About a global obsession
The “complete protein myth”
First of all, I kind of despise the term “complete protein”. It more reminds me of a term coined by the meat industry than an actually useful phrase. It is so often used in pseudo-scientific pieces and the concept is mostly either misrepresented or just used to spread unnecessary fear.
A “complete protein” would be a protein that contains all essential amino-acids – and for what it's worth, every living organism contains “complete proteins”. You would only get “incomplete proteins” when looking at isolated extracts of organic matter – like Gelatin. So, as the discussion about “complete proteins” should more be an academic one, lets pretend that this term doesn't exist for now...
What's the value of it all?
Let talk about “biological value” (BV) instead – which I have seen often being confused with “complete proteins”. OK, they have some fundamental concept in common, but they are not the same. The general idea behind “biological value” could be paraphrased as: