this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
224 points (97.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

41148 readers
2599 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


8) No Bots.
Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] BeliefsOnTrain@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Organs? Apart from kidneys, which one? I've always heard no more than 1g/kg/day of protein otherwise risk of degrading your kidney.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 1 points 46 minutes ago

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.

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Preach. It's upsetting how the system has either failed to properly inform or actively misinformed so many people on this topic.

[–] BlackVenom@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

My favorite part of the debate are the sources

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

Where did you learn that Americans don’t meet their protein needs?