Discussion Board

He cites this article:
http://www.food-info.net/uk/protein/bv.htm

with this comment:

if you scroll down the page and look at the chart regarding the nutritional value of different types of protein, you can see that all animal types of protein are significantly more effective and better for you than any plant based. not saying that plant based are bad, rather just not as good
the only potential benefit that soy would have over animal based, would be the high content of glutamic acid, which is essential in muscle growth since it boosts the production of growth hormone, but that alone doesnt compensate for the lack of other aminos

Ha.

Also, none of the links to the "sources" work.

You're going to lose the debate if you try to argue his sources with him. The only purpose of needing to know the Biological Value (BV) of protein in our food would be if getting enough protein was a problem. Are animal products a richer source of protein than plant based foods? Yes, heck human flesh is the BEST course of protein for humans.

The debate you should be having with him is, why does he think he needs so much protein? Human breast milk has less than 7% protein. Why would an adult need more protein than a baby who is going to double in size in 5 months?

You might want to look up information on kwashiorkor, if I spelled that correctly. The protein starvation illness that plagues first children in some poverty stricken parts of the world--africa primarily--when a second baby comes along and the first baby is weaned. It was thought that these children needed to be given more protein foods but it turned out they just needed to be given more calories of their usual food which was some kind of cereal porridge. The extra calories of the cereal provided enough protein to give them what they needed to cure the protein deficiency.

Didi

Take your meat-eating friend to the zoo and ask him to hop in a cage with a weak, frail, deprived vegetarian gorilla and go a few rounds.