Good morning from rain-soaked New York City. In other storm news, Hurricane Polo is bearing down on Baja California Sur, in northwestern Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 115 m.p.h. There’s plenty more below. But first, let’s add some protein.
Powered by proteinNearly 90 percent of Americans have enough protein in their diets, according to a recent government report. That hasn’t stopped food companies from trying to sell us more, nor stopped consumers from buying it. Some of my colleagues started keeping track of the counterintuitive sources of protein they saw in grocery stores and gas station markets, in warehouse clubs and bodegas, in chain restaurants and coffee shops. They found protein cookies and candies. Protein coffee and protein water. Protein vodka. Protein milk. Here were protein-enhanced Pop-Tarts, Uncrustables, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Cheerios. They saw protein-loaded meat sticks and brownie-batter protein balls, too. Protein chips and protein crackers. A company that collects detailed data on retail food sales counts 37,232 products with protein claims on the front of their packaging. Those claims come in big fonts. And those big fonts draw attention. They work. The company says it’s measured around $90 billion in consumer spending on protein products over the last year, including more than $2 billion on protein pizzas. That’s up a lot, as the following chart shows:
Americans are way into protein. Why is that? Selling pointsThe simple answer is hype, according to the reporters Margot Sanger-Katz and Larry Buchanan. If weight-loss advice shows up in your social-media algorithm, the importance of protein will be at the center of it. My dudes who lift weights swear by the stuff — and march around with four-pound bags of nuts in their backpacks. So do the biohackers who want to live past 100. People taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs hear about the macronutrient from their doctors. And the government’s latest MAHA-coded dietary guidelines increased the levels of recommended protein by more than 50 percent. Americans should “prioritize protein foods at every meal,” according to the guidelines. The food industry is happy to oblige, even if the science says that too much protein can lead to problems, including heart disease, kidney issues and weight gain. They sell us yogurt and cheese as the answer. Eggs, too, and salmon and tilapia, beans and tofu. They wrap little salamis in packaging that declares them “protein packs.” Protein is everywhere.
It’s even in snacks: in Protein Nom Noms, for instance, and Doritos Protein. “You’ve got the claims sneaking into categories that don’t make a lot of sense,” said an executive at the company that monitors retail food sales. For the boldThe food industry has always rolled with nutritional trends, which come and go. As my colleagues show, Doritos are a pretty cool case study. The intensely flavored tortilla chips were sold in the 1970s with bags touting “no preservatives!” Since then, Doritos have been labeled “cholesterol free,” “Light (⅓ less oil),” low calorie, low carbohydrate and, right now, “naked of dyes.” (It’s legitimately weird to see a nude Dorito, without its cloak of bright orange flavor chemistry.) Special K cereal is another one, a reminder that what’s old can be new again. Seven decades ago, food scientists teamed up with researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health to develop it. The main selling point, right there on the cereal box: “HIGH-PROTEIN.”
Take a look at the whole article, which has incredible images of protein-mad food packaging and a neat feature that allows you to call up photographs of random protein products. And use this calculator to see how much protein you actually need, based on your age and weight.
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There’s a great instruction in Melissa Clark’s recipe for crispy chicken thighs with cucumber yogurt, which she adapted from one developed by the Maine chef Devin Finigan. It’s to “work confidently” when you turn over the chicken crisped in the pan, so as not to tear the skin. Confidence in the kitchen is everything. Even if you’ve only been at this game a little while, it’s important to bring self-assurance to your actions at the stove. Let the fat render. Let the skin go golden. Let it release. And then turn the bird, sure in the knowledge that you’ve done your best. The seasoning and that fantastic cucumber yogurt will do the rest. You’ve got this.
Intercollegiate Bollywood-fusion dance competitions are at the center of “Best of the Best,” a coming-of-age comedy recently released on Netflix. The film is fictional, but the world it depicts is not. South Asian dance teams at American colleges and universities number in the hundreds. The photographer Gabriela Bhaskar spent the last year documenting one of them at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her images are stunning. Revel in them. More on culture
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