The Amino Acids Pattern Report breaks down each essential amino acid in your recipe, compares it against the ideal pattern, and calculates your Limiting Amino Acid Score. This score is used to determine protein quality, which matters if you plan to market protein claims, display a Percent Daily Value for protein, or formulate products for specific dietary needs.
This guide walks you through preparing your ingredients, generating the report, and reading the results.
Step 1: Make Sure Your Ingredients Have Amino Acid Values
To generate this report, every ingredient in your recipe needs its amino acid values filled in. How this happens depends on the type of ingredient you are using:
USDA ingredients: If you are using our built-in USDA ingredients, the amino acid values are already included automatically. There is no extra work needed on your end.
Custom ingredients: If you are working with custom ingredients, you will need to add the amino acid values yourself. See Step 2 below.
Step 2: Add Amino Acid Values to Custom Ingredients
For each custom ingredient in your recipe:
Go to your ingredient and open its Nutritional Info section.
Click on the Amino Acid Profile tab.
Fill in the amino acid values.
Click Save in the upper right corner.
Once saved, those values will automatically carry over into any recipe that uses that ingredient, so you only need to do this once per ingredient.
Step 3: Generate the Report
With your ingredients ready, set up your recipe in the Recipe Builder. You can use any mix of USDA and custom ingredients. Then:
Go to the Reports tab at the top of your recipe page.
Select Amino Acids Pattern Report.
View the full breakdown on screen, or click Download to export it.
Step 4: Read Your Report
The report lists each essential amino acid in your recipe across three columns:
Recipe Pattern: The amount of each amino acid in your recipe, based on your ingredients.
Ideal Pattern: The reference amount for each amino acid, based on the ideal amino acid pattern.
Amino Acid Ratio: How your recipe's value compares to the ideal pattern for that amino acid.
The amino acid with the lowest ratio is your limiting amino acid, and its ratio is your Limiting Amino Acid Score.
Watch the video tutorial here:
Quick Tip: Your Limiting Amino Acid Score and PDCAAS
Your Limiting Amino Acid Score from this report is a key input for calculating your PDCAAS, or Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score, which is the FDA-recognized method for evaluating protein quality and determines whether you can show a Percent Daily Value for protein on your nutrition label.
To learn how to calculate and display your PDCAAS score, watch our Protein % DV & PDCAAS tutorial: