I am unsure why this thread was revived and am not going to reread it. There are nine essential amino acids and things like meat, soy, quinoa, dairy, fish and buckwheat often are complete. I was perhaps referring to something like corn, maybe someone mentioned a single source earlier in the thread or something? Beans and rice is popular for a reason. There are many other problems with eating people.
Zombies?
In the short term I would be more concerned about catching any diseases a corpse May potentially have. Most worryingly, some form of spongiform encelopathy, aka kudzu aka mad cow disease, for which there is no cure.
Uh, minor nitpick. Kuru. Not kudzu.
But a valid point. Cannibalism is a great vector to pick up diseases tailor-made for your own species.
Umm, why wild-caught salmon in particular?
My WAG:
Wild animals tend to be more buff than farm-raised. Having to run (or swim) away from other creatures trying to eat you results in better muscle development. Farm creatures protected by humans don’t have to exert themselves so much.
So, a higher muscle-to-fat ratio (not that I’ve noticed a whole lot of marbling in salmon)?
Oh my gosh, you guys. Does anyone else remember Halvsie?
Possibly.
Salmon is a relatively high-fat fish. Salmon doesn’t marble like beef does, though. One is a mammal and the other is a fish, that’s a lot of evolutionary divergence. Heck, birds and reptiles are more closely related to us than fish are and their flesh doesn’t marble like mammal meat, either.
When nutritionists speak of protein, they often speak in terms of “bioavailability” - not just whether it has all essential amino acids, but the ability of the body to digest and make use of the protein.
This has led to a scale. Eggs are considered the most bioavailable whole food, so they get a score of 100. The only thing higher than that is Whey Protein isolate, which is not a whole food but is derived from such (when making cheese, you separate the “curds and whey”).
So, from that perspective, the best source of protein is Whey, but the best whole food source (I.e. not a derived supplement) is the egg.
Assuming we can get round any potential ethical concerns, how about human printed meat? Clone some cells of your own body and make it into hamburger. Indeed, cells from your own body might eventually be the only animal meat we have an intrinsic right to harvest. If we can’t eat our own flesh, what can we eat?
It’s still a supply problem, because cultured cells still need to eat. No animal (in fact, very few organisms at all) can make protein from scratch.
I assume that feeding cells in vitro is more efficient than feeding a complete human (or a complete meat animal) on agriculturally-produced foodstuffs. For a start you don’t have to supply nutrients to the animal’s skeleton, or its brain, or its CNS, its skin, or toenails.
But if it isn’t, it is not really worth doing.
I wonder what they feed the HeLa cells on.
Apparently this.
Or this.
Or this.
It seems there are people who spend time on optimizing their growth.
Thanks - that’s interesting.
Cultured meat is grown in bioreactors, bubbling tanks which supply nutrients and gases to the cells. I can imagine an interplanetary or interstellar colony where the colonists are fed primarily on cultured meat, not necessarily from their own cells. But surely some vegetable-based food would also be required, otherwise you might get an overdose of protein.
You also need fiber. So yes, vegetables, too.
My gut feeling is tacos.
It’s important to be clear about the word “whole” when dealing with proteins. AIUI Moriarty is talking about “whole foods” as sources not “whole proteins.” So you can get a lot of amino acids (protein) from beans, but they are not a “whole protein.” Beans don’t contain all the amino acids a human needs to be healthy. If you add rice, however, the rice supplies the missing amino acids, and in combination, you now have a “whole protein.” This matters because there are many inexpensive sources which provide a whole heap of protein, but because it is not a whole protein, it will never be enough.
Which leads us to the other important definition, “best.” When researching proteins there are several possible definitions of “best” protein source. Vegans will define that as the most cruelty-free source. Social workers will define it as the lowest-cost widely available source. Muscle magazines will define it as the densest and most bio-available source (see Moriarty’s note above.) Climatologists will point you toward the least carbon-heavy production source.
So you really have to begin with your own values and priorities in order to get to the “best” answer. As I said above, my research was all about protein per calorie. That’s because I was hoping to lose weight with as little muscle loss as possible. A very tricky proposition. I am still struggling to build a diet that works for me long term and supports strength into my later years. I fear I may have to join a free-weight gym to make it happen.
Yes, I was talking about “whole food” sources, which is to say things that are in their natural state (e.g. you find them in nature looking like that). The opposite would be “processed foods.” (Aside: Some foods are minimally processed, like steel cut oatmeal or whole grain rice, and are still good nutrition sources. But heavily processed food is that which tends to be loaded with preservatives)
In my experience, what you refer to as a “whole protein” is called a “complete protein”. A complete protein is one which contains all essential amino acids- those our body can’t produce on its own.
As you noted, beans and rice, together, provide all of the essential amino acids, but neither one is a complete protein. Animal proteins, however, are complete (their drawback tends to be their fat content - chicken, a staple of bodybuilders who care about such things, is relatively lean).
Another concern worth noting, - one I only heard of in the past few days - is casein, a milk protein. It turns out that when we digest casein a morphine-like substance is created. The effect is stronger for some people than for others. There are people who are literally physically addicted to cheese (casein = curds).
The amount of casein in a normal glass of milk won’t harm anybody, but in concentrated formulas it is wise to be careful of it. Casein is a different protein than whey, and absorbed much more slowly. Whey protein concentrates may not contain casein, but check, and make an informed decision.