It might be the algorithms I’m getting (I follow a lot of cooking and some exercise channels) but I’ve never seen a similar obsession about getting enough fiber (something the average person actually undereats.) Is it just less sexy than meat? How important is it nutritionally compared to other things if you’re not an athlete or a vegan or something? Why is a meal that’s “high in protein” often positioned as good and why do you need to “boost” your meals?
Source: https://www.goodrx.com/well-being/diet-nutrition/too-much-protein-health-risks
In: Biology
I know a bit about this.
It’s not just you, there is a lot of online noise about eating lot of protein.
There are two main drivers of this.
One is advertising, and subtle marketing of meat but more so supplements. The supplement market is massive and growing.
The second driver is the fitness industry and the social media influencers in that space.
What we know from the science about protein and amino acids are a few things.
1. The daily recommended amount is more than 90% of the population needs.
2. When you work out, you MAY need a little more than the daily recommended amount.
3. But, the issuse with eating a lot of protein, which breaks down to amino acids which are the building blocks of many things in the body not just muscle, you can only absorb so much from a single meal.
4. Because you can only absorb so much, fitness folks tend see a benefit from eating way more than they need because they are making out absorption at every meal, so they think they are a benefiting from huge volumes.
5. What is more important than large volumes of protein is high quality protein or amino acids multiple times a day.
Not all protein is the same. Steak has less amino acid pound for pound than algae supplements. So the source changes how much you will need to eat. Spirulina a type of algae sold as a supplement is 60% protein and steak is only 30%
6. Protein also converts to glucose. Carbohydrates like bread also convert to glucose. You need glucose as an energy source. People on low carbohydrate diets actually end up converting a lot of the protein to glucose anyway.
This can create the perception that more protein is needed, as they are starving themselves of carbohydrates and the body is compensating by diverting a lot of that protein to carbohydrate energy instead of building muscle.
The only way around this is to eat a ketogenic diet which means you’re getting your energy from fat instead of carbs. When you do this the body no longer is searching for energy from glucose and stops converting protein into glucose. However doing this is a lot more challenging than it is reported in social media, and many people that do a keto diet are doing it incorrectly.
The bottom line here is the body needs energy one way or the other, and often the body is making that energy from protein finish people don’t realize it.
So for these various reasons, people in the fitness world tend to think they need larger volumes than they really do and then broadcast their experience out to the world.
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