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?
Sufficient protein intake is very important when it comes to gaining healthy weight, or retaining muscle mass as you either diet or age. Most people do not get enough protein intake their daily meals, and unlike other things like potassium, iron or vitamins, there’s no easy over the counter pill you can swallow to level that out. In the U.S. people that haven’t been intentional with their diets usually tend towards very carb-heavy diets.
Companies put what they think people care about on their packaging. In the 90’s it was “low fat”. It’s trendy right now in America to eat healthier (perhaps due to fast food abandoning Americans for unsustainable profits) and one of the first two things any American will learn when you start actually paying attention to what you eat is that 1. You’re probably eating too many calories, and 2. You’re not eating enough protein.
Most Americans get significantly more protein than they need, men by ~30% and women by ~15%. Even if you look at the new wildly unscientific federal guidelines saying to get more protein (this is a top down “problem”) Americans tend to still get more than that, but it is closer. A huge problem is the over reliance on animal proteins causing the other issues and the huge lack of fiber Americans struggle with.
But what is the context? Are they 15-30% up on calories because of their intake, do they just eat too much? What about other countries, what about a normal diet, what is a normal diet?
Preach. It’s upsetting how the system has either failed to properly inform or actively misinformed so many people on this topic.
My favorite part of the debate are the sources
Where did you learn that Americans don’t meet their protein needs?
Reinforcing what another comment has already said: the idea that we don’t get enough protein is horse shit, we get way way more than we need. Which, and this is important, your body just has to filter out putting stress on vital organs.
I’ve heard this claim countless times, usually from people trying to shit on plant based eating, and it simply has no basis in fact. Even fully plant based eating gives you plenty of protein.
Something you don’t commonly see: people getting treated for protein deficiency.
Organs? Apart from kidneys, which one? I’ve always heard no more than 1g/kg/day of protein otherwise risk of degrading your kidney.
Kidneys are the primary problem (and there’s two of them so I’ll pretend “organs” was meaningful there), I’m not educated enough to know much past that. I kinda assume that if you’re stressing your kidneys it’s going to impact something else though.
It’s not that protein is like bad for the kidney, it’s just that your body has to get rid of what you don’t use so they work harder than they need to.