I was searching for ingredients for making my own carp fishing bait over the last weeks as time and interest permitted. I was led indirectly to look up amino acids as the basic building blocks of life and health for any living animal. I found a web page listing ten amino acids as essential to health.

The amino acids determined by the web page to be essential to health are: Arginine, Histidine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan, Valine. That is about all I know about them except I recognize a few of the names from whatever reading about health I have done in the past, or looking through the endless rows of little bottles at health food stores. Some of these items are very expensive, and none of them are cheap.

I decided I was making this too hard, and started looking at basic foods and the amino acids they contain. I hit pay dirt, and I was pretty surprised because companies selling these amino acids leave it open to the possibility that some required amino acids are hard to come by in our normal diet. One of the foods was interesting because it seemed from my understanding of the studies I read (totally a layman’s reading), one of the foods has more of these amino acids available cooked raw. It also happens we only eat it cooked when we have a choice.

I believe going by what I have read and understood, is we naturally do a great job of making sure we are getting everything we need in our diet to survive and thrive in general. I believe this is another case of savvy marketing and greed at work, making us think that in our normal diets we do not receive all the nutrition we need. What did surprise me was wheat grains are not among the basic foods supplying the most amino acids for us.

The four foods I found to provide most of the amino acids considered essential are contained in nothing more than foods I enjoy eating and are part of everyones diet that tries to eat properly. I did not venture too far into many other foods because my intent was looking for foods attractive to carp, not a study of my own diet.

So what are these foods that supply our bodies with everything we need in the way of essential amino acids? I think you will be surprised as I was. The four foods I looked up first, and the four foods that together supply everything we need are: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Corn, Potato. Corn and potato are pretty much a staple food in the northern hemisphere, so it should not have been a surprise to me that they are essential foods for us.

I did look up a few other foods out of curiosity because they show in some carp bait recipes, but I am guessing they are there for other reasons than for their completeness in containing essential amino acids. The exception and most surprising food was egg white. Egg white contains all the essential amino acids needed for life. I have no doubt that the egg yolk also contains other essential items we need to live. After I read it, I thought how obvious, egg is the way almost all living things start their journey into this world.

Carp bait making aside, it appears to me that if we are doing the minimum to eat right, and eat as many different foods as we enjoy or can afford, we are receiving everything we need to be healthy and happy, and giving our bodies everything it needs to survive and thrive.

The human side of good health aside, some items come up frequently for carp bait that do not seem to have much to do with complete nutrition. I am guessing from knowing what I know about my own eating habits that we do not always eat foods that are the most complete nutritionally. Sometime we eat certain foods just because they taste good.

Occasionally foods or flavors such as sugar, vanilla or chili, are addicting, and we will pass by better food to eat foods containing certain flavors we love to taste. It has been suspected since I was a child that some pet foods contained flavorings or additives to trigger a eating response in our pets. I do not think the jump from pet food to our food is so great that some commercial foods do not intentionally contain flavors or ingredients for no other reason that we prefer to eat it over other foods without it.

It seems obvious to me that whether you are trying to eat well, or design a killer homemade carp bait, you know everything you need to know by default. Looking at your own diet, and using a variety of common foods is all you need to know, the rest is in the details. It is possible that I am all wet, in both basic nutrition and homemade carp bait, but I do not think so.