Plant Protein, Pea and Brown Rice, Unflavoured

Details

Pea protein isolate and brown rice protein concentrate, blended 70:30 by weight, unflavoured and unsweetened. Two ingredients, and nothing else in the pouch. The cheat in protein powder is amino spiking, and it works because of how protein is normally measured. Kjeldahl and Dumas do not measure protein. They measure nitrogen and multiply it by a factor. Add cheap free amino acids and the nitrogen goes up without the usable protein going up: glycine is 18.7 percent nitrogen against about 16 percent for pea protein, taurine is 11.2 percent, creatine is 32 percent, and non-protein nitrogen carriers go higher still. Three grams of glycine bought by the kilo can read as three and a half grams of protein on a Kjeldahl certificate. Plant proteins are the easier target, because a slightly odd amino acid profile is expected and a low glycine baseline is not. So the declared figure here comes from amino acid analysis, which counts the amino acids themselves. A free amino acid can only ever count as its own mass, so spiking stops paying. The second thing this category hides is the limiting amino acid. Pea is short of methionine and cysteine. Rice is short of lysine. Blending them raises both, which is why the ratio is 70:30 and not a marketing number, but it does not make the shortage disappear. Methionine plus cysteine is still the first thing to run out in this blend, and the score is printed below rather than covered with the words complete protein.

• 24.0 g protein per weighed 33 g scoop, which is 72.6 percent of the powder by weight, and the arithmetic behind that percentage is in the table
• Counted by amino acid analysis after hydrolysis, not by nitrogen times a factor. The nitrogen cross-check is printed beside it so you can see the gap, which is 0.3 g
• Free amino acids not above 0.5 g per 100 g of protein. In an unspiked plant protein there is almost nothing free, and this is the number a spike moves first
• Full eighteen amino acid profile below, per 100 g of protein and per scoop. Glycine 4.4, which is the pea and rice baseline. A spiked lot reads far higher
• Limiting amino acid: methionine plus cysteine at 2.8 g per 100 g protein, an amino acid score of 1.27 against the FAO 2007 adult pattern. Above requirement, and still the first to run out
• Blend 70:30 by powder weight. Pea protein isolate tested at 75.0 percent protein, brown rice protein concentrate tested at 67.0 percent. 0.7 x 75.0 plus 0.3 x 67.0 is 72.6
• Lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium by ICP-MS on every lot, which matters more for a plant protein than for whey because the plant took up whatever the soil held
• No added sugar, no sweetener, no flavour, no colour, no gum, no maltodextrin, no free amino acids added
• It is earthy and slightly gritty, because that is what unflavoured pea protein is, and nothing is in the pouch to mask it. Blend it rather than shake it
• Protein powder tops up a diet. It is a food, not a medicine, and it treats nothing