03-05-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Vegan diet may fall short in 2 essential amino acids, study says, so eat more nuts, seeds
Vegans who get enough protein in their diets usually still lack vital amino acids, new research shows.
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While most of the vegans studied 'ate an adequate amount of total daily protein', according to a team of nutritionists based at Massey University in New Zealand, 'a significant proportion did not meet required levels of the amino acids lysine and leucine'.
They analysed detailed, four-day food diaries kept by 193 long-term vegans living in New Zealand, using information from the United States Department of Agriculture and the New Zealand FoodFiles database to calculate participants' intake of different amino acids from the different foods they ate.
About three quarters of participants met daily total protein requirements. Only about half of them met daily requirements for lysine and leucine, though.
A vegan diet needs to meet all daily requirements, so be sure to eat some legumes, nuts, seeds or soy products. Photo: Shutterstock
'Meeting adequate total
daily protein intake in a vegan diet does not always guarantee a high protein quality diet, and simply considering total protein intake without delving into protein quality will overestimate protein adequacy among vegans,' the team warned, in research published by the medical journal PLOS One.
