Life in our current protein bull market feels as if everywhere you look, someone is putting protein somewhere it didn’t belong a few years ago. The protein trend isn’t exactly new; athletes, particularly young male athletes, have been increasingly obsessed with protein over the last few decades.
We’ve probably all seen, and judged, a few bodybuilder breakfasts of a 12-egg-white omelette, unseasoned meat and rice boiled in the same pot with 10 clear condiments administered intravenously. These saucy beefcakes have always existed on the margin, but as of late, their protein-eating culture has beefed up from a scrawny sideshow to a strapping headliner, seemingly overnight. But why?
Food, especially in affluent America, is one of our largest cultural vectors for insanity. Remember blue zone diets? (So ubiquitous that they infiltrated Frank and Frary last year?) Superfoods, antioxidants and chia water? What about girl dinner or even white Americans’ “Slavic cleanse” diets, where they posted videos eating just beets and buckwheat and shit? Not to mention the people who only eat raw bull testicles and butter.
All the most recent, extremely online food trends can be easy to denounce as hyperreal, a distilled digital bioaccumulation of America’s collective food anxiety. Similarly, in the face of so much overt food insanity (“Slavic cleanse?” Really?) it’s hard to draw the connection between these extremes and the mainstream inoffensives of protein.
However, look closely and it’s plain to see that our most recent dietary idiosyncrasy — protein — is neither a strictly online phenomenon nor a new one.
Instead, your meals fill you up on marketing speak. You can choose a recipe that’s fortified, workout, satiating, healthy and muscle-building, but if it’s protein-packed, it’ll always be restricting. America’s insecure calorie-phobia has been crudely repackaged as a protein product, but by shedding the label of “diet,” it has become beloved.
Everywhere you look, you see articles about increasingly disguised, protein breakfasts, lunches, dinners, shakes, powders and potions. Gone are the days of 99/1 lean ground beef, Minute Rice, hot sauce called “Butt Twister Butt Blazin’ Fire Sauce” and a preworkout called “Androgen Factory Roid Rage Trenberry Punch.” Protein is no longer a chore for meatheads. Chalky yet gourmet protein waffles, pancakes, pasta, cake, mixed drinks, beers, bars, snacks, salads and cereals are the updated pathways for our new culture.
Anyone can eat loads of protein and sometimes will enjoy it nearly as much as normal food.
But average Americans, even with their wildly dysfunctional diets, get double the protein recommendation of 50-60 g and have for decades. There is no protein crisis. So why is everyone telling you to eat more? Why are you doing it?
Americans have always been illogical eaters. Without a unified national food identity to restrain our diets, we are free to project our ever changing emasculations, embarrassments, patriotisms and aspirations into our daily eating in ways that few other nations can claim: In the 2000s, we were afraid of carbs; in the 1990s, we were so afraid of cholesterol that rappers beefed with it; in the early 1900s, we ate cereal for sexual temperance.
Ever notice how older relatives eat strange stuff? Canned peaches and cottage cheese? Hot dogs by the pack? “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter?” The apparent mystery of their addled tastes can largely be explained by their earlier historical moments of food health alarmism.
If we aren’t vigilant, ours will affect us similarly. But our ahistorical understanding of food science and our blindness to patterns of irrational panic keep encouraging the average person to do injury to their body and mind in the name of health.
Of course, divergent taste isn’t unhealthy in and of itself. And some people just like steak.
For my part, friends comment on my passion for dried fruits and nuts; it’s been said I eat like a sparrow. I ritualistically gobble up McConnell’s banana bread and cream cheese frosting cake every single time they have it, especially at lunchtime. In short, I eat what makes me happy.
Optimizing for protein is joyless; few drink protein powders for the taste. Most tell themselves they are doing themselves a favor: eating foods that exist as a means of camouflaging whey, boiled chicken or any other less-than-appetizing ingredient, preferably the foods with the fewest carbs and fats possible, so you can eat as much as possible. It isn’t always fun.
Even if we enjoy them, privileging protein foods introduces ulterior motives for eating. Leaning into this current food moment’s faulty logic, however well-intentioned, just stokes the fire of food fear. The obsession with proteins and any of their historical analogues bastardizes the purity of the element of human experience that is food. It makes what you eat a statement about who you are and who you want to be, your goals and your drive. You LinkedIn-ized lunch.
It’s OK to think about your health when eating, but hyperfocusing on protein is not a healthy way to do it. The quest for more protein has one logical conclusion: unhealthy and unappealing slop.
For the culture that lauds protein, eating is a zero-sum game, despite anything we hear about its benefits and nuances. Carbs were once on the chopping block — and so were fats — but even if we think we have moved beyond that false alarmism with protein, the subtext is the same: It is always about calories. If you are eating the same amount of food, privileging one type necessarily comes at the cost of others.
So, in light of all this, why should we believe that a whey shake breakfast, a protein bar snack, parmesan protein pasta lunch, chicken dinner and protein ice cream dessert is a balanced day of eating?
Carbs control your brain and fats control your hormones. You need them as much as you need protein.
Eating protein in and of itself is not bad, just like carbs, fats, sugars, salt, meat, ham, eggs, avocados, cacao nibs, butter, seed oil and so many other foods. Protein is just food. For the average person, most whole foods neither deserve any particular derision nor any pedestal. As much as it might be attractive to add protein to the list of things in your life you optimize, along with presumably every other thing that brings you joy, protein is not the answer.
There is no macronutrient — and for that matter, almost no micronutrient — that requires special care and can make or break your diet. Not getting precisely 1.4562 g of protein per kilogram of body weight won’t instantly demolish your gains, and even if it doesn’t seem “optimal,” is your squat PR more important than your overall health?
As the ultra-processed foods that are shown time and time again to be awful for us are transformed, the label that advertises protein content acts as a wolf in sheep’s workout clothing. We need to recognize that there is a cause for alarm. These processed proteins can be bad for our nutrition, blood sugar and even lifespan. Eating protein should never come at the expense of other nutrients, with a cost of extreme processing and especially not sacrificing what matters most: a normal, balanced diet you enjoy. In its current state, protein culture threatens to damage our diet and our relationship with food as a whole.
So forget this food trend — and for that matter, any other. No matter your lifestyle, the healthiest diet is to eat what makes you happy. I won’t support any nutritionally related trend ‘til it’s making fiber uber-sexy.
Parker DeVore PZ ’27 is from the mean streets of Seattle and is actually a contrarian who has taken to getting his calories exclusively from alternating spoonfuls of lard and honey. He is sure it will give him turbo gainz.
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