Did you know that when eaten together, beans and rice make a complete protein?
Yep, it’s true 
My mom always told me this growing up when we would eat beans and rice for dinner, but I never knew why until this semester at school.
To put it super simply: To be considered a complete protein the food requires all of the essential amino acids. Beans and rice are each missing one or two, but together they have all of them.
Beans contain lysine – the amino acid that’s lacking in rice. Rice contains methionine and tryptophan – the aa that’s missing in beans. Together you’ve got all your bases covered! (Eggs, milk, meat, fish and poultry have them all.)
I find this super interesting since I love both of these foods!
My afternoon snack felt like dessert. LOVE this! I also had a lot of pistachios and peanuts that I randomly found in the kitchen. At least the shells slowed me down.
I made an individual pumpkin dessert after dinner, but it’s not too photogenic so I’ll spare ya this time.
that i didn’t know, i’ll be adding this to my list of must eats!
I DID know that! And now I feel like I need to eat beans every time I have rice! But I’ve also heard that you don’t need to pair together necessarily…throughout the day the foods we eat will make complete proteins.
I love black beans and rice a lot! I never knew the two complete the other to make a complete protein! Very cool!
I love rice and beans!
I’m not a huge fan of rice- one of the only ways I like it is with beans!
now i want beans and rice…dinner tonight!!!!
That “snack” looks pretty delicious! I have yet to find Vitatops near me…I might have to order them online because they look so darn good! 😛
Beans and Rice do make the perfect protein and also the perfect dinner. I love Mexican Mondays! 🙂
Interesting fact about rice and beans – thanks for sharing. I made that dish for my family last night. It’s one of the few vegetarian options they really like.
My coworker and I were talking about complete proteins tonight at work. She said that soybeans are a complete protein (which I didn’t know). I did know about beans & rice, and eggs though. PS: congrats on your PR! You are crazy for going out drinking 2 nights before a big race. Crazy in a good way!