Welcome to my Web site for Low-protein cooking.
Low-protein food is recommended to persons with particular types of metabolic disorders such as Phenylketonuria (PKU), Homocystinuria (HCU), Methylmalonic Acidemia(MMA) and Tyrosinemia. Each of these disorders require food products which are low in particular types of amino-acids. i.e. phenylalanine in the case of PKU, methonine in the case of HCU. However it is not easy to find high protein foods with low content of these amino acids. Hence, the patients are given low-protein foods.
A simple explanation of the disorders such as PKU is given below:
____________________________________________________ | V Gene AB Gene BC Gene CD | | | V V V Enzyme AB Enzyme BC Enzyme CD | | | | | | | | | V V V A----------------> B -------------------------> C --------------------------> D | | | V --------------> E ____________________________________________________
In a normal person, A is converted to D through intermediates B and C using enzymes AB, BC and CD as shown above. If enzyme AB is absent A will not be converted to B. This leads to accumulation of A which may be toxic and a deficiency in B which may be an essential nutrient.
For example, in Phenylketonuria (PKU), phenylalanine(PHE) is not converted to form tyrosine (TYR). This leads to accumulation of PHE which is toxic and deficiency of TYR which is an essential nutrient. In order to reduce the toxicity only low-protein diets which are low in PHE (for PKU) are given regularly. The protein required to maintain proper growth, is given by supplements which are free from PHE.
While this website helps one in preparing low-protein dishes , I have not discussed the amount of protein a person can have each day. This information should be obtained from a physician or a dietician. However, each recipe gives the nutrient contents( based on Amino Acid Analyzer v 3.2,a software provided by Ross Laboratories).