What are good sources of amino acids?

Amino acids are critical for health. Sports nutrition specialist Leslie Bonci discusses the common foods are particularly high in essential amino acids.

Transcript

00:00

You have to eat food that have the amino acids in them. So how are the best ways of doing that? Complete protein.

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00:19

Well, when we talk about amino acids, which are basically our building blocks of protein. And when we divide amino acids in two ways.

00:28

One are the essential amino acids. Those are the ones that we have to get from the food that we eat. The non-essential our body actually can produce.

00:37

This is why you just can't eat vegetables all day long. You have to eat foods that have the amino acids in them.

00:43

So how are the best ways of doing that? Complete proteins that have all of the amino acids include any kind of meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs, and soy

00:54

foods. Those that don't have all the essential amino acids include grains, also beans, nuts, and seeds,

01:02

which is why oftentimes people combine those together. Vegetables have some of the amino acids, not all.

01:09

Gummy bears, I don't think so, and you don't get it in oil. So really thinking about your day, ideally having those foods with protein

01:17

as part of every single meal is a way of guaranteeing that you are acing your amino acids every day.