Hochdorf Inside

Proteins - Biological value

Written by Werner Schweizer | May 18, 2018 1:50:00 PM

What are proteins?
A pro­tein is a chain of amino acids. Each pro­tein has a dif­fer­ent num­ber and se­quence of amino ­acids. There are 20 dif­fer­ent amino acids in total, pro­vid­ing the basis for pro­teins. Eight of these amino acids can­not be built by the human body and are there­fore con­sumed in our food. They are called es­sen­tial amino acids. How­ever, we do not need the same amount of every amino acid.


What is known as the bi­o­log­i­cal value for the human body can be cal­cu­lated based on the amino acid pro­file of pro­teins (see di­a­gram). The higher this value, the higher the bi­o­log­i­cal value. Of all the pro­teins, whey pro­teins have the high­est bi­o­log­i­cal value.

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion