AminoAce

Why Amino Acid Balance Matters Protein is made of amino acids. Your body breaks down the protein you eat and uses these amino acids to build muscle, skin, and more. Some you can't make yourself 9 amino acids are "essential": your body can't produce them, so you have to get them from food. Missing even one means your body can't fully use the protein you've eaten. Most foods don't have enough of each Few whole foods contain all 9 in the right amounts. Rice is low in lysine. Beans are low in methionine. Eat just one, and part of that protein goes to waste. This matters most if you eat less meat or none at all — animal proteins tend to be more complete on their own, so plant-based eating needs a bit more intention. Combine foods that complement each other Rice and beans together work because each compensates for what the other lacks — delivering far more usable protein than either alone. AminoAce finds these combinations for you, across hundreds of foods, with the exact ratios to maximize it. How we measure it We score combinations using a Protein Quality Score: a digestibility-adjusted score showing how well a combination meets your essential amino acid needs. Values above 100% mean every essential amino acid exceeds its target — the surplus helps compensate across meals throughout the day. The amino acid values come from the USDA food database. Since your body usually cannot absorb everything you eat, we further adjust these values with standard digestibility figures for each food category, drawn from public research*. So the score is a solid estimate of what reaches your body rather than an exact measurement of it. Variety throughout the day matters more than any single meal Your body pools amino acids over the course of a full day — not just from a single meal. A variety of complementary plant proteins spread across your meals delivers more complete nutrition than perfecting the ratio of any one combination.