“You cannot meet essential amino acid needs on a plant-based diet.”
You can meet your essential amino acid needs on a plant-based diet, as long as you eat enough food from a variety of plant sources.
Eating plant-based does not leave you short of essential amino acids. What matters is eating enough food overall and including protein-rich plant foods such as beans, lentils, soy, nuts and seeds.
Include beans, lentils or soy foods regularly; a nutrition position paper says regular use of legumes and soy covers protein needs on a vegetarian diet.
A detailed review of protein in vegetarian diets and a major nutrition position paper agree that varied plant-based diets supply enough of every essential amino acid when people eat enough food. The review checked the worry against intake and nutrition-status data and found it substantially overstated.
You can meet your essential amino acid needs on a plant-based diet, as long as you eat enough food from a variety of plant sources. A 2019 review concluded that protein-rich plant foods such as beans, nuts and seeds are enough for full protein adequacy in adults, and found no evidence of protein deficiency among vegetarians in Western countries.
Single plant proteins can be low in one essential amino acid, usually lysine, but a variety of plant foods eaten over the day supplies enough of all of them when calorie needs are met. The review noted two groups who need more care: some vegans may eat less protein than they need, and older adults are a more complex case.
- Mariotti F, Gardner CD. Dietary Protein and Amino Acids in Vegetarian Diets: A Review. Nutrients. 2019;11(11):2661. DOI: 10.3390/nu11112661. PMID: 31690027. PMCID: PMC6893534
- Melina V, Craig W, Levin S. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 2016;116(12):1970-1980. DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2016.09.025. PMID: 27886704