Manitoba is a leader in protein production. In this podcast, Dr. James House discusses ways in which we are improving our understanding of how the body utilizes protein, and how we can best move forward with sustainable ways to produce and process high quality protein from plants and animals.
Jim House is a professor and head of the Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences at the University of Manitoba. His research team within the Protein Quality Laboratory is examining factors that influence the amino acid composition and digestibility of plant- and animal-based proteins for the human diet. Current research explores the effects of environmental factors, crop genetics, and food processing factors on protein quality to assist in the development of innovative and healthy protein foods.
Manitoba is a leader in protein production. In this podcast, Dr. James House discusses ways in which we are improving our understanding of how the body utilizes protein, and how we can best move forward with sustainable ways to produce and process high quality protein from plants and animals.
Jim House is a professor and head of the Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences at the University of Manitoba. His research team within the Protein Quality Laboratory is examining factors that influence the amino acid composition and digestibility of plant- and animal-based proteins for the human diet. Current research explores the effects of environmental factors, crop genetics, and food processing factors on protein quality to assist in the development of innovative and healthy protein foods.
Welcome to the Manitoba Agriculture and food Knowledge Exchange podcast. I'm Jordan Cieciwa and you've tuned in to one of those episodes. That's going to be well, it should hopefully set the base for your decisions in a few places for health and wellness. We're going to be talking protein and thanks to the University of Manitoba faculty of agricultural and food sciences. We've got somebody who is leading a ton of innovative research around protein, sustainability, and protein. Plant-based protein, animal-based protein, just a guy that knows the micro... macronutrient protein Dr. Jim House. Jim, thank you so much for joining us.
Jim House:Thanks for the beer.
Jordan Cieciwa:As somebody that played a ton of sports and then went into the high performance sport training, I am so excited. The amount of misconceptions or thoughts around protein is something that once I went to university and did the kinesiology degree, I started to realize just how little I knew about protein. So let's start with the simple question. What is protein?
Jim House:Sure. Yeah, that's a great question to ask because it's the word protein is being used all the time right now, and it's really hot area. If you want to talk about very fundamental standpoint, protein is a nutrient. We need protein in our diet. In actual fact, we don't actually need protein, but we need the building blocks that make up that protein. And those building blocks are called amino acids. And so from the very basic level, protein is a molecule that consists of a number of different amino acids. There's about 20 of them that make up any given protein that's found in our diet. And we require varying levels of protein depending on our age, depending on our sex, depending on our activity level. So protein is a nutrient and it's very important that we reflect on the type and the quality and the amounts of protein that are in our diet. Another area where protein is becoming, the word protein is used, is more in reference to foods as well. So we're starting to see this transition away from protein being considered just a nutrient, but sort of as a food class. Cause you hear it talking about protein foods and we're not so much concerned about the nutrient there, but more or less what makes up this protein food. So very interesting era of looking at protein right now and lots of things on the go.
Jordan Cieciwa:And you touched on something there briefly, the quality of protein. So let's go to that for a moment because that is something of interest to me because if I'm going to eat something, I want it to be the most beneficial thing that I can get my hands on. So let's, let's talk about quality of protein and how to make the best choices.
Jim House:Okay. So protein typically when we're talking about protein quality, what we're really talking about is how well the amino acids that are in that protein match up against what we need in our diet, but we also need to factor in how digestible that protein is. So there's really two components, there's the amino acid composition and then there's the extent to which those amino acids are digested and absorbed and made available to make proteins within our own bodies. And so those two components make up protein quality and different foods have different quality estimates. And so if we think of sort of a classic high quality protein, the standard references that we would use would be an egg protein, milk protein, animal based proteins are typically of high quality because it had the right balance of amino acids and they're normally highly digestible. And so I always say that animal proteins are high quality because they either were an animal or about to become an animal. And so they're meant to support the growth of humans or other animals. Now you compare that against other dietary sources of protein. And so if we're thinking plant-based proteins, the difference between plant-based proteins and animal-based proteins is that plants have a different composition of amino acids. So that may or may not be balanced, relative to what we need in our diet. And there may be factors that influence how digestible those proteins are. So plants have cell walls that trap the nutrients inside. We have to break those down. Our digestive systems can do that, but we can also do that through processing, for example, to help break down the structures that can limit the digestibility of nutrients. So there's... you've got to find that right balance of amino acid, composition and digestibility. Now there's a way to do that with plant-based protein. So it's called protein complementation. It's taking two sources of plant-based proteins and mixing them together so that they compliment each other. And give you a classic example. If you like, you think about beans and rice, beans and rice are a staple in a lot of South American diets and beans happen to have a really good amino acid profile, but they're limiting and an amino acid called, sulfur, the sulfur amino acids. Cereal grains when rice is an example of a cereal grain, tend to be limiting in another type of amino acid called lysine. But if you put the two together and you consume them at the same time, they balance each other out. And so that's called protein complementation, and that's really an important area of knowledge and discovery right now.
Jordan Cieciwa:And is that something where, with protein complementation, has that been a recent discovery for scientists or is that something we knew about for awhile?
Jim House:Oh, it's been known for years and in fact it's... and we've been doing it for thousands of years without really knowing what we're doing. Basically, taking a balance of different foods in our diet, it's less critical if you have a significant amount of animal-based protein in your diet and so mostly in the Western countries, we tend not to think about protein complementation because roughly 65 to 75% of our protein in our diet is coming from animal based protein sources. Whereas in other parts of the world, you might find that cereal grains and other plant-based sources are contributing the majority of the protein in the diet. And so we need to be mindful of that. That complementation is really important, particularly in areas where animal protein is not a major component of the diet.
Jordan Cieciwa:And I guess that would lead to... there's been a big movement that in North America, towards plant-based diets and a vegan lifestyle. So it is completely possible for someone to be healthy and full of nutrients based in that plant-based diet.
Jim House:Oh, absolutely. If you're talking about complementation of a plant sources, it's all it takes is a little bit of knowledge in terms of what are the best partners in a night. And so again, if you're thinking about the classic partners of a legume or a pulse with a cereal, so beans and rice, corn and beans, you're looking at other wheat and other forms of pulses. So balancing legumes with cereal grains is a certain classic complementation and the way in which we eat in North America, if you're consuming sufficient calories, and if you're consuming a variety of plant-based sources of protein there's not typically a major issue with meeting your protein needs. You have to make sure that you have variety though, and that you're selecting the right partners. And that's an area where I think we need to do more work to make sure that the consumers really are informed. Now the food sectors helping in this regard as well, because they're positioning new food products that consumers want to purchase and want to consume that take advantage of this concept as well. So you think about plant-based burgers that are available in the marketplace right now, a lot of these are based on soy protein. So protein is actually a very good balance of amino acids. It's typically a high quality protein, but if people are wanting to get away from soy, which a lot of consumers are from for allergen perspective, a lot of new protein sources are coming out or food products are coming made from pea proteins, for example. Peas, you need to balance that with another amino acid source in order to get that complimentary.
Jordan Cieciwa:Yeah. And I love it. Cause now we can jump into another part of this that is exciting, as a Manitoban, but our products, as a powerhouse in protein, that's... it is amazing what we are able to do produce and offer to the rest of the world. And if I'm not mistaken, that's you, some of your research is in sustainably producing these proteins.
Jim House:Absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah, you're right. In terms of the powerhouse nature of the province, we've seen over a billion dollars of investment in the last couple of years in the area of protein. And when it's focused around plant-protein, some of the research that I'm doing right now is helping industry come up with those right blends. So characterizing the proteins that are... that they're developing so that they know what they have and that they know what to partner with in order to make those... that's correct blend. So, and it's, it may sound very academic to come up with these optimal blends, but there's a very practical reason why industry needs to do that. If I have a food product right now on the shelf, and I want to label it as a source of protein or a good source of protein or an excellent source of protein, the use of those terms, source of protein, that's called a protein content claim and health Canada requires that all industry have data to support the quality of proteins and when they're making those types of claims. And so the work that we do helps industry to come up with the data that they need to substantiate, that their food product can be called a good source of protein. And that has really practical implications for the consumer, because then they can see on a product, on a label that this product is a source of protein, a quality protein. So that's some of the research we're doing, is that is to generate new knowledge about factors influencing the quality of, in particular, plant-based proteins. So that we know how agronomic practices influence weather environments, year... variation by year that we know how genetics influences the protein content so that we can help breeders plant, breeders come up with new varietals that are better tailored to Manitoba that have higher protein content. And so we're working with soybean breeders, we're working with lentil breeders, breeders to help come up with new varieties that are higher, not only content, but quality of protein. So that the industry and consumers to take advantage of it. And then finally the processing, understanding that the impact of processing on these quality parameters.
Jordan Cieciwa:And let's take a look at kind of jumping back a few thoughts that go, that you had with the discussion on what some of the what's next and how we're going, the Canadian food guide. When it came out that they had a strong position with encouraging more plant-based foods. And they went away from the food group the way I learned it, right? And went more into, I want to say broad strokes on... but making it make more sense and giving more freedom to the user, but still saying here's what you should be doing. So, talk a little about...
Jim House:Yeah, lots of talk about another package there with the new food guide. I've been involved with lots of discussions around that, but certainly when you're looking at it, it's meant to be a snapshot now of what an ideal dietary pattern would look like and what the health Canada would like you to think about is, you know, keep half of your plate as fruits and vegetables, keep a quarter of your plate as whole grains and another quarter of your plate as protein foods. So that's what they want, the ideal pattern to be like. Now, if you look at the picture on canvas we've got, does that mean I have to have a little piece of tofu and a little piece of sweet potato. No, that picture is meant to just be a graphical representation of the potential for various foods to sit within those categories. The big shifts that have come within the food guide is you no longer see a glass of milk or container. That was a very bold move by Health Canada and not everybody's in agreement with that. But replacing that glass of milk with a glass of water certainly has implications for protein foods because now the entire dairy category meat and alternatives category are now under one broad category called protein foods. So that's a new position for Health Canada, but I don't know if consumers really know what a protein food is. And so we're doing a significant amount of work with, both in my own research program and working with other associations, including the Canadian Nutrition Society, to provide information to consumers about what are protein foods, what are differences between protein foods and extend that knowledge to them about how to how to balance their protein food category as appropriate. Now, one of the biggest statements that they came out with, and there was several of them, but one that in particular was that encouraging consumers to eat or Canadians to eat more plant-based proteins, the proteins from plant-based sources. And I think there's a really... there's a practical reason why Health Canada went that direction. In all honesty, Canadians are consuming roughly 70% on average of their diet of their protein is coming from animal sources. Is that the right ratio? I don't know. Is it less than that? Probably, but I don't know what the actual numbers should be. Should it be a 50 50 animal to plant, should it be 30 animals, 70 plants? I don't think we have enough evidence to support one way or the other. What we do know is that the way Canadians are consuming those animal proteins likely means that they're also bringing in nutrients of other nutrients that we want to limit in our diet. Those include sodium, saturated fats and added sugars. And so we need to be mindful of those nutrients of concern when we talk about protein foods in particular, around processed protein foods and then particularly the sodium and saturated fat.
Jordan Cieciwa:Awesome. So when we're looking for you, we find you most often around the University of Manitoba and the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. And I'm going to assume that's somewhere where I'm going to find you for awhile. What's next in the research or what, what do you want to, what do you want to look at and why and what needs to come out of the research?
Jim House:Sure. Well, we're definitely looking at understanding the broader food system. So all of the factors that can contribute to protein quality in particularly a plant-based proteins because, and I say this animal proteins really don't need help in terms of improving quality. They're already there. Plant-based sources, we need to understand all of these processing factors and genetic and environmental factors that will influence protein content and quality. And so that's a lot of where my work is focused right now. We're developing new methods and new ways to measure protein quality, to help the regulatory agencies, both in Canada and the US to move to different methods, to help industry be able to label foods as quality protein sources. We're also doing significant research to understand how consumers are eating protein and whether or not that protein quality is a factor that is having health implications. And so research that I'm collaborating with colleagues in Ontario is looking at understanding the intake of quality corrected protein in the Canadian diet. And so that research is coming in now, and I'm excited to see the results from that move forward.
Jordan Cieciwa:Fascinating stuff. It really is a protein in general, just like I said, at the start from me, as an athlete, a former athlete and somebody that works in the athletic stream, it used to be just that thing that you needed to build muscles. And now we're finding just what a backbone and a pillar to the whole health system. It is Dr. Jim House pleasure having you on. And thanks so much for all that information.
Jim House:Thanks very much.