Specifically, it warns that almost 80% of the protein in the diet comes from foods of animal origin, being directly related to insufficient consumption of vegetables, legumes or fruits.
At present, the main source of protein in the diet is meat, which entails high amounts of saturated fat. “less than 5% of the population meets the values recommended by FAO / WHO.” Foods such as soy have their place in the Mediterranean diet and would come to
occupy a very important position among foods of plant origin due to their outstanding protein value, similar in quality to other foods of animal origin such as meat or dairy.
In fact, the protein concentration of soybeans is the highest of all legumes and of the highest nutritional quality. This is due to their amino acid profile and, as is well known, plant proteins in general have a low content of sulfur amino acids (methionine and cysteine). On the contrary, soybeans are rich in them and can satisfy human protein requirements. Incorporating, for example, two daily glasses of a soy drink provide 12.4 g per day of a vegetable protein that is very easy to incorporate into our daily diet.
Only by taking this step, the total daily diet would contain about 46 g of animal protein compared to about 35 g of vegetable protein, that is: the animal protein would represent 56.7% of the total daily protein and the vegetable protein 43.3%, data very close to the 50/50 recommendation. So the incorporation of soy in our diet helps us achieve that balance at the origin of this important nutrient, protein.
According to the data previously exposed increase the intake of protein of
vegetable origin to about half of the total daily protein. To do this, the intake of foods of plant origin should be increased, soy drink being a very easy way to promote this increase.
