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
There is also a legit reason: Protein is I’ve if the main markers or bodies use to feel saturated. There have been multiple studies showing that people with more protein rich food will naturally eat less, because they feel saturated faster.
This can be a minor factor to eating healthier / better portion sizes for people who eat a lot of fast food / processed foods, since that kind of food mostly has higher carb and fat contents as opposed to protein.
To be fair, most people saying that you need more protein don’t seem to know that and only think about muscle growth, but…
Tin foil hat time. Global warming is going to start limiting our protein choices. You know what has great protein? Bugs. Start marketing protein amounts to get us thinking we need it soo badly. When we NEED that protein so badly we will stop being so suburban about its origin. Profit margins will rise, shareholders satiated.
Maybe the details are off but, its always sweet sweet coin.
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.
When you want to build or maintain muscle, no typical diet is going to naturally give you enough protein, unless you eat chicken breasts with rice and lentils every day, which would get old really really fast. If you’re a male of average build, you’re looking at 130-180g of protein a day, depending on weight. 150 grams of chicken breast (1 average sized breast) has about slightly less than 50g of protein, so assuming a balanced overall diet, you will need protein rich supplements like protein powder or bars to make up the difference. Most protein rich food sources are also kind of bland and boring, especially compared to carbs (white meat, legumes, fish, nuts vs pasta, pizza, cereal, sugar in general).
If you don’t care about muscle then you don’t have to obsess about protein, but if you work out then there’s 2 problems that arise from a lack of protein: 1) you don’t recover fast enough, which means you’re extra sore and may have to skip a day or two in order for your muscles to recharge. 2) your body will start using muscle as an energy source instead of carbs or fat, which means you’re at best not progressing in the gym, and at worst you’re even regressing.
Overall I’d say western diet is decent enough protein wise. Asia has a much bigger problem imo because rice and noodles are staples in virtually every meal over there (most restaurants in China for example have huge containers with steamed rice and you can fill a bowl to the brim, free of charge), so the average Asian in my experience is much more “skinny fat” compared to the average westerner
1. It’s marketing, baby!
2. Health advice from actual health authorities often has a bent towards the elderly and those who are already ill. It’s more common for the infirm to have protein insufficient diets (you know that “tea and toast” stereotype) due to a plethora of difficulties with meal prep, appetite, memory, dental issues, and so on.
3. It’s marketing!
4. There is a large body of research into the effects of protein on human health and unlike with fats and carbs, the results are broadly positive and less controversial. This makes it easier for a health authority to put out strong pro-protein message due to the strength of the evidence.
5. The meat and dairy industry is big business and put a lot of money into marketing and lobbying. “Red meat” may not be the in thing anymore, so if we can wheel around and have health boards promote protein *generally*, then we can keep sales up and keep the industry going.
Because fiber isn’t sexy and the advertising gods are good at making people stupider.
Fiber has been regarded as filler and nonfunctional dead weight by crackpot corporate ‘nutritionists’ for well over a century now. Peel off all the actual nutrients, bleach the remaining carb only powder, add a few whitening agents and market it as ‘pure.’ And yeah there has historically been a heavy racist element to all this shit.
Meals high in protein tend to offer more satiety. Higher satiety can lead to less overeating. It seems like protein based foods are often less processed than carb based foods. Protein is used for rebuilding muscles, so that’s a plus.
You probably once heard that Americans overeat meat but that does not necessarily mean they eat too much 9r enough protein. They usually do if they eat too much in general but for people maintaining a healthy weight through SAD it is not uncommon to eat a little less protein than optimal. This isn’t a big deal over the short to medium term. Over the long term little bits add up and people lose some muscle mass. When this continues for decades it starts to affect your health as you get into old age. A fall that might have not caused much damage as a young person because your muscles were better able to keep you upright or help break your fall, can now lead to more serious consequences and recovery will also be more challenging.
This leads to many old people ending up with little problems that never really go away. Things like limps or back pain and the like. And this in turn reduces their ability to do any exercise to recover even further which in turn can affect their likelihood of experiencing more accidents down the road. Oh and when I say “old”, I am talking about people in their 60-70s so not even about 90 something that might not care that much anymore anyway.
Eat the protein and use your muscles. Your older self will not even realize how thankful they should be and that is how it should be.
Protein for gym people and vegetarians/ vegans. There are actually quite a lot of these! But yeah, your average bbq loving american gets enough protein
I agree. I’m dying to know if daily value calculations have changed over time cause I swear just a few years ago 20g of protein was considered the norm. Now there’s yogurts and proteins drinks that have 3-4x that. Something’s off.
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