA, the forms of Omega 3 you can really only get from fish or supplements. I personally prefer wild Alaskan pink salmon because of its very low levels of mercury and other toxins.
I don’t think it gives people any valuable practical information.
If you are trying to maximize protein intake, then it logically follows that you would minimize calories from fat, carb, and alcohol. If you do that, then you will consume a good amount of all the essential amino acids through brute force. If there is low digestibility, then you are saving your calorie budget and have the opportunity to eat more.
It is not a fad, but if you eat half a complete protein and then the other half, you get a complete protein.
Besides, most foods contain all essential amino acids. The daily requirements for each essential amino acid are very low, you could easily reach it without thinking about your diet