If you ask the everyday person what amino acids are, including myself prior to researching them, you’ll probably get an answer like “What are those?” “They’re healthy for you right?” or “Acid what?”.
But believe it or not a large portion of your muscles, other tissues and cells are made up of amino acids and they carry out many important bodily functions.
Protein is where the amino acids are hidden and once eaten your body breaks that protein down into the amino acids and puts them to work. And if you are eating healthy and you want those nutrients in your body to go to the right places and do their job, amino acids are what you need.
Amino Acid Benefits
Right off the bat there are a few health benefits that would convince anyone to make getting your daily needed amount of amino acids a priority. A quick list of those are:
- Muscle making
- Mood lifting,
- Stress busting,
- Immune system strengthening
- Healthy flexible blood vessels.
Let’s also make it easy to learn about some of the healthy and helpful amino acids and their benefits to your body:
- Histidine- upper respiratory health, anti-inflammatory, joint pain & stiffness.
- Isoleucine- promote muscle recovery and energy in muscle tissue.
- Leucine- energy production, muscle recovery, also may increase muscle strength and longevity .
- Lysin- clears acne, increases collagen production, combats wrinkles and hair loss, improves bone health.
- Methionine- wound healing, helps with detox, gut health,and immune system health.
- Phenylalanine- balances neural and cognitive function, mood regulation, joint discomfort and evens skin tone
- Threonine- immune system support, bone and muscle support, cognitive function.
- Tryptophan- helps with sleep, may reduce depression and anxiety, and can reduce appetite.
- Valine- repairs tissues, regulates blood sugar, provides energy, and assists with cognitive function.
Where to find them
Now with all of that info swimming around in your head, your next question might be: How do I get these in my body so I can reap the benefits? As mentioned earlier, your best bet for finding foods full of amino acids is to look for protein sources. For example: pork, beef, turkey, chicken, eggs, and also dairy products such as milk, yogurt and cheese.
With that being said I want to caution you. Initially looking at that list of amino acid sources, you think “Easy I’ll just eat a lot of those foods right?” But it’s not as easy as it sounds, because as much as you need amino acids you need tons of other nutrients as well, and just eating protein wont supply you with all of them.
I was in a nutrition class in college and my professor gave us a project that forced us to try and make a diet (using food only) that would supply us with all the necessary vitamins, minerals and amino acids.
From that project I found that there is indeed a diet that you can adopt to make sure you get your daily allowance of most nutrients, but I also know that I am not perfect and my diet varies everyday! But still I don’t want to miss out on the nutrients that I know my body needs.
Luckily there is another way and its using supplements!
And supplements are just that, they are there to supplement what you don’t get from your diet so that your body doesn’t ultimately suffer.
I’m not saying you can eat all junk food and take your vitamins and be set, because that is not true either!
However, supplements can be a useful tool to keep your body in smooth and working order if your diet, like mine, is not perfect.
Amino Acid Supplements
You could very easily go to your favorite Internet search engine and find tons of supplement options.
I do want to caution you however, from buying the first one you see!
It’s important to get high quality supplements. You don’t want to get a vitamin or powder that is bogged down by sugars and fillers. You still want a clean source of nutrients similar to the food you are trying to replace.
KBA’s Pine Pollen Powder is an all-natural and great source for all the amino acids listed above and therefore provides the benefits associated with them. And it’s easy to take and add into your daily routine, just add it to your morning smoothie or another favorite beverage and you’re set!
If you want to learn more specifics about KBA’s Pine Pollen benefits, visit the Shop All section of our website and learn more!
Paige Peterson