Alternative Protein Short Chronic Study

Alternative Protein Short Chronic Study

The world's population needs adequate food supply to sustain food security. The availability of sufficient dietary protein is undeniably a source of concern for human health. This study aimed to assess the satiety and potential health benefits of two types of vegetarian diets when the meat was replaced with buckwheat and respectively fava bean for one-week in the diet of healthy volunteers.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends increasing the intake of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts to prevent obesity. In Western countries, there is a greater understanding of the health benefits of pulse grains. Consumption of whole grain cereals and grain pulses has been shown to protect against a variety of inflammation-related chronic diseases. Grain cereals, pulses and pseudo cereals are also good dietary protein sources. This study aimed to assess the suitability of buckwheat and fava bean to replace meat for one week in terms of delivering adequate nutrient intake, satisfying hunger and delivering potential health benefits. The composition of human microbial metabolites and the bacterial composition after consumption of the intervention diets by healthy volunteers for one week were also assessed. This study offers data to support the potential of plants as alternative sources of dietary nutrients.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Healthy males and females,
• Non-vegetarian,
• non-smokers,
• age 18-65
• with BMI 18-35 kg/m.

Exclusion criteria:

• vegetarian,
• smoker,
• having known allergies,
• using prescription drugs.
• diabetes,
• gastrointestinal disorders,
• kidney disease,
• hepatic disease,
• favism,
• alcohol or
• substance abuse