One of my readers, Julie – who also just started her own CR Blog- was asking my about how to figure out her RDA for the essential amino acids. And, she also wanted to know what are my main protein sources since I eat mostly vegan.
Well, while I was digging up the RDA information to help her calculate her values (amino acid requirements are calculated by your gender and weight, and also change with age or events such as pregnancy), I found this really neat tool. This is just too cool, so I had to share immediately.
Gone are the days of calculating your individual amino acid requirements by hand!! Now you can just go to this simple website, and use their built in calculator.
Let’s use their calculator on me. I am a 27 year old female that weighs approximately 125lbs. With this calculator, which sources it’s data from the National Research Council, U.S. Committee on Dietary Allowances, here is what my recommendations are:
Histidine: 681.82mg.
Isoleucine: 568.18mg.
Leucine: 2272.73mg.
Lysine: 1988.64mg.
Methionine: 738.64mg.
Phenylalanine: 795.45mg.
Threonine: 852.27mg.
Tryptophan: 198.86mg.
Valine: 909.09mg.
These values were pretty darn close to what I already had, so that was good. Since I track my values daily with CRON-O-Meter, I can see by what percent I am going over or under these values. To add to my example, here is my amino acid values for today. My next post will break down my main sources of protein, so stay tuned for more numbers!
Amino Acids (100%)
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HIS | 1.4 g 206%
ILE | 2.2 g 382%
LEU | 3.7 g 162%
LYS | 2.2 g 111%
MET | 0.9 g 123%
PHE | 2.6 g 324%
THR | 2.4 g 284%
TRP | 0.7 g 346%
VAL | 2.6 g 152%
For this day, my total protein intake was 57.2g. By looking at my essential amino acid profile you can see I have no problems reaching my RDAs.
Oh, and as a neat bit of trivial, this is the basic structure of an amino acid. :-)
