Peptide has become a favorite in the food field. Its application in the field of functional food, special-purpose food, and health food is becoming more and more popular. Various peptides have also emerged. The most common peptides on the market now should be plant peptides, animal peptides and synthetic peptides. Plant peptides and animal peptides are bioactive peptides derived from plant and animal tissues enzymatically, which are often used in food and health care fields. The principle of this biological enzymatic hydrolysis technology is similar with the decomposition process of food in the human body. Under normal circumstances, the human body will decompose food into the form of small molecular peptides, and then absorb and utilize. Small molecule peptides will automatically synthesize the substances, peptides and large molecule proteins required by human body, and then play a role. The advantage of small molecule peptides is that the human body does not need to digest them and can be directly absorbed and utilized. This active peptide is highly permeable and will be automatically sent to damaged or diseased cells to repair their tissues and functions and improve immunity. That is to say, if you have enough active peptides in your body, you won’t get sick. This is the essential difference with drugs.
Synthetic Peptides
Synthetic peptides are peptides obtained by chemical synthesis and are commonly used in medicine. In other words, synthetic peptides have a specific function, its function is determined before it is synthesized, and then it is only suitable for a specific population. Insulin (51 peptide, artificial protein), for example, is the product of this technology. It is the drug for diabetics. I don’t know of any normal person without diabetes taking insulin.
Peptides are the basis of life, and life exists because they can be produced in the body. Without peptides, cells will age, lose activity, and even die. If cells no longer work, imagine what life would be like. To understand the difference between animal peptides and plant peptides, we should first understand the difference between animal proteins and plant proteins.
The Difference Between Animal Protein and Plant Protein
Proteins include plant proteins and animal proteins. Plants such as beans, wheat, rice generally contain more plant proteins (soybean seeds contain a proportion of protein as high as 40% or so), while in various meats, dairy products, and eggs. The protein is generally animal protein (such as lean meat, milk, etc.). Researchers have found that: on the question of which protein to supplement, it is generally believed that the intake of plant protein and animal protein should be basically the same, with half of each
Generally speaking, there is no essential difference between plant protein and animal protein, mainly in the composition and number of amino acids have a certain difference. Compared with animal protein, plant protein contains more materials and has a wide range of sources. And in the process of processing, the cost and technology is relatively easy and cheap. But plant protein, after all, is the protein in plant, its types and quantity of protein has certain gap with the requirements of the human body (such as the lack of immunoglobulin in plant protein, the relative lack of lysine in cereals, etc.), and the absorption of plant protein is relatively more difficult than that of animal protein. Plant protein is difficult to digest due to the surrounding fibrous membrane.
Since animal protein comes from the animal body itself, the type and structure of its protein are closer to the protein of the human body. For example, human protein consists of 20 kinds of amino acids, among which 12 kinds of amino acids can be synthesized by human body through its own biochemical reactions, which are called “non-essential amino acids”. There are also eight amino acids that the body can not synthesize and must be supplied by food, known as “essential amino acids”. Animal protein generally contains the essential amino acids, especially egg products and dairy products, so its nutritional value is slightly higher than plant protein.
Advantages of Animal Peptides
Better targeting. Scientific research has shown that the types, quantities and effects of small molecule active peptides contained in different organs of animals are different. For example, the active peptides contained in the heart mainly affect the heart, while the active peptides contained in the lungs mainly affect the lungs. Not only that, different organs of animals selectively accumulate different trace elements, such as cobalt and zinc in the heart, iron in the liver, and calcium and magnesium in the bone marrow. Due to the great similarity between animal genes and human genes, for example, the similarity between pig genes and human genes is as high as 90%, so the active peptides and trace elements contained in animal organs are basically the same as human genes. When the active peptides extracted from different animal organs enter the human body, they will selectively act on the corresponding organs and play a role, which is an advantage that other plant peptides do not have.
Advantages of Plant Peptides
Cell is the basic structure and function unit of the organism. The cell membrane is the semi-permeable barrier between the cell and the extracellular environment, which has a certain selective permeability effect, so as to ensure the relatively constant intracellular environment. Although this phospholipid bilayer is essential for cell survival and function, it impedes the exchange of molecules inside and outside the cell. It is often difficult for large proteins to enter the cell in sufficient concentrations, and the resulting lack of cellular nutrients can lead to a number of health problems. In recent years, it has been found that a small part of animal dietary protein is absorbed in the form of free amino acids and most of it is absorbed in the form of small peptides after the action of digestive enzymes in the intestinal tract. Later, after in-depth research, it was concluded that “small molecule peptides do not need to be hydrolyzed when passing through the human digestive tract, but can be directly absorbed and utilized by the human body, and have certain physiological activities”.