The 3 Reasons Why Society Is Obsessed With Protein

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Western society is pretty obsessed with protein intake. All we ever hear is that we should make sure we’re getting enough protein. Especially when you’re a new vegan, you’ll either worry about this yourself or have people tell you about their protein-related worries for you.

This is funny because not many people will tell you to make sure you’re getting enough carbohydrates or fats, but why is that? In this article, I want to dig deeper into the three major reasons about why our society is obsessed with protein intake.

Why Are We So Obsessed With Protein?

In my opinion, there are many reasons for our current obsession with protein. Below, I’ve outlined the three main ones that I found during my research.

Reason 1: The Downfall Of Carbohydrates And Fats

The first reason for our obsession with protein is that, over the past decades, carbohydrates and fats have gotten an incredibly bad reputation. Fats were first on the list of “bad” macronutrients, as they already gained a bad reputation in the 1950s.

The reason dietary fats garnered such a bad reputation in the 1950s is that a high fat intake, particularly saturated fat, raises the level of total cholesterol in the blood, which is a risk factor for heart disease.

AOCS, source

However, what research at the time failed to establish is that there are different kinds of fats. Some fats should be considered to be “good” (unsaturated fats) and these actually help lower bad LDL cholesterol and increase good HDL cholesterol.

Others should be considered “bad” (saturated fats) and these increase bad LDL cholesterol. Because of this lack of understanding, all fat gained a bad reputation.

After that, carbohydrates became the enemy. However, here we have the same problem: not all carbohydrates are bad, and they’re actually very necessary. There are two types of carbohydrates: simple and complex.

Simple carbohydrates can be found in sweeteners, milk but also fruit (although fruit has plenty of necessary vitamins and fiber, so the pros often outweigh the cons). Complex carbohydrates are found in wholegrain bread, brown rice and vegetables, among others.

Once again, no distinction was made in society and therefore all carbohydrates were considered to be bad. What happens when you demonize two out of the three necessary macronutrients? The quote below sums it up quite well:

In the current nutrition wars, protein has emerged as the last macronutrient left standing. But the whole “macronutrient fixation” is a “boondoggle” that has been calamitous for public health, Katz told me. “First they told us to cut fat. But instead of wholegrains and lentils, we ate low-fat junk food.” Then food marketers heard the message about cutting carbs and sold us protein-enriched junk foods instead. “When we talk about protein,” said Katz, “we are dissociating the nutrient from its food source.”

David L. Katz, source

Reason 2: A Lot Of Marketing

Which brings me to reason number two: marketing. Throughout the decades, marketeers in all different kinds of sectors have used macronutrients to market to the population. It doesn’t matter if you were working in the food industry or the weight loss industry, this was a golden ticket.

If you needed to sell a new food product, all you needed to do was make sure you were advertising heavily that your product was low in fat and/or sugars. Optionally, you could also say it was high in protein. Both methods worked (and still do).

The weight loss industry is another example of this. If you tell people that you have this unique low fat/low carbohydrate diet, you’ll have clients. Sure, cutting out simple carbohydrates and saturated fats will help your health and hopefully result in a lower calorie intake, resulting in weight loss. However, marketing has taken this to the extreme.

There is also one industry that heavily benefits from the belief that protein is the end-all-be-all of macronutrients: the meat and dairy industry. To this day, the industry spends millions per year lobbying to make sure their interests are met (source).

Take for example, the food pyramid, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first attempt to provide guidelines for U.S. citizens on what to eat.

In April 1991, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) halted publication of its Eating Right Pyramid, due to objections raised by meat and dairy lobbying groups concerning the guide’s display of their products. (…) it was not until one year later—after its content was supported by additional research—that the Eating Right Pyramid was officially released. This time, even the guide’s graphic design was altered to appease industry concerns.

Source

The result was this pyramid, which does leave the most important places for grains and vegetables, but also prominently features protein sources (created from animal products). This pyramid was the leading guideline until 2005.

In 2011, we got the guideline we have until today, and it’s called MyPlate (still from the U.S. Department of Agriculture). Yes, it’s better compared to the pyramid. The meat category is replaced by “protein” but the fact that there’s an entire category for dairy (which clearly resembles a glass of milk here) says a lot.

All of this to say that the belief that protein is the best macronutrient also comes from the fact that entire industries benefit greatly from this belief. The food and weight loss industries have profited from this, and so have the meat and dairy industries. At the same time, the government has done little to contradict this belief or help bring in nuance.

Reason 3: Information Availability

Thirdly, and this ties in quite nicely with my previous point, is the fact that information wasn’t freely available throughout the 1900s. This meant people had to rely on other channels to make their decisions.

However, if you’re constantly bombarded by advertising (on television, radio and in newspapers) about how bad carbohydrates and fats are, and how good protein is, you’re bound to believe it at some point.

Also, if your government isn’t doing anything to bring nuance to the conversation, and is only facilitating this message, what else are you supposed to believe?

Through the invention of the internet, people have been able to do their research and separate fact from fiction. With a little searching, scientific research papers are available everywhere. This means people can make decisions based on scientific information if they’d like to.

As it turns out, science often brings a lot more nuance to the conversation. Protein is still great as ever, but there are good carbohydrates and fat as well. On top of that, we really don’t need as much protein as we think we need to maintain our muscles. I’m using the word maintain here because protein intake differs depending on if you’re trying to maintain muscle, build muscle or lose fat. That’s a topic for another time.

What’s The Result Of All This Misinformation?

As you can imagine, decades of marketing messages have left an interesting mark on society. These days, the average American adult eats double the recommended amount of daily protein. A 100 grams per day to be exact (source).

Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Since the average American woman weighs 170.8 pounds and the average man 199.8 pounds, this turns out to be around 0.5–0.59 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. This isn’t harmful, since Harvard Health recommends not eating more than 2g/kg per day (around 1 gram per pound) (source).

Nevertheless, the increased intake of protein typically means an increase in animal products. This leads to an increased risk of inflammatory diseases (source), which is the leading cause of death around the world (source).

I think it would be good to say that there’s nothing wrong with a slightly higher than normal protein intake, if the protein comes from complete, plant-based protein sources such as quinoa, buckwheat, and soy products.

In all other cases, increased protein intake is normally the result of increased intake of animal products, which has been shown to be bad for long-term health in various areas.

Stefan K.

Stefan has been vegan since 2019 and has been regularly working on his strength since the beginning of 2023. He’s on a mission to help other vegans get stronger and have all of them achieve the quality of life they deserve.