Plant Protein Amino-Acid Optimizer

Optimizes cooked plant foods against the FAO 2013 indispensable-amino-acid scoring pattern for older children, adolescents and adults. Scores show the amount of each scoring category per gram of protein relative to the FAO reference pattern. 100% means the amino-acid composition meets this reference pattern, not that the food has proven DIAAS-level digestibility or is automatically ideal as a whole diet.

Choose foods

Food filter Food A Food B Optimization goal Manual ratio: grams Food A per 100 g Food B

Minimum-surplus balance searches for a ratio where every scoring category is ≥100% and then minimizes squared surplus above the FAO pattern. If no ratio reaches 100% in every category, it returns the ratio with the strongest limiting category.

Important: This is an amino-acid composition model, not a true DIAAS calculation. DIAAS requires ileal digestibility for each indispensable amino acid.

Ratio A : B—

Limiting score—

Mean score—

Balance efficiency—

Lookup table

Precomputed for each legume + rice combination using the selected optimization definition. All ratios are cooked weights: grams of legume per 100 g cooked rice.

How to read the scores

100% means the amino-acid composition reaches the FAO reference pattern for that category. >100% is surplus relative to that pattern. This is more precise than the casual phrase “complete protein”, because almost all foods contain every essential amino acid, but the useful question is whether the weakest category is present in a high enough proportion per gram of protein.

The limiting score is the lowest category; the spread is highest minus lowest; and balance efficiency is limiting score ÷ mean score × 100. Higher efficiency means the amino-acid pattern is less “spiky” relative to its weakest category.

FAO scoring combines methionine + cysteine as SAA and phenylalanine + tyrosine as AAA. Therefore nine indispensable amino acids are represented by nine columns, but two columns are paired categories.

Reference pattern

Category	His	Ile	Leu	Lys	Met+Cys (SAA)	Phe+Tyr (AAA)	Thr	Trp	Val
FAO mg/g protein	16	30	61	48	23	41	25	6.6	40

Sources & limitations

Reference: FAO, Dietary protein quality evaluation in human nutrition (2013), Table 5. FAO report.

Food composition: USDA FoodData Central Standard Release values surfaced by MyFoodData for the specific cooked-food entries included in this version. Representative source pages: kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, chickpeas, lentils, white rice, brown rice.

Food composition varies by cultivar, cooking method, water uptake and database entry. Ratios should be treated as calculated estimates rather than physiological precision. Protein quality also depends on digestibility and total daily intake. Expanded foods use USDA FoodData Central-style amino-acid composition values, rounded for planning rather than medical precision.