Nutiva Hemp Protein 50% Organic Review

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(More customer reviews)Despite claims to the contrary, hemp protein is not a complete protein. It is very weak in lysine, and doesn't have enough leucine and tryptophan. Because of this, if you eat it in large quantities, especially in a vegetarian diet, it cannot count gram for gram. That is not to say it is not a very positive element of a well balanced diet in reasonable diet proportions or when complementary proteins balance the weaknesses. One tip: Protein from almonds and almond milk are also just as incomplete in lysine.
Hemp seed protein has all essential amino acids - just not in the optimal proportions. You'd be hard pressed to find any protein that was nearly devoid of even one of them (ok, gelatin is a rare contender). ... it is good to separate the hype in the marketing of nutritional supplements and then to enjoy it for what it offers ;-)
According to the amino acid data Nutiva, this manufacturer of this natural hemp 50% protein powder, provides on THEIR website - put in terms of proportions of each of the essential amino acids per actual gram of the hemp protein, this is NOT complete protein by definition.
The standard "complete protein" definition you can find on Wikipedia defined, or on the Self (Nutrition) site is, in mg per gram overall protein:
Tryptophan................7
Threonine................27
Isoleucine...............25
Leucine..................55
Lysine...................51
Methionine+Cystine.......25
Phenylalanine+Tyrosine...47
Valine...................32
Histidine................18
Hemp: Lysine is only 27/51: incomplete.If you look at the essential aa's stated on the Nutiva website and compared them to the definition of a complete protein above you will notably find less than 55% of the complete proportion of lysine. Tryptophan and BCAA leucine are also coming up short: three of the nine essential amino acids are thus lacking vs. a "complete protein". That gives hemp seed protein quality score of under 55 when a complete protein needs to be 100 or more. Normally protein quality is nothing to worry about since randomly several sources are combined and usually work out well. But some people seem to really push their protein intake very high for bulking up, etc., and others, usually not healthy are trying to supplement their needs to meet their numbers. In both of those cases protein quality will make or break their strategy. That is not to say they need to have complete proteins each time they eat: Only; they need to approximate optimal human essential amino acid proportions basically over a day or so.
The bioavailability of hemp protein is decent - somewhere around 80% bioavailability - typical for veggies which presents a challenge. Compared to milk, egg or chicken, for example, these score in the high 90's for bioavailability in digestion (flavor and whether it agrees with you are different concepts). In perspective, and unfortunately, that makes hemp's protein quality worse than the approximate 55 ...
All the above said hemp can be GREAT if balanced properly in the diet! You just need to quantify what you are getting and tailor it to your needs, when you use the supplements as a major portion of your diet.
SUGGESTION: The bottom line is if you are in need of protein supplementation, be careful with counting on large amounts of hemp if you haven't complemented the relatively "low protein quality" with other "low quality" or otherwise complementary proteins (don't get misled by the use of the word quality ... all protein is good ... we are just looking to meet optimal human requirements and that is where the misnomer 'quality' is being applied).
To get the correct mix for optimal diet needs... it would be critical to add at some point in the day, (this works) 100g of frozen spinach and a cob of corn or its equivalent in kernels to get the additional lysine and tryptophan per serving of hemp - it would be a reasonable vegetable source if you go the vegetarian route. Alternately, adding a reasonable amount of yogurt for its protein content works fine, and if you eat fish, cod is one of the best complements to hemp as it has a lysine score of about 180 vs. hemp's 55.
"Eat a well balanced diet". Yogurt or whey protein in your diet will take care of that - combining it with hemp protein content 1:1; soy somewhat if you are vegan - but be careful of not overdoing it for your thyroid hormone with soy since that is controversial and certainly for people who have low thyroid hormone levels... find soy extracted with alcohol if this is the case since the hormones in soy (which many tout as 'good') are diminished during the alcohol extraction.
Soy is great in moderation and offers better "quality" than hemp if you look at it alone, but properly part of a balanced diet, neither is better than the other.
Believe it or not, eating too much protein can be a problem, too if you get supplemented out. This applies especially if the amino acid profile is not a good match for optimal nutrition conveniently found in meat, dairy and soy proteins (which are close to optimal individually eaten). Excess amino acids in a diet are disposed of by putting the liver to work. In extreme cases (somewhere over 1.2 grams protein per pound of body weight depending on the strength of your liver), you will get a yellower urine even when you drink lots. That is basically the nitrogen byproduct after the body burns and stores the protein it cannot use. So, if you eat an average protein quality of 55 and get your daily grams, you will actually only get let's estimate something of the order of 55% of that protein incorporated into you (ok, there is a bit more to it depending on the non-essentials, but this is the general idea) and the rest will be dumped into your liver, excreted nitrogen and the rest converted into energy or stored as glycogen or fat - there is no memory or "protein reserve" in the body. The excretion part will be in the form of urea. Too much urea in the urine puts you at risk for gout a disease you don't want to know about. All these consideration are for extreme cases. In healthy cases where hemp is part of a balanced diet it is a non-issue.
So, best to eat a serving of spinach and cob of corn with a 30 gram serving of this hemp, beans and Swiss chard would be helpful, but really a well balanced diet including dairy is the healthy low risk situation keeping a general eye on fats but no dwelling on it to the point of worrying about gaining an ounce of weight every now and then ... that's why we need to exercise. Alternately you can spend a mint on amino acid supplement pills to raise the hemp to a "higher" quality protein than soy or whey for that matter ...
People who are immobile have other issues and the bioavailability, supplementation and protein quality can become major issues for them. Like to preventing skin breakdown and bed sores to start with. Depends on your situation.

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