I've heard that most of the popular sources of protein for vegetarians are in fact incomplete proteins with inferior quality. Does this mean they are useless?

I guess everyone has their own idea about what is popular. Certainly foods such as pulses/legumes, nuts and seeds - often hailed as good protein sources for the non-flesh eaters - are in some instances partially complete proteins and in other cases incomplete.

 

Certain combinations of pulses/legumes, nut and seeds, with certain grain foods, can provide a balance of the essential amino acids and therefore regarded as provisionally complete. The difficulty however is that these foods are also very high in carbohydrate, meaning their use may not fit well with our approach to body fat reduction and body shaping. Their other drawback is the time required for their preparation and the need to carefully blend complementary types.

 

For this reason we recommend a variety of protein sources, many of which are well suited to the non-flesh eater.