Black packaging by design
Food marketers use colours to give us signals about what’s in a package.
Green signals natural and environmentally friendly, reds and yellows are often linked to energy, and blue goes with coolness and hydration.
These days, black is often used as a visual shorthand for products containing protein.
But it’s more than that. Research also suggests black conveys high-quality or “premium” products. This makes it the perfect match for foods marketed as “functional” or “performance-boosting”.
The ‘health halo’ effect
When one attribute of a food is seen as positive, it can make us assume the whole product is health-promoting, even if that’s not the case. This is called a “health halo”.
For protein, the glow of the protein halo can make us blind to the other attributes of the food, such as added fats or sugars. We might be willing to pay more too.
It’s important to know protein deficiency is rare in countries like Australia. You can even have too much protein.
How to spend less to get more protein
If you do have good reason to think you need more protein, here’s how to get better value for your money.
Animal-based core foods are nutritionally dense and high-quality protein foods. Meats, fish, poultry, eggs, fish, and cheese will have between 11 to 32 grams of protein per 100 grams.
That could give you 60g in a chicken breast, 22g in a can of tuna, 17g in a 170g tub of Greek yoghurt, or 12g in 2 eggs.
In the animal foods, chicken is economical, delivering more than 30g of protein for each $1 spent.
But you don’t need to eat animal products to get enough protein.
In fact, once you factor in costs – and I made the following calculations based on recent supermarket prices – plant-based protein sources become even more attractive.
Legumes (such as beans, lentils and soybeans) have about 9g of protein per 100g, which is about half a cup. Legumes are in the range of 20g of protein per dollar spent, which is a similar cost ratio to a protein powder.