If the flesh was an incomplete protein that was lacking in lysine yes, but all the commonly consumed meats are complete proteins so they would just need to consume 46 grams not the 59 grams required in the case of the example incomplete protein (and most plant proteins have low levels of lysine, often lower than the example).
Actually, its because the protein is incomplete that you'd have to increase your intake. You seem to be thinking of "incomplete protein" has a protein that is missing one of the 9 essential amino acids, but the definition is as I described (and by all means, you can confirm it on wiki or any nutrition text), a protein is incomplete if it contains less (not necessarily missing) of one or more of the 9 essential acids than is specified in the "suggested pattern" specified in my previous post.
Different animals have different amino acid requirements, both in terms of what is and isn't essential and in the ratios, but they all have essential amino acid requirements. Herbivorous animals have to obtain amino acids from their diet.

All right, I see what you mean. But in that case, there is still no need to use another food item to “complete” the protein, as per the so-called “myth”. All you have to do is eat more, but it can be of the same food item... Right?

You haven’t answered my question about the table in the article. I’m very curious about that.

How is a protein value, say, for a grain (brown rice), calculated.at 5.03 g protein per serving

http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/articles/plant-food-protein-chart.pdf

- is that based on the limiting amino acid/s?  And then, if that grain is complemented with a bean, does the total protein value increase so it's not just the sum of the two protein values (rice and bean) - because it seems like there would actually be MORE protein than just the sum of the two, given how they complement each other...

 

Can anyone explain further?

Are the lines pretty much in the same area on each nail? That can be a sign of an infection. It doesn't show up till later when the nail beds grow out.

In the example, since the protein still contained a reasonable amount of lysine, you could make up for the incompleteness by consuming 59 grams instead of 46 grams. But if the protein was even more deficient in lysine, say it contained just 20 mg per gram, then you'd have to consume around 110 grams. At some point it would be difficult to make up for the incompleteness of the protein with increased consumption.

In any case, if your overall protein intake is not complete (e.g., you're not consuming complementary proteins) than you're going to need to consume more protein. How much more? That depends on the details of your diet. Alternatively, you can take some basic measures to consume complementary proteins and not worry to much about it. As someone else mentioned, for vegans the main issue tends to be lysine since most plants have low levels. Dealing with this is as easy as eating 3 or so servings of legumes a day (legumes being one of the plants that have high levels of lysine).

As for the graph, its misleading. The graph shows that amounts of amino acids in some select foods if those foods made up your entire diet. The author wrongly concludes from this that these proteins are complete. I'm really not sure why people like to consider a diet that consists of one whole food because nobody eats this way.

 

Actually, the main reason for white lines or spots on nails is a zinc deficiency. You can't start self-diagnosing with symptoms such as this. Zinc deficiency, as well as selenium deficiency, is very common in ALL diets. Our agricultural methods have depleted the soil for zinc and selenium in many parts of the world.

 

It's really difficult to become protein deficient. Especially in such a short time !!  Essential amino acids are found in so many places. I know tons of vegans and never has one been protein deficient. B12 deficient, yes (and they only have themselves to blame because they didn't want to believe that their diet had a flaw, as if admitting this meant that they too had a flaw). Vitamin D deficient, sometimes. But not protein deficient. 

 

And if you're into soya, like tofu for example, you have your complete protein anyway. 

 

But B12... watch out for that. It's the most serious deficiency for vegans and must not be neglected.

Go to nitritiondata.self.com. You can search almost every food ever made, from packaged tv dinners to fresh peas. Also you can look up a food that is raw or steamed or baked, etc and it will show you the difference in restults. One section shows you the completeness of the protein. It has a graph showing which amino acids are present and how much as well gives it an overall completeness score. It also displays other great facts like inflammatory factors. If you really want to get serious about complete proteins you can use this website to research and calculate your own food combinations.

The amount of protein cited for foods is based on the total protein and isn't adjusted for the quality of the protein. So a gram of incomplete protein and a gram of complete protein would both be cited as "1 gram of protein" even though the biological effect is not the same.

Complementing increases the quality of your overall protein intake and could potentially reduce the amount of protein you needed to consume, but the recommendations for protein are based on a mixed diet of plants, meat, etc so the assumed protein intake is high quality. But this is the problem, the recommendations aren't based on those eating a strictly plant-based diet and if someone's protein intake is overall incomplete they could fail to meet their protein needs even if they were consuming the daily recommended value.

Its difficult for those in developed countries to develop protein deficiency diseases, but protein deficiency diseases represent protein intake that is very far from adequate and a lot happens between the development of these diseases and having adequate protein intake. Its not black and white. On the other hand its not difficult to have low or marginal protein intake on a plant-based diet and this can have health consequences, just not the extreme sort seen in protein deficiency diseases. The body adjusts to lower protein intake (e.g., by producing thinner nails and hair), but it does so at the cost of your overall health.

 

Can you delineate this a little further?  

 

If rice has 5 grams of protein per serving per a nutrition chart - isn't that 5 grams considered "usable" protein, even if uncomplemented?  So that even with the lysine limitation, that 5 grams is an accurate representation of how much protein is in that serving?  (I guess I might have thought that if it had more lysine, then the protein count would show higher.  Else those charts don't make much sense for single foods).

 

Proteins are used whether or not they are complete, but they can be used for internal protein synthesis or energy and its the former that is the critical issue here. If your protein intake is overall incomplete you run the risk of preventing some protein synthesis from occurring since you'll be short on one or more amino acid.
Yes its an accurate representation, but its measurement of the amount of protein and not the quality. 1 gram of rice protein isn't equivalent to 1 gram of egg protein, egg protein is high quality where as rice protein is incomplete so a woman could meet her protein needs by consuming 46 grams of egg protein but not 46 grams of rice protein. On the other hand if you consumed 23 grams of black bean protein and 23 grams of rice protein it would be just as good as the egg protein.

All this ignores absorption issues though, the amount of protein in foods just tells you about how much protein is in the food not how much you absorb. Protein from animal sources, on average, is absorbed at a higher rate than plant sources. Though some plant foods come close, like cooked legumes and grains.

 

You put it as a 1:1 ratio here of legumes and grains, to get 46g of protein.  Do you know the best ratios to get maximum complete protein for the fewest calories?  Is there a chart you know of for that?

You could calculate the ideal ratio by looking at the amino acid content of the various foods but I'm not aware of any chart that does this for you, but beyond nutritional curiosity, I think this sort of thing is overkill for someone trying to get adequate protein. Just being a bit mindful about complementary proteins and eating 10~15 grams more than the recommended intake (so 55~60 grams for women, 65~70 for men grams) should result in adequate protein intake without having to think much about all the nutritional details.

The above is pretty much standard nutrition advice, some people may word it a bit differently but it amounts to the same thing. For example, in Jack Norris article cited earlier by another poster he puts it in terms of lysine and suggests 1~1.2 grams of protein per kilogram. Lysine is usually the amino acid vegans are short on so increasing your lysine intake and making an effort to consume complementary proteins amounts to the same thing. And consuming 1~1.2 grams of protein per kilogram is roughly the same as consuming, for the average size person, 55~60 grams for a women and 65~70 for men.

So despite uniformity in the nutrition community, the vegetarian community has an old relationship with the issue.

I said in an earlier post that http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts will give you a chart displaying the amino acids contained and the amount they are contained in. I forgot to mention though that there is a link at the bottom of the chart that says "find foods with complementary profile." For example, raw red tomatoes need foods with a high ratio of Leucine:Phenylalanine+Tyrosine, so it will search that for you when you click the link and comes up with results such as Sun Chips, Kellog's Corn Flakes, Hominy, and taco shells. 

So the answer to your question on pea (raw) compliment is http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000990600300000000000.html which lists raw kelp, chestnuts, raw kiwi, dry or cooked couscous, and more.

That site will list the amino acids in various foods, but it doesn't show how to combined proteins in the most optimal way which is what I was talking about. You'd have to do the math yourself.