Every food commercial, advertisement, and packaging in the US is currently protein obsessed. I just bought 3 burritos, and the most noticeable thing on the entire package is its protein content. TV commercials about waffles are advertising that they have X amount of protein per serving. The products in my jobsite’s vending machine have protein all over every package.
Did America have a protein thing recently?
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It’s the entire world, no?
The US secretary of health, RFK Jr., pushes an uptake in protein as part of his “MAHA” - “Make America Healthy Again” - messaging. See example tote bags for an event here.
It’s the reason you can buy protein poptarts.
Eh, its gotten more popular, but I first did keto back in 2017 and it was great. The Atkins diet started back in the 70’s. Keto aa we know it today traces its roots back to the Mayo clinic in 1921, and you can find other evidence of people throughout history trying high protein diets.
The US government’s messaging about food as always had a lot more to do with economics and politics than health.
It’s got what plants crave
Nutritionism sells more food. If you really want to be radicalized go read Michael Polan’s In Defense of Food
In addition to what others people have mentioned (studies showing legitimate benefits to increased protein, greater need to ensure adequate protein intake for those with artificially reduced appetite, and just general dude-bro carnivore keto fads), a huge thing that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is the massive dairy surplus.
Very few people drink milk as a beverage compared to 15 years ago, so the dairy industry (with the aid of the government) is trying to get as many alternative uses for dairy going as possible.
The US has been obsessed with protein for at least 15 years, longer though.
Baby boomers have long been convinced they are one bowl of pasta away from protein starvation. But every other person elsewise now too.
We’re idiots
Maybe you missed the pendulum swung back hard after the body positivity fad of “healthy at any size” and people yelling about how calories are a lie. this all went down about 3 yrs ago.
Then after the resulting mass of influencer death from health failures in as young as mid twenties to early thirties we are swung back on the fitness side of things again with a new ferocity involving protien and glp1 now.
Considering everyone is in their own echo chamber, I’d say it’s pretty easy to miss things.
this all went down about three years ago
Around the same time GLP-1s entered the scene. Could be a coincidence, but it seems to me that people in general (including people who are themselves obese) are less accepting of bodies now that GLP-1s are available.
Muscle loss
This might need confirming so take it with a grain of salt
I heard because GLP-1 treatments got super cheap in US lately everyone is getting slimmer. So slimming doesn’t seem as a luxury anymore. And because meat quality went down massively and expensive - protein is the new luxury and “bulking up” is the new trend rather than slimming.
Typical American market manipulation.
We actually just had another fitness epidemic here similar to the 90s but slightly more gym related than outdoor related. Protein powder was HUGE on tiktok shop and fairly big in stores. I happen to be a target of the powder supplement as a medical issue caused me to start my journey in losing over 100lbs in less than a year. I was having overnight oats with extra protein everyday. I have some left but now that I’ve lost the weight and kept most of the muscle, I’m back on whole foods only, especially for protein.
Edit: if you look it up, theres’s a lot written about the “fitness influencer to right wing pipeline”
There was a fitness epidemic in the 90s?!
Aerobics and running were big in the late 70s to early 80s, but the 90s was about being big and soft. The clothes were oversized. Waists were high. Centerfolds had big boobs and wide waists.
The 90s was obsessed with “lite”, i.e. cutting fats – especially saturated fats – out of foods, and with lowering cholesterol. Oh, and fiber. I don’t recall any fitness craze, though.
You’re absolutely right about the right-wing machismo trend. Manly men eat lots of meat and maximize protein. Just look how manly I am with my steak, nevermind how I waddled in from my lifted pickup.
Ozempic. People on it can’t handle sugars and carbs as well.
I think this is the correct answer. A shocking amount of people are on these weight loss drugs. When you are on these medications, you’re given guidelines for a high protein diet. Because these drugs make you lose weight pretty fast. I know several people taking these medications and it’s buy everything high protein because the drugs make you not want to eat at all so you need as much protein as possible when you do.
Because the weight loss comes from muscle first, so Ozempic users MUST eat high protein & lift weights to build/maintain muscle or else their body composition turns into jelly. Ask me how I know 😜
I hope that you’re becoming swole as hell and not turning into jelly in that case.
Yes, pretty much every female at my wife’s work is on it. I still worry that in 10 years we’ll find out there’s some horrible side effect from extended use. I could stand to lose a few myself, but I don’t want to touch the stuff for that reason and the muscle loss mentioned. I lift weights and don’t want to lose any of the gains I’ve made over the last 3 years. If I wanna get lean, I’ll just have to adjust my diet the old fashioned way to a shitload of brown rice, boiled chicken and broccoli.
I buy PROTEIN-packed twinkies to grow humongous MUSCLES so my mom knows that I have SEX with many ladies and I want everyone to rest assured that I am a big HETEROSEXUAL man in my Thunderfalconcougarbird
Why is this place so mentally ill?
Many neckbeards living in moms’ basements are drawn to Lemmy.
Lmfao at this whole thread of nonsense answers.
It’s not a weird obsession.
If you want to be muscular, then you need to eat a lot of protein.
If you want to be muscular and have a low body fat percentage, then you need to eat a lot of protein, and eat a lot of protein / calorie you eat.
If you’re old and want to slow down how quickly your muscles waste away to maintain your physical health, you need to eat a lot of protein.
And protein is generally one of the more expensive parts of food, so companies constantly try and cut back and replace it with carbs and sugar instead… All leading to people seeking out food with high protein content
If you want to be muscular, then you need to eat a lot of protein
But dumbasses think protein is only in meat. Internet thinks protein = meat.
https://www.greatveganathletes.com/athletes/sport/bodybuilders/
And let’s just ignore colon cancer rates in <30 coincident with the protein fad.
But dumbasses think protein is only in meat. Internet thinks protein = meat.
No, the vast majority of bodybuilders and gym bros use whey protein powder which is dairy based.
Also, if we’re talking normal food, you have to eat 6 full cans of beans to get the same protein as 1lb of chicken or fish. Meat is not the only way to get protein but the fact of the matter is that for most people (assuming they ignore the morals and ethics) it’s gonna be easier and tastier to get a substantial amount of protein from meat.
And let’s just ignore colon cancer rates in <30 coincident with the protein fad.
Lmfao thanks random internet person for your rough feeling of correlation. Glad no actual researcher would have ever possibly thought to check that in their study! /S
Lmfao thanks random internet person for your rough feeling of correlation. Glad no actual researcher would have ever possibly thought to check that in their study! /S
White meat certainly seems fine from everything I can find, but beef and red meat are 100% linked to colon cancer. The carnivore diet may not explicitly state to eat only red meat - but every single person I’ve met that pushes it IRL seems to immediately talk about eating steak or ground beef for every meal. Joe Rogan pushed it by suggesting he was ‘experimenting’ by eating only eggs, ground beef, and elk. Jordan Peterson literally only consumed beef, salt, and water.
To say this is a right-wing chud fad in recent years is not inaccurate - and to assume causation for the rise in colon cancer is also supported by science.
Yes you can probably do the carnivore diet on nothing but chicken and fish, that simply doesn’t match reality as far as most practioners of the carnivore diet are concerned.
100% linked to colon cancer.
Only in observational epidemiology with meaningless hazard ratios less then 2 in carbohydrate heavy populations.
To say this is a right-wing chud fad in recent years is not inaccurate - and to assume causation for the rise in colon cancer is also supported by science.
Your political biases do not transfer to a dietary pattern used by people globally outside of your local political theatre. None of the “science” would say causation, observational epidemiology CANNOT establish cause and effect, it can only generate hypothesises. The papers themselves are very careful about this “linked, associated” they avoid casual language.
Yes you can probably do the carnivore diet on nothing but chicken and fish, that simply doesn’t match reality as far as most practioners of the carnivore diet are concerned.
You need fat, humans are lipovores - so a meat with high levels of saturated fat (such as salmon) would be a good option for a zero carb diet.
How about you read my comment again, recognize that I already addressed that white meat is likely fine - then do some research about prominent carnivore diet practioners.
Spoilers - they aren’t telling you to eat fucking salmon.
I read your comment, and I’ve read extensively on zero carb - yes - Salmon and red meat are healthy foods in that eating pattern.
Red meat is not healthy.
Yeah there’s a huge difference between the powerlifters living off chicken, rice, and spinach and the modern adherents of the carnivore diet.
powerlifters living off chicken, rice, and spinach and the modern adherents of the carnivore diet.
Yes, the group eating zero carb is healthier then the powerlifters. You can have huge muscles and still be metabolically unwell.
If you want to be muscular, then you need to eat a lot of protein.
This statement is not supported by science. There are no shortcuts, if you want big muscles you have to exercise more.
Exercising is the easy part of body building. Eating and sleeping well enough is the hard part.
Sleep is the endgame boss for me. Diet I’ve gotten fairly good at. But I’ve struggled with sleep for a long time and it’s so fragile. One thing can be off and it’ll screw up the whole night, which messes with the next day etc. It’s very easy to fall into a bad sleep cycle.
Obviously. But you have to eat enough protein on top of that.
Agreed, although I’ll add a few things. Protein has a much higher thermic effect of food (TEF), meaning your body expends more energy processing it. Protein and carbs both contain around 4 calories/gram and fat around 9, but TEF is roughly 20–30% for protein, 5–10% for carbs and 0–3% for fat. In other words, your body burns roughly that percentage of the calories from each just processing them.
More importantly, protein supplies the amino acids your body needs to maintain and rebuild muscle; carbs can’t substitute for the essential amino acids you have to get from your diet. That’s particularly useful during a caloric deficit, when you’re trying to lose fat while preserving muscle, and as you get older and age-related muscle loss becomes a concern.
Protein also tends to be more satiating than carbs or fat and affects appetite hormones like ghrelin, GLP-1 and CCK. So while there’s no magic number of calories that adding protein will make you eat less, the evidence supports protein making it easier to feel satisfied on fewer calories.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32768415/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8878356/So protein helps you maintain muscle, makes you feel fuller per calorie, and costs your body more energy to process. There are pretty good reasons people trying to lose fat, build/maintain muscle, or stay healthy as they age to seek out higher-protein foods. The marketing obsession didn’t come out of nowhere, even if companies take advantage of it by plastering the protein content across the front of the package while leaving things like carbs, saturated fat, and total calories much less prominent.
It’s a weird obsession because people are trying to eat significantly more than they need.
People misunderstood grams per kilogram and just switched it to grams per pound without actually converting units
Lmfao, no they didn’t, you misunderstood the difference in recommended intakes for maintenance (/kg) vs gaining muscle / slowing it’s atrophy in old age (/lb).
Americans eat too much everything. Protein won’t fix that.
Actually one of the biggest problems that Americans and Europeans have when it comes to obesity is high carb diets. Compared to carbohydrates, protein helps keep you feeling fuller, longer. So higher protein diets would absolutely have an impact on fixing that problem.
People eat more than they need because modern society makes it incredibly easy to, and we’re removed from the survival conditions that made high-energy foods so attractive to us in the first place. The American lifestyle is particularly bad in this regard, with our car-dependent cities, sedentary lifestyles, abundance of cheap, calorie-dense food, and food companies that spend heavily on advertising and lobby politicians to keep regulations and labeling requirements favorable to them.
The “people are trying to eat significantly more than they need” was referring to protein
As in people are drinking 300 calorie protein shakes when they aren’t hungry so they can hit their “protein target”
What protein shake is 300 calories? All the decent ones are around 110-130
If you’re old and want to slow down how quickly your muscles waste away to maintain your physical health, you need to eat a lot of protein.
Btw, high protein intake lets you age quickly.
I noticed that during the big egg “crisis” where eggs went up to the price we normally pay in the UK. Turns out they were gobbling them up like fucking Gaston for “protein”. I get through maybe half a dozen in a particularly eggy week…
No mention of fibre though. Their arses must be split asunder.
They don’t eat real fiber. They gobble up all of the sterculia gum which, coincidentally, is now also not available for people who need it for medical reasons worldwide.
I’m sure some people are chugging eggs for protein but it isn’t the norm and that is not at all what led to eggs being more expensive in the US. It was bird flu outbreaks combined with new regulations in some states coming into effect. In my state everything now has to be “cage free” which came into effect right around the whole egg price spike, but from what I can tell the price spike was mostly due to bird flu
