Been looking at some sites on the internet which basically say Protein must be complete in order to do anygood.
For instance protein from peas is an incomplete protein. Protein from rice is an incomplete protein, so in this case you’d have to eat the rice and peas at the same time to get the benefit.
Otherwise (say the websites I’ve read) the pea protein (for example) can be only used as fuel or converted and stored as fat
As opposed to a complete protein which can be used to build muscle. In this case eating peas and rice together.
Is this true? If so what it the “Time Limit” so to speak when you can combine the two incomplete proteins to get the benefit of a complete protein?
Your body breaks down proteins into amino acids, so that it can rebuild them into its own required proteins instead. Protein can be used for energy instead, but that’s secondary. An “incomplete protein” is a protein that doesn’t have all the amino acids that humans use. You don’t have to eat your rice and beans at the same time, but if you only eat one or the other as your only source of protein, you will eventually run out of some amino acids and die horribly.
IANA nutritionist, but the ones I’ve known have told me that the ‘time limit’ is not a single meal, or a single day.
If you’re on a serious bodybuilding kick, there’s no reason not to have your little protein powder drinks be ‘complete’ proteins, but in normal life, you don’t need to worry about making sure you have the exact right amount of rice in your meal to balance out the amount of beans. Especially if you’re eating reasonable variety of foods over the course of a week or whatever, this isn’t really a concern.
The conventional wisdom used to be that you had to eat complementary incomplete proteins in the same meal. Now nutritionists know that that is not necessary.