American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 28, 1183-1188, Copyright © 1975 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc

ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Amino acid composition of the diet in a region of Southern Tunisia

M el Lozy, DM Hegsted, GR Kerr, E Boutourline, G Tesi, MT Ghamry, FJ Stare, Z Kallal, M Turki and N Hemaidan

As part of a study of the effects of lysine supplementation of wheat products in Southern Tunisia one qualitative and four quantitative surveys of food consumption were carried out. The average diet provided 7.1 MJ (1,670 kcal), 42 g of protein and 1,280 mg of lysine per person per day. The overall dietary protein thus supplied only 31 mg of lysine/g of protein, or about 56% of the level recommended by the FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Protein Requirements. Addition of lysine to all wheat products to a final effective concentration of 0.2% would raise the dietary lysine level to 45 mg/g protein, or 82% of the FAO/WHO recommended level, at which time threonine would become limiting. Irrespective of whether the FAO/WHO pattern of 1973, breast milk, cow's milk, whole egg or a modification of the FAO pattern of 1957 was used to assess the quality of the protein in the diet, lysine was the first, and threonine the second limiting amino acid (except in comparison with breast milk, which showed tryptophan as the second limiting amino acid). In no case did there appear to be any problem with the sulfur-containing amino acids.