Dairy as complete protein

comanchesue · June 2018

I'm having to go meatless for a while due to health issues and have been drinking the Atkins Protein Plus shakes to supplement my protein needs. I'm assuming they are complete protein because they are dairy but amino's are not listed on the label.

A full nutritional info link is available here: https://www.atkins.com/products/atkins-shakes/atkins-plus-protein-fiber-shakes/atkins-plus-vanilla

Susan_RD_101 · June 2018

@comanchesue

Dairy is a complete protein so provided this product contains intact milk protein (i.e. is not made up of individual amino acids), all essential amino acids should be met. I think the issue is that this is likely a new product that doesn't have a complete profile available based on its label.

Kind regards,

Greyfeather08 · August 2018

@comanchesue Just a suggestion: You can replace the Atkins power with soy, like tofu per example. For a 200 g serving, it has approximately 25 g of protein. There is nuts, flax, eggs... Plus it's way cheaper!

comanchesue · August 2018

Thanks and how easy would that be? I need to avoid the isoflavones in soy protein though which is a bummer. One of my favorite foods (long ago) was the Morning Star 'chicken wings'. Man those were good.

I do appreciate the helpful suggestion. I'm doing pretty good on the protein and fair on the amino acids.

TheRegents · August 2018

Based on that product containing only 1g of sugar per 325 ml I don't think it contains intact milk (which would have about 17 g of lactose [i.e. sugar]; or a comparable amount of glucose & galactose if the lactose present in cow milk was processed using bacteria to "create" lactose-free milk). That said, the two main ingredients listed are "milk protein concentrate" and calcium caseinate. I have no idea what "milk protein concentrate" is but it's probably whey (or a combination of whey and caseinates). So, it's likely to be complete protein.

From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1363751/
Because of their amino acid composition the main bovine milk proteins, caseins and whey proteins, can be regarded as a complete source of amino acids.

Edit: Personally, based on that ingredient list, I'd buy plain unflavoured whey protein powder and mix it with water and maybe some coffee or cocoa for flavour; it'd be about 1/10th the price but I guess there is the convenience of a pre-mixed product

comanchesue · August 2018

It's not ideal, but it tastes very good and has all the B vitamins. One a day gives me 30 grams of protein and the rest I make up with whole foods. I treat it like a supplement.

Dairy as complete protein

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