Protein summary

In 1974, a medical researcher named Donald McLaren published an article in the prestigious journal The Lancet called “The Great Protein Fiasco.” It was a damning verdict on one of the most expensive, wasteful, and consequential errors in the history of nutrition science.

The story begins in the early twentieth century, when colonial administrators in Africa began shifting focus away from famine and toward the “quality” of native diets. The underlying concern wasn’t humanitarian –⁠ it was economic. A well-fed workforce was a productive one, and colonial officials were eager to maximize the labor they could extract. Nutrition science offered a convenient framework.

Every single day, a large cheese-processing plant produces over a million liters of liquid whey –⁠ a pale, protein-rich, intensely pungent substance that was once treated as waste. Today, whey is everywhere –⁠ protein shakes, bars, yogurts, and even beer. So how did whey go from toxic pollutant to nutritional superstar?

The story starts with milk. During World War II, American dairy farmers ramped up production to feed soldiers overseas. After the war ended, they were suddenly left with enormous surpluses that the market couldn’t absorb. Government interventions followed, including a 1946 law mandating every school lunch to include milk.

At a symposium in New Mexico in 1988, nutrition professor Irwin Rosenberg declared what he believed to be one of the most overlooked problems in medicine: the gradual loss of muscle mass in older people. He called the condition sarcopenia, from the Greek for “poverty of flesh,” and argued that it deserved the same serious scientific attention as osteoporosis or heart disease.

The idea quickly took hold. An era of rising neoliberalism –⁠ with its emphasis on individual responsibility for health –⁠ proved receptive soil. And an entirely new medical category, along with a multibillion-dollar market, was born.

When Aubrey Marcus wants to inspire his followers, he doesn’t talk about “exercise.” “Exercise,” he says, “is for puppies and babies.” What he prescribes instead is training, optimization, sovereignty –⁠ and a carefully curated stack of supplements to fuel it all.

Marcus is a central figure in what might be called the “muscular manosphere,” a sprawling digital ecosystem of men’s fitness and self-improvement gurus. This culture is a primary engine behind a protein supplement industry worth $21 billion globally, with men accounting for 70 percent of sales. But to understand protein’s role here, you have to look beyond economics to ideology –⁠ what protein represents for the men who consume it.

In 2024, the Florida legislature passed a law banning the sale of lab-grown meat. That same year, a Montana Republican candidate made a point of branding a calf on the campaign trail. And a best-selling book called The Eggs Benedict Option argued that animal protein is essential to defending Western civilization from feminism and globalism. Protein has officially been drafted into the culture war.

This strange transformation reflects protein’s unusual flexibility as an idea. It can stand for strength, purity, tradition, innovation, or survival, depending on who’s invoking it. Today, it sits at the center of two competing visions of the future. On one side is a meat-first populism that treats beef as a marker of freedom, masculinity, and national identity. On the other is a Silicon Valley-inflected alternative-protein futurism that promotes lab-grown meat and insect protein as solutions to environmental collapse. The ideological gulf is real, but both sides are operating within the same fundamental framework –⁠ one in which protein is the indispensable nutrient.