Which plant foods complete each other?
Two plant foods, their nine essential amino acids added up, and the line adults need. Most pairs get there. One famous one doesn't.
Together they meet the adult pattern
- The two together
- White rice alone: 80%, lysine
- Black beans alone: meets it
11 g short of a 30 g meal line, the line for 165 lb. Set your weight to see yours.
Amino acids from USDA FoodData Central, against the adult requirement pattern (FAO 2013). Composition only, before digestion. Soy foods use cooked soybeans and whole wheat uses the whole-wheat pita record, because their own rows don't add up.
The Gyroscope app personalizes yours. These are typical ranges to show you if you're too low, and many people are.
What your result means and what to do next
- The pair meets the pattern. Together they carry every essential amino acid in the amounts adults need. Check the protein against your meal line too, since a complete pair can still be a small meal.
- The pair runs short. It's almost always lysine. Add a bean, lentil or soy food, or get one at another meal that day.
The best plant-based protein sources, ranked lists the foods that carry the most protein and the most lysine.
How it works
Every protein is a mix of 20 amino acids, and nine of them your body can't make. The tool takes each food's amount of those nine per gram of protein from USDA FoodData Central, weights the two foods by how much protein each brings, and sets the result against the adult requirement pattern from the 2007 WHO, FAO and UN University report, as FAO amended it in 2013. The bar at 100% means the pair carries that amino acid in the ratio adults need.
What it can't show
It counts what's in the food, not what's digested. Beans and grains are digested a little less fully than meat or eggs, which is what DIAAS, the newer score, adds. And it's one meal. The 2025 to 2030 US guidelines tell vegetarians and vegans to "diversify plant protein sources for amino acid balance", which happens over a day of meals as well as on one plate.
The whole story, with every food charted, is in plant combos and complete protein, charted.
4 sources
- FAO. Dietary protein quality evaluation in human nutrition. Report of an FAO Expert Consultation. FAO Food and Nutrition Paper 92, 2013 (Table 3, the adult pattern)fao.org
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy amino acid rows, pulled from the FDC API, November 15, 2026fdc.nal.usda.gov
- US Department of Agriculture and US Department of Health and Human Services. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025 to 2030. January 2026cdn.realfood.gov
- Herreman L, Nommensen P, Pennings B, Laus MC. Comprehensive overview of the quality of plant- and animal-sourced proteins based on the digestible indispensable amino acid score. Food Science and Nutrition, 2020pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
