I just had a big bowl of rice for dinner, which is what prompted some basic research, and this post.

When I was a teenager I read a book on nutrition that focused on the essential elements of food needed for a body's nourishment. It was a thick book that dealt several pages for each vitamin and mineral known, and explained it all using up to date research. We have learned much since then. For instance, the book explained amino acids. I could have misunderstood at the time, but I learned that the body requires 16 amino acids to form the various proteins needed. Eight could be synthesized in the body, 8 could not, and as such are called the essential amino acids.

I've since learned there are twenty, not sixteen, and there are nine essential. I've been looking at the amino acid content of various foods, mainly because I've been eating more rice, as I did today, and at the clinical site and school people have noticed. I explain that rice is a good source of protein, but didn't know how good, but explained what I understood about the essentials and which rice and other foods contain. This is what I've been finding out...

According to this site, a search for long grain white rice, cooked, gives 2.69g of protein, and .28g of fat for 100g. I've seen other estimates on various sites, but they compare close enough.

Here is something I found on another site...

Egg proteins have an amino acid score of 100%! The amino acid balance of egg is said to be the best of all proteins. Amino acid scores for wheat proteins and polished rice are 42% and 61%, respectively.
Lysine is known to be the most insufficient essential amino acid for both foods.

According to the table brought up by the search from the former web site, rice contains 18 amino acids. For comparison I did a search for eggs as well. For 100g which is two eggs, you get 12.58g of protein with 10.61g of fat. There are also 18 proteins listed, although I believe these may not be all, just the ones this particular table will list. Anyway, the protein/fat content ratio seems much better for rice, but there is 6 times the protein in eggs. Then there is the fact that most of the protein in the egg is found in the white, while the yolk is a good source of a lot of other nutrients.

Fish is a good source of protein as well, with a protein/fat ratio much better than whole eggs, if you are using tuna canned in water as a reference. Salmon isn't quite so good with the fat content, with much more oils, especially if you are eating farmed salmon, which is where most of it comes from nowadays. (See China Inc. by Ted Fishman, and The Walmart Effect by Charles Fishman. They are no relation, I checked.)

Ok, one more food, and I'm done with this. Soy beans have about 12g of protein and 6g of fat. Not bad, but they aren't very palatable. I snacked on dried soy beans as a teenager; they get old fast.