How important is Protein?
What is Protein?
Where would you find Proteins in your body?
Do we need Proteins everyday?
Protein Exchange corner
 
How important is Protein?
The word Protein has originated from the Greek word "Porto's" which means to come first. Before we understand the importance of proteins you have to know what your body is composed of.
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Around 60% of the human body constitutes water & 40% is dry matter. This makes water the most essential nutrient for the human body.
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As 40% of the body’s dry matter is protein, so, after water, protein is the 2nd most important nutrient for the human body.
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Protein is found everywhere in your body. Every single cell, tissue, muscle and bone contains protein. Protein is essential for providing bone and muscle strength, endurance and immunity.
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Your body consumes the proteins you eat and converts them into specialized protein molecules that play specific roles in the body.
 
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And, if your body loses more than 14% of its Protein store, it could lead to severe health consequences.
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Only water is more important than proteins, as just a 8% deficit in your body’s water store could lead to serious eventualities.
Known as the building blocks of the body, proteins play a significant role in repairing the loss that occurs due to wear and tear. As enzymes and hormones, they perform a wide range of metabolic functions in the body and as antibodies, help your body defend against infections.

Proteins are vital to all living processes and undertake a wide range of functions quintessential to sustain life. Thus, proteins are one of the most important nutrients required by your body and should be consumed in adequate quantity in your daily diet.
Severe depletion of protein can lead to -
• Loss of muscle mass causing physical weakness.
• Fatigue
• A weakened immune system.
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What is Protein?
You probably know that you need to eat protein, but you might be clueless as to what is protein? Simply put, protein is an important constituent of all the tissues and cells of our body, primarily found in muscle and other vital body fluids like blood. It is vital to any organism.

All protein, whether in the body or in the food we eat, is made up of individual units known as amino acids. Protein forms the basic chemical unit of living organisms and is essential for nutrition, growth and repair.
Before we proceed let’s enrich you with some more protein facts -
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Can we call any group of amino acids Proteins? No, only when more than 50 amino acids are joined together, it is, generally considered to be a protein.
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The hormone insulin, which contains 51 amino acids, is, therefore, considered to be a small protein.
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Proteins are generally long chains of amino acids.
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These amino acids are linked together in a chain similar to letters forming a word.
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But protein chains are much longer than words. If an average English word contains 4.6 letters, an average protein contains a chain of 1,000 amino acids.
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Around 20 different types of amino acids have been identified as the basic building blocks of the human body.
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Where would you find Proteins in your body?
Proteins are ubiquitous and found in every cell in your body. Apart from water, proteins make up the bulk of your body’s muscular mass. Besides muscles they are present in collagen and other tissues such as liver, intestines and the kidneys. Let’s take a look at where else in the body is protein found -
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The Immune System: Proteins are an important constituent of white blood cells and antibodies which help the body defend against disease and infection.
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Providing Protection: Proteins are present in skin, hair and nails that protect the body against the environment.
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Hormones: Insulin, which is involved in the regulation of blood sugar as well as in fat & protein metabolism, is another example of a protein that doubles up as a hormone.
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Bio catalysts: The many thousands of reactions occurring in the cells are catalyzed by special proteins called enzymes.
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Specific Functions: Haemoglobin, the iron-containing pigment of the red blood cells, is a protein. It carries oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, and carbon dioxide from the tissues back to the lungs.
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Retina: Rhodopsin is a protein containing compound located in the retina of the eyes which enables vision in poor light conditions.
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Do you need Proteins everyday?
Your body requires protein virtually everyday. This is because a small amount of protein is lost through the normal metabolic process i.e. by oxidation of amino acids to produce energy. This deficit in protein has to be replenished as otherwise a gradual decline will result in –
• Loss of muscle strength
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Loss of immunity
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Serious illnesses
  Protein and weight loss
 
• High Protein diets help to burn out fat stores (adipose tissues) in the body in overweight and obese people.
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When energy producing nutrients like fats and carbohydrates are taken in controlled portions and protein intake is increased, your body’s fat stores undergo metabolism to meet energy requirements without gaining weight.
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Therefore, in overweight and obese people a high protein diet actually aids weight loss.
  Protein requirement for Adults v/s children
 
• According to dietary recommendations adults need 1gm of protein per kg of body weight.
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Simply put this means if you weigh 70 kg, and have a normal weight, you need 70 g of protein every day.
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While children need protein for growth and development, Adults need protein for repair of body cells and tissues.
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During infancy and adolescence, the body, in addition to replacing lost protein requires extra dietary protein for normal growth, e.g. building new tissue.
  The Recommended Dietary allowance
  To understand the actual amounts of protein to be taken daily please refer to the table provided.
 
For Children
22 gms/day (Between 1 to 3 years)
30 gms/day (Between 4 to 6 years)
41 gms/day (Between 7 to 9 years)
   
 
For Adults
At normal weight 1 gm protein/kg/day
During illness / convalescence 1.5 to 2 gms protein/kg/day
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Protein Exchange Corner
 
2 tbsp of Protinex gives more Protein than any equivalent amount of other proteins.
 
Exchange List Protein (gms)
ProtineX 25 gms (2 heaped tbsps) 7.5
Whole Egg 6.6
Chicken (25 gms raw) 6.5
Fish (25 gms raw) 6.5
Paneer (25 gms) 4.5
Milk 200 ml (one glass) 6.4
  Amino Acids
  Broadly, there are two types of Amino Acids -
 
• Non Essential Amino acids (11)
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And, Essential amino acids (9)
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Of the 20 amino acids in protein, body cannot make 9 of them. These are essential amino acids and must be obtained regularly from the diet.
 
Proteins can also be broadly classified as Complete & Incomplete. They can further be described as follows -
 
Complete protein:
Protein in foods that contain all of the 9 essential amino acids in sufficient quantity and ratio to meet the body’s needs are called complete proteins
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Generally, these proteins are of animal origin. Meat, Fish, Poultry, Eggs and Dairy Products of animal origin are rich sources of complete protein.
Incomplete protein:
Protein in foods that do not contain sufficient amounts of 1 or more of the 9 essential amino acids is referred to as incomplete protein.
 
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Generally, plant origin proteins are incomplete, but make a valuable contribution to the total dietary protein e.g. Legumes like beans, peas, lentils & peanuts.
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Cereals like Wheat, Rice, Rye, Maize and Barley are also an excellent source of plant origin protein.
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