About
Protein Audit scores a plate on its amino acids. You add what you actually ate, and it tells you which of the nine essential amino acids runs out first and which food would fix it. It is free, there is no account, no newsletter and nothing to buy.
What a complete protein is
A complete protein supplies all nine essential amino acids in roughly the proportions the body needs. Many foods run low on one, and that one sets the ceiling: the body can only build protein as far as the scarcest piece allows. Pair foods with opposite gaps over the course of a day, and the ceiling lifts.
How the number is made
Complete protein is total protein capped by its scarcest amino acid, measured against the WHO/FAO/UNU 2007 reference pattern. The score is a ratio, so portion size moves the grams, not the percentage. Protein past the cap isn't lost — it goes to energy rather than into protein. Composition only, with no correction for digestibility: neither PDCAAS nor DIAAS, so plant foods read a little higher here than they absorb.
A plate is scored as one blend rather than food by food: the amino acids are pooled in proportion to how much protein each food contributes, and the scarcest one in that pool is what caps the total. That is why adding a food with the opposite gap raises the figure, and why the same two foods score differently at different amounts.
Where the numbers come from
2,471 foods ship with the app, 2,148 of them with a full enough amino acid profile to score. They are measured values from USDA FoodData Central and Japan’s MEXT tables, normalized per gram of protein and scored against the WHO/FAO/UNU 2007 reference pattern. Nothing is estimated, and no food is here without a source row behind it.
What it isn’t
It is not medical or dietary advice. The intent of this tool is to help build an understanding that it is possible to get large levels of high quality protein with a varied diet. Including animal meat in your searches is turned off by default. It can be turned back on in the filters section.
Ideas
Feedback — at the end of this page, and in the footer under the app — opens an idea board: anyone can read what has been pitched and what is being built next, and pitching or voting takes a sign-in. It is how this tool decides what to do with itself.
Contact
Corrections, questions, or a food that looks wrong: proteinaudit@gmail.com.