Vegetarian nutrition computer program in the works

[Estevan]

Hi,

 

my name's Estevan,

 

I'm new to this website and I'm not exactly into bodybuilding, but I wholeheartedly support your endeavours. I value nutrition heavily and most importantly, above all, veganism, as much as humanly possible. Non-violence above all.

 

The reason I am posting is that I have for a long time never been able to gain any weight above 140lbs. I am male, and I have tried to do construction work and other labour work, which can be very difficult if you are vegan, as surely a lot of people on here may be aware of. Perhaps it is easy for you personally, but not all. I have never been able to find any source of knowledge or website that would tell me what is the missing piece in being able to gain muscle, to reach a weight past 140lbs, well... to maintain it, and to gain muscle.

 

Perhaps nutrition is what was missing, but I think more of the protein quality, as I have tried just about anything, except create meals with truly balanced complete proteins, and protein powders and other scientifically formulated meals cannot be a substitute for all meals, or even a major complement, in my honest opinion.

 

So... what I have undertaken myself, is I have been working on a computer program, written in javascript, which will be available on a website, that allows you to choose an assortment of foods and balances the protein of the foods so it is perfectly complemented. It already can balance proteins, at least with a selection of an assortment of foods just shy of 40 foods, but those foods includes a bunch of legumes, hempseed, quinoa, grains, and other foods.

 

for example: 1 tablespoon of tahini complements 1 cup of chickpeas, and separately, 3 tablespoons of hempseed complements 1 cup of soymilk (that's over 20g of protein!) Yes I know some people will object to the soymilk, but it's to be able to easily determine, at the click of a button, how to get the best protein, and the best muscle gain, and not just struggle at the same figure, strength, etc.

 

I'm going to make it access the USDA food database that nutritiondata.com uses, and other major nutrition websites. And show all the nutrition from the foods you use, right now it just shows amounts of each food and you can 'balance it' and it figures out the right ratios for you. Currently working on it so that you can lock certain foods, say, given amounts of foods that you have for a recipe,

ie, 2 cups of flour, 1 cups of chana flour (chickpea flour), etc, etc

and it'll keep the amounts of those ingredients fixed,

then... what you can do is leave other foods or recipe amounts unlocked, such as snacks,

so that... if you plan to eat one cup of a certain soup for lunch, or a given known volume, say... if you wanted to eat mostly legume-rich lunches, which I think is a good choice, and you really find it difficult to eat legume-rich dishes for snacks, between meals, then you can lock those foods in, those amounts, and leave other foods, such as snacks, unlocked, and then it'll tell you how many snackbars or other else to eat between meals so you can get the optimal protein overall.

 

So far, it totally works, I tried eating 3 meals a day from it, basically nothing that wasn't balanced with this program for at least 5 days a week, 5-6 usually, and before doing that I was never able to sustainably rise above 140lbs, and within 4 months I weighed over 180lbs. And it was not pure fat at all. I really didn't work out much, so I had some fat, but a good chunk was muscle. I found out that hempseeds were an amazingly concentrated source of methionine, and used hempseeds, legumes, and tofu here and there, and all sorts of combinations of the above, plus grains and vegetables, etc, and that truly did work great.

 

I'm really interested in feed-back on this project, any tips on what your ideal vegetarian nutrition program would have, as I surely can add them (I'm good at programming,) and anything else on your mind.

[LisaB]

Did you start eating more too? It seems that would help you put on weight more than just combining proteins.

[Estevan]

I used to eat lots prior to eating food solely with my program in mind, it totally makes a huge difference. Because when you do eat incomplete proteins your body will break-down your own muscle to supply the missing amino acids, and more protein will be wasted from the foods you eat.

 

If you look it up, you will discover that correcting amino acids of foods, such as supplementing methionine-deficient foods with methionine, or doing what normal people do (who aren't scientists doing scientific studies of protein digestibility,) you will discover that most legumes have about 80% protein digestibility if uncomplemented, but if complemented with foods that provide the deficient amino acids, the digestion goes much higher.

 

So you may only be getting 80% of the protein listed on a can of beans if you don't complement that protein, and I think it is safe to say that complementing perfectly will give you the optimal digestion--at least based on those studies I have read. I can tell you, for one thing, eating perfectly protein balanced foods (on top of getting sufficient nutrients) sure does feel a lot better on the body. It literally feels more like what is missing from not eating meat.

 

Don't get nearly as much muscle breakdown to provide those deficient amino acids, I think that's key. Then it's not loss and gain of muscle with each meal, which could increase the amount of time required for your body to build muscle. Can't do it without Zinc tho, and lots of other things.

I'm not a nutritionist though, just some things that do help a bunch, to the best of my knowledge.

 

-estevan

[Estevan]

Sorry, I meant to say, "do what normal people do," as in eat complementary foods--as opposed to supplementing with individual amino acid supplements.

 

I should add that using my program allowed me to see what foods complement other foods better, and also avoid using glutenous proteins, such as wheat, as much as possible. Hempseed provides a lot of nutrients as well as a ton of methionine, with as little as just over a tablespoon complementing certain legumes. I think chickpeas were the best legume, as not much grains would be necessary to provide a complete protein.

 

Some things I have discovered, and I think I should be obliged to share this information, is the wide range of amounts of different foods that are required to complement certain foods.

 

For example, legumes have a wide range of lysine and methionine+cystine amounts. According to my program, let's say that if you were to use rice to complement all your legume dishes. It indicates that the amount of rice to complement one cup of a variety of legumes, for example, can be anywhere from like a cup to like 4 cups, chickpeas need the least volume of legumes and other legumes such as black beans and pinto beans needed something like 3 or 4 cups per cup of legumes.

 

But hempseed on the other hand only needs a few tablespoons, like 3 tablespooons on average to form a complete protein with most legumes--again, per cup of legumes. These amounts were for boiled, which generally has lower quality protein than raw, but is very close to any cooked method of preparing legumes. So I see it as an acceptable basis of information for figuring out protein complementing.

 

Here's a simple one: 1 cup of soymilk (soymilk that has 5.5/6g of soymilk protein per cup, and is made with soybeans and not soy proteins or protein isolates) and 3 tablespoons of hempseeds creates a nearly perfect complementary protein. For those who are not adamantly opposed to soy-products, for whatever reason, this is a very powerful combination.

 

Considering hempseeds (and I mean hemphearts, otherwise known as shelled hempseeds) have about 5g of protein per tablespoon, this combination gives you over 20g of protein per serving.

 

Try this on for size: 2.5-3 tablespoons hemphearts, 1 cup of soymilk (not made from soy proteins) and 1 cup of quinoa (cooked--made from 1 part uncooked quinoa and 2 parts water). Add whatever else you want, say some fruit and some veggies, and you truly have a nutritionally packed energy-rich meal. Been eating that for breakfast lately, good start to the day!

 

It's easily a good back-up meal, given especially if you have cooked quinoa in the fridge, box of hemphearts and of course soymilk, and you want extra protein and energy. Take care and enjoy (especially if you decide to give that one a shot)

 

Peace,

 

-Estevan

[Estevan]

Oh sorry, I forgot the mention: that 1 cup soymilk, 2.5-3 tablespoons hemphearts and 1 cup cooked quinoa breakfast provides over 25g of protein, like 29g of protein if you use 3 tablespoons hemphearts (the quinoa doesn't do much in the way of imbalancing the protein at all.). I could give precise figures of an assortment of food combinations if anyone is interested. Just let me know.

 

-estevan

[LisaB]

This is interesting stuff. I have never heard that your body cannabolizes muscle if you eat an incomplete protein, I always thought you body just stored the extra until complementing proteins were eaten. That is why most vegans don't worry about protein complemting anymore as long as they eat a varied diet. It is also really interesting that if you eat a cup of black beans you need four whole cups of rice, that is quite a bit. I also thought soy and hemp and quinoa were all complete proteins so that no complemeting would be needed. When are you planning on publishing your program?

[chrisjs]

Because when you do eat incomplete proteins your body will break-down your own muscle to supply the missing amino acids, and more protein will be wasted from the foods you eat.

No

[Bhumi.mata]

Wellthis is interesting where is the program?

 

I am trying to gain weight... Iwould love to gain weight because I have a lack of weight and I already asked for help in that, but I amlooking if someone could please make a diet for me because I don't know anything about nutrition.