{"id":302347,"date":"2025-11-20T02:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302347\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T02:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:45:08","slug":"protein-has-been-a-nutritional-superstar-for-two-centuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302347\/","title":{"rendered":"Protein has been a nutritional superstar for two centuries."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Americans are currently besotted with protein. It\u2019s touted as being good for muscle growth, weight loss, skincare, mental acuity, longevity, and much else besides. It\u2019s sold to men, women, children, the elderly\u2014 you can even buy protein for your pets. The protein supplement market alone is worth $21 billion and growing\u2014and extra protein is being added to coffee, cereal, pasta, beer, ice cream, and popcorn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as frenzied as we currently are about protein, this is not the first protein boom\u2014or even the second. Protein has been promoted as a charismatic, cure-all nutrient for nearly two centuries. In this episode, with the help of Samantha King and Gavin Weedon, the authors of Protein: The Making of a Nutritional Superstar<\/a>, we look closely at all our protein crazes and their associated protein products\u2014from beef tea to whey powder\u2014and see what they can tell us about our current protein mania.<\/p>\n

This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. We had editing support from Josh Levin and fact-checking by Sophie Summergrad. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.<\/p>\n

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com<\/a>\u00a0or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.<\/p>\n

Sources for This Episode
King, Samantha and Gavin Weedon. Protein: The Making of a Nutritional Superstar<\/a>, Duke University Press, 2026.
Baker, Ryan. \u201cProtein has become America\u2019s latest obsession. Companies like General Mills and PepsiCo are capitalizing on it<\/a>,\u201d CNBC, July 22, 2025.
Brock, William H. Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Callahan, Alice. \u201cThe More Protein, the Better?<\/a>\u201d New York Times, April 9, 2025.
Draper, Kevin. \u201cAmerica\u2019s Protein Obsession Is Transforming the Dairy Industry<\/a>,\u201d New York Times, July 16, 2025.
Gayomali, Chris. \u201cBig Food Gets Jacked: How protein mania took over the American grocery store<\/a>,\u201d New York Magazine, Feb. 12, 2025.
\u201cThe Great Protein Fiasco<\/a>,\u201d Maintenance Phase, Aug. 31, 2021.
Liebig, Justus von. Researches on the Chemistry of Food, Taylor and Walton, 1847.
McLaren, Donald S. \u201cThe Great Protein Fiasco,\u201d The Lancet, 1974.
Oncken, John. \u201cStingy, \u2018half-way\u2019 dairy farmer\u2019s curiosity changed the world<\/a>,\u201d Wisconsin State Farmer, April 27, 2022.
\u201cSubject of Whey Disposal Discussed in UW Bulletin.\u201d Wausau Daily Herald, Aug. 28, 1965.
Torrella, Kenny. \u201cYou\u2019re probably eating way too much protein<\/a>,\u201d Vox, Jan. 30, 2024.
Wilson, Bee. \u201cProtein mania: the rich world\u2019s new diet obsession<\/a>,\u201d The Guardian, Jan. 4, 2019.
Wu, Katherine J. \u201cShould We All Be Eating Like The Rock?<\/a>\u201d The Atlantic, Aug. 28, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Americans are currently besotted with protein. It\u2019s touted as being good for muscle growth, weight loss, skincare, mental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269],"class_list":{"0":"post-302347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}