I have been reading “The Protein Counter” and so far, it’s been interesting. Insted of writing a rather lengthy review, I will write short “stories” from the book, about things that fascinates me and/or things I just find interesting enough to share.

Let’s begin.

You probably know that protein is found in every cell, and that if you don’t get enough protein to replace lost cells, our bodies will cannibalize its own tissues and the body wastes away. This is the reason why we need protein; they all have jobs  to do (to help our bones, teeth, mucles, skin and more).

Our bodies uses amino acids as building blocks to make the specific proteins we need. All the protein we need are made from about 20 amino acids, and the amino acids are combined in order to make the protein we need.

An easy way to understand what is happening is by looking at the alphabet, and think of each letter as an amino acid and words as protein. In order to make a word (protein), we need different letters (amino acids).

But do we really need to think about combining the right amino acids to form the protein we need? Well, our bodies are doing this for us. But our bodies will need the right food in order to find the amino acids and combine them into the destinct protein.

That’s why we need to eat a variety of foods.

For instance, beans may be short in one of the essential amino acids, while rice and other grains have plenty of it.  If you eat both during the day, then our bodies will pool their amino acids together and make the protein.

If you eat a variety of foods every single day, you probably don’t have to think about finding the right amino acids.