The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommend the protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) as a simple and scientific procedure for assessing protein quality.
The PDCAAS methodology focuses on three different parameters; the amount of each essential amino acid the protein contains, how easily the protein can be digested and by taking both of those parameters into account, whether the protein meets the FAO/WHO’s amino acid requirements set for children aged two to five years, as they have higher needs to support growth and development than adults.
Glenna Hughes, MS, research scientist at Solae, said: “Accurate methods for determining protein quality are key to helping people plan a healthful diet. Due to the increasing interest in including plant-based proteins in the diet, accurate information on protein quality is needed in the literature to demonstrate that a diet can include quality plant-based proteins.”
This study investigated four different food products at two laboratories and discovered lab-to-lab variations in the amino acid analysis. Senior scientist, David Ryan, looked to uncover a correction factor that could explain differences in PDCAAS values between laboratories.
The experiment concluded that PDCAAS determinations should take nitrogen recovery into account to correct for analytical method error. Even though literature values and official methodology often cite nitrogen recovery, it also is helpful to have a repeatable history of amino acid recovery values on similar products or ingredients from a validated laboratory for comparison.
Source: Solae
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