Free tool from The Optimized Performance Lifestyle
Protein Plate Builder
Build a meal from real foods and see whether it does the job: enough protein for your body weight, enough leucine to switch on muscle building, and all nine essential amino acids.
Built by a private chef and strength coach, from USDA food data.
Built October 2026 · Data: USDA FoodData Central
How the numbers are worked out
Food values are from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy).
Daily target. Training seriously or building muscle: about 1 g of protein per pound of body weight per day, roughly 2.2 g per kg. The most-cited estimate of where the benefit levels off is about 1.6 g/kg (Morton and colleagues, Br J Sports Med, 2018), but its confidence interval runs up to 2.2, so the tool uses the upper end as a target with margin built in. Fat loss: the same 1 g per pound, but of goal weight if you carry a lot of body fat. Protein needs rise in a calorie deficit; the International Society of Sports Nutrition (2017) puts them at 2.3 to 3.1 g per kg of lean mass for trained lifters, which lands close to 1 g per pound of body weight for most people. General health with little or no training: 0.8 g/kg (about 0.36 g per pound), the US RDA, rising to 1.2 g/kg from 65, the top of the range recommended by the PROT-AGE study group (J Am Med Dir Assoc, 2013).
Per-meal target. The daily target divided by your meals, with a floor: Moore and colleagues (J Gerontol A, 2015) found that muscle protein synthesis leveled off at about 0.24 g per kg per meal in young men and about 0.40 g/kg in older men, so no meal target drops below 0.25 g/kg under 40 or 0.40 g/kg from 65. No study has measured the ages in between, so 40 to 64 uses 0.30 g/kg, an estimate between the two measured groups.
Leucine and amino acids. The leucine figure is a rule of thumb from the same body of research: roughly 2.5 g per meal, about 2.75 g from 40 and 3 g from 65. The amino acid check compares the plate with the FAO 2013 reference pattern for adults. It uses composition only and does not adjust for digestibility, which is somewhat lower for most plant proteins. USDA lists no amino acid breakdown for Greek yogurt, so its profile is estimated from milk protein; a few foods whose USDA amino acid figures look unreliable are left out of this tool.
Worked examples
What common plates actually deliver
| Plate | Protein | Calories from protein | Leucine | Essential amino acids |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lentils alone | 18 g | 31% | 1.3 g | Short on methionine + cysteine (94%) |
| Lentils with brown rice | 23 g | 20% | 1.7 g | All nine covered |
| Three eggs and toast | 21 g | 29% | 1.8 g | All nine covered |
| Greek yogurt with almonds | 29 g | 39% | 2.6 g | All nine covered |
| Salmon with quinoa | 46 g | 32% | 3.5 g | All nine covered |
| Chicken breast with rice | 39 g | 40% | 3.0 g | All nine covered |
| Oats with milk | 13 g | 19% | 1.2 g | All nine covered |
| Cod with broccoli (lean, for fat loss) | 43 g | 73% | 3.4 g | All nine covered |
| Egg-white omelet with blueberries | 22 g | 39% | 1.9 g | All nine covered |
| Black beans with corn | 21 g | 22% | 1.8 g | All nine covered |
Percentages compare the plate's amino acid profile with the FAO reference pattern for adults; 100% means the pattern is met. Servings as listed in the tool: 1 cup cooked lentils, rice, quinoa, beans or corn; 1 large egg; 1 slice bread; 1 cup yogurt; 1 oz almonds; 6 oz salmon or cod; 4 oz chicken; 1/2 cup dry oats; 1 cup milk, broccoli or blueberries; 4 egg whites plus 1 whole egg. For fat loss, the calories-from-protein column is the one to watch: the higher it is, the more protein each calorie buys.
Why this exists
The number on the tub is not the number that matters
A protein total tells you how much arrived. It does not tell you whether the meal can build anything. Muscle protein synthesis needs every essential amino acid present at once, and it needs enough leucine to switch the process on. A plate can hit a protein number and still be short on both.
That is the part most protein calculators skip and the part a kitchen can fix. Grains run short on lysine; legumes run short on the sulfur amino acids. Put them on the same plate and each covers the other. Eggs, dairy, meat and fish cover all nine on their own. The builder shows which case you are in and what to add.
The per-meal view matters because the body does not bank amino acids for later the way it stores fat. Spreading protein across the day in meals large enough to cross the threshold does more than one large serving at dinner.
Go further
The system behind the plate
The Optimized Performance Lifestyle is the full system: how much protein across the day, how to build meals around training, recovery and sleep. 127 pages, 16 chapters. A Private Chef's System for Nutrition, Recovery and Peak Living.
Get The Optimized Performance Lifestyle →
EAAs vs BCAAs → · Glycine → · Protein powder → · Food vs. capsule calculator →
This page is information, not medical advice. If you have kidney disease or another condition that limits protein, follow your doctor's advice.