Protein is everywhere — even where it probably doesn’t belong
By Margot Sanger-Katz and Larry Buchanan, The New York Times
The New York Times reports that America’s protein obsession has become a full-fledged food-industry arms race. NIQ, which collects detailed data on retail food sales, now counts more than 37,000 products carrying front-of-package protein claims, generating about $90 billion in annual sales. Once largely confined to shakes and bodybuilding supplements, protein marketing now extends to chips, cookies, cereal, pizza, candy, coffee, and even vodka.
The boom reflects growing consumer interest in high-protein diets, GLP-1 weight-loss drugs and new federal dietary guidelines encouraging Americans to prioritize protein. But nutrition experts warn that manufacturers are increasingly using protein to give highly processed foods a health halo. Donald Layman, a nutrition scientist who helped inform the new guidelines, calls the practice “fairy dusting”: adding protein to a cupcake or chip doesn’t fundamentally change what the food is.
There is another irony: USDA analysis suggests nearly 90% of Americans already consume enough protein. Yet the marketing continues to work — sales of protein-branded cereals and granolas rose 15% over the past year, while surging demand for whey has helped double its price over five years. Some industry analysts are already wondering whether protein has reached its “jump-the-shark” moment. If it has, the next nutritional marketing craze may already be waiting in the wings: fiber.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/09/28/upshot/protein.html
