Decoder Ring | How Protein Muscled Its Way to the Top

Nov 19, 2025

Join Samantha King, a kinesiology professor and co-author of 'Protein: The Making of a Nutritional Superstar', along with Gavin Whedon, a sociology expert focusing on sport and health. They dive into America's fixation with protein, exploring its historical booms and cultural significance. Discover how protein's journey spans from 19th-century meat extracts to today's protein-fortified foods. They also discuss the misconceptions around protein needs and how bodybuilding culture helped shape modern protein trends, creating an ever-growing market.

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ANECDOTE

Grocery Aisle Protein Hunt

Willa recounts roaming supermarket aisles and finding protein claims on soups, yogurts, pasta, and even ice cream.
The browsing shows how ubiquitous protein labeling has become across mainstream packaged foods.

INSIGHT

Protein: Necessary Yet Overstated

Protein is essential biologically but most people with enough food already meet survival needs for protein.
Modern protein talk often shifts from survival to promises about muscle, longevity, and cognition.

INSIGHT

Liebig's Protein Evangelism

Justus von Liebig's 19th-century experiments elevated protein to a central nutrition category despite incomplete evidence.
Liebig's publicizing linked meat with strength and shaped long-term cultural views about protein and meat.

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Americans are currently besotted with protein. It’s touted as being good for muscle growth, weight loss, skincare, mental acuity, longevity, and much else besides. It’s sold to men, women, children, the elderly— you can even buy protein for your pets. The protein supplement market alone is worth $21 billion and growing—and extra protein is being added to coffee, cereal, pasta, beer, ice cream, and popcorn.

But as frenzied as we currently are about protein, this is not the first protein boom—or even the second. Protein has been promoted as a charismatic, cure-all nutrient for nearly two centuries. In this episode, with the help of Samantha King and Gavin Weedon, the authors of Protein: The Making of a Nutritional Superstar, we look closely at all our protein crazes and their associated protein products—from beef tea to whey powder—and see what they can tell us about our current protein mania.

This episode was produced by Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. We had editing support from Josh Levin and fact-checking by Sophie Summergrad. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

Sources for This Episode

King, Samantha and Gavin Weedon. Protein: The Making of a Nutritional Superstar, Duke University Press, 2026.

Baker, Ryan. “Protein has become America's latest obsession. Companies like General Mills and PepsiCo are capitalizing on it,” CNBC, July 22, 2025.

Brock, William H. Justus von Liebig: The Chemical Gatekeeper, Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Callahan, Alice. “The More Protein, the Better?” New York Times, April 9, 2025.

Draper, Kevin. “America’s Protein Obsession Is Transforming the Dairy Industry,” New York Times, July 16, 2025.

Gayomali, Chris. “Big Food Gets Jacked: How protein mania took over the American grocery store,” New York Magazine, Feb. 12, 2025.

“The Great Protein Fiasco,” Maintenance Phase, Aug. 31, 2021.

Liebig, Justus von. Researches on the Chemistry of Food, Taylor and Walton, 1847.

McLaren, Donald S. “The Great Protein Fiasco,” The Lancet, 1974.

Oncken, John. “Stingy, 'half-way' dairy farmer's curiosity changed the world,” Wisconsin State Farmer, April 27, 2022.

“Subject of Whey Disposal Discussed in UW Bulletin.” Wausau Daily Herald, Aug. 28, 1965.

Torrella, Kenny. “You’re probably eating way too much protein,” Vox, Jan. 30, 2024.

Wilson, Bee. “Protein mania: the rich world’s new diet obsession,” The Guardian, Jan. 4, 2019.

Wu, Katherine J. “Should We All Be Eating Like The Rock?” The Atlantic, Aug. 28, 2023.

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