Not even two months into my job here at WIRED, I found myself barfing in the office bathroom.
Technically, it was work-related stress, but not in the way you might imagine. It was, instead, the unfortunate and almost immediate result of my efforts to switch to a diet solely consisting of foods, drinks, and supplements marketed as high in protein—and thereby meet the level of daily protein intake recommended by the US Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The conversation on the porcelain telephone came about an hour after I sampled Ghost’s Nutter Butter–flavored whey protein powder. My partner Mads uses it as workout fuel, and I saw it as an easy shortcut to 26 grams of protein. She had already grumbled about me having some for journalistic purposes—“it’s expensive!”—but was relieved that she wouldn’t have to taste-test any of the other slop I had on my list to eat that week. I foolishly took the jar’s suggestion to add a heaping scoop of the Ghost powder to 5 or 6 ounces of water and wound up trying to choke down a glass of peanut butter sludge. (After I vomited, Mads told me that she only ever puts a small dose of this foul powder in her cereal milk). As a protein-maxxing newb, it was a lesson learned.
I doubt Kennedy has these problems. Earlier this year, the US health secretary unveiled a “historic reset” of dietary guidelines for Americans, and the very first item was “Prioritizing Protein.” The department claimed that official dietary guidance in years past had “demonized protein in favor of carbohydrates.” On his social media accounts, Trump’s health secretary can be found visiting a Texas barbecue restaurant for a “protein-packed” meal, touring a Pennsylvania farm that produces “protein-rich” dairy, and appearing at an event with Mike Tyson to promote the Trump administration’s efforts to put protein “at the center of the American plate.”
The food industry has responded to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda with a dizzying assortment of high-protein items now available in chain restaurants and on store shelves. Despite his frequent claim that ultra-processed foods are making Americans sick, protein-loaded versions of those same foodstuffs are everywhere, as an apparent compromise.
I’m not the kind of guy who lifts weights in jeans—I prefer to run a few miles outdoors most days for my exercise—yet I wondered whether I was missing out on the alleged benefits of protein-maxxing. Perhaps if I upped my nutrient stats with all these trendy protein bowls, bars, and beverages for a week I would start noticing some improvements to my overall quality of life. Certainly, I reasoned, it has never been easier to fill up a grocery cart with products that loudly proclaim their protein content. So that’s what I did.
Manly breakfasts
Eager to up my protein consumption at breakfast—while maintaining a level of masculinity that seems core to the MAHA ethos—I paid $20, plus $7 in shipping fees, for a box of something called Man Cereal, easily the worst food I ingested for this experiment. The maple bacon flavor is touted as “sweet, smoky & sigma,” further confirming that the stuff is made for gym bros who listen to problematic podcasts, and a bowl nets you 2.5 grams of creatine, a compound that supports muscle development. Too bad it’s both offensively artificial on the palate and nearly impossible to chew through, a fitting exercise for anyone who believes they can improve their jawlines by “mewing.” As the hard, styrofoam-like balls finally break down, they coat your teeth in gritty morsels that should make even the most performatively masculine dude question his commitment to the act. Oh, and it’s only 16 grams of protein.
Other options were less revolting but equally short on protein. I picked up a box of Protein Boostin’ Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts, which hit the market last fall, and a package of Kodiak Cakes’ “protein-packed” French toast sticks. Both tasted fine, even if the French toast sticks were on the bland side, but when I compared the protein content of a serving of either of these foods—10 grams each—I realized it was slightly less than I got from my usual breakfast of Special K with milk, which gives me 13 grams of protein to start the day.
In this way, the current protein craze may be distorting the facts around Americans’ access to it.
“Protein is one of the many components of a healthy diet, and most people, without trying, get enough protein if they're not eating a restrictive diet,” says David Seres, a clinical ethicist who recently retired from his role as director of medical nutrition and professor of medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center. Conditions such as poverty or residence in a “food desert,” where affordable and nutritious food is in short supply, he notes, could also contribute to diets that are insufficient in protein.
Seres rejects Kennedy’s assertion that the US government previously waged a “war on protein” and questions the nutritional guidance from the Trump administration, which calls on Americans to eat 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. “There’s a lot of pushback from the scientific community for things that are not adequately proven and may have potential harm,” he says. Previous iterations of “high-fat, high-protein, low-carb” fad diets, he adds, were never endorsed with a federal recommendation, an unprecedented development he finds “troubling.”
Nevertheless, I was on a mission to eat—per the HHS guideline—about 138 grams of protein a day. Because my breakfast foods were barely making a dent, I also looked to Starbucks, which serves up a vanilla protein latte (27g) and Dunkin’, which has a line of fruit-flavored protein “refreshers” (15g) advertised by celebrity spokeswoman Megan Thee Stallion. The Starbucks employee was so bewildered by my order that she struggled to figure out how to ring it up on the register. Neither drink was to my liking, but both beat the cough-syrup taste of a cherry-lime Clear Protein Soda, which could really use a more appetizing name and yields just 10 grams of protein. Yes, there is also such a thing as protein water; a bottle of Isopure, the brand I tried, has 15 grams per 20-ounce bottle and something of a milky aftertaste. The most loaded drink I found was Slate Milk’s Vanilla Ultra Protein Shake, which packs 30 grams into a can and drinks like melted chalk.
Embarrassing lunch orders
Lunches came from a variety of fast-food and fast-casual chains that have looked to cash in on protein mania, with some meals feeling more like recession indicators than health food. There were a couple of semi-humiliating exchanges with service workers when I was forced to ask if their location actually had the high-protein special I had seen advertised online. At no point did I see any other customer at a restaurant order the cursed plates I was inflicting upon myself.
On its high protein menu, Chipotle has a “protein cup”—literally a cup of steak or adobo chicken, with nothing else. I opted for the over-glazed chicken, which cost me $4.70 for a straightforward 32 grams of protein, and instantly understood the term “boy kibble.” Subway’s “protein pockets,” meanwhile, are nothing but its usual lunch meats wrapped in a wheat tortilla. The $3.99 “Italian Trio” I ate was good for 23 grams of protein; that didn’t make it any less depressing. It’s worth noting, however, that the Subway I visited did have a poster in the window urging customers to try these things. Jack in the Box’s new chicken fajita bowl (35 grams of protein) at least came with rice, a luxury for anyone on this kind of diet. I sent a video of that dish to my colleague, who replied with a single word: “Disgusting.”
Seeking protein at all costs even took the pleasure out of snacking. A David high-protein bar (28 grams) was altogether uncanny in its approximation of chocolate chip cookie dough. (A group attempted to sue the company for misrepresenting the calorie and fat content of the bars, which are popular among wellness influencers, but the complaint was dismissed this week.)
Dinner with a side of beef tallow
Dinners were no less disappointing, plus I had to contend with Mad’s annoyance over not cooking for us both, as I do most nights. (While refusing to take part in my alternative meals, she did eventually try a single bite of the Man Cereal, which she judged horrendous.) Sweetgreen’s steak mezze plate (34 grams of protein) was remarkably bland considering its five-ingredient side medley. My sad serving of protein pasta (21g ) was alleviated only by the nice tomato sauce I used and the green peas (8g) I sautéed on the side—my body yearned for a vegetable.
I couldn’t finish out the week without an order from a local spot called Burgers Never Say Die, which serves the type of beef tallow fries so popular with Kennedy and other anti-seed-oil truthers, because while they contain almost no protein themselves, they definitely belong to the kind of worldview that prescribes smoked brisket for your health. Although the subtextual politics of burger franchises have come to rest on the question of whether they have switched to tallow, having finally tasted this alternative, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Mads, a cheeseburger aficionado, didn’t care for the smash patties either.
And how did I feel, physically? In a word, dear reader: unwell. Sure, I could have gone a more sensible route to maximum protein, with lots of salmon and spinach and the like. But it was by far more appropriate to this moment in American culture to explore all the products that have been either cynically repackaged as protein-rich or had a modest amount of protein injected into them. Together, these left me queasy, somewhat constipated, and wondering if my natural body odor was a little smellier than usual—or if I was simply sweating more. Mads did say I was stinky, anyway. I was sluggish on my runs and hardly up for socializing in the evenings, as though the shame and discomfort of organizing my life around protein had precluded almost everything else.
“It makes sense from a marketing perspective,” Seres says of the many gimmicky protein treats and fast-food meals that have flooded America’s nutritional landscape of late, “because you're taking something that's unhealthy and making it sound like it's healthy. It's still not necessarily healthy just because it's had protein added to it.” Indeed, I experienced no particular upside to sustaining myself on these products for a week and doubt another month or two would have contributed to my overall fitness.
To reward myself after a bleak week of greasy meat and protein-infused seltzers, I made an old-fashioned cocktail known as the bull shot. It’s vodka with a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and tabasco, a splash of lemon juice, and three ounces of chilled beef broth. That’s a mere gram of protein in total, but at least it’ll give you a buzz.
