MW The new food pyramid and brands like Starbucks and Chipotle want us to eat more protein. We're already getting plenty.
By Jaimy Lee and Nicole Lyn Pesce
The Trump administration is urging Americans to eat more protein, and corporate brands are on board. But how much is too much?
No one agrees how much protein Americans should eat every day.
The Department of Health and Human Services this week revealed updated dietary guidelines, which basically double the daily recommendation for protein consumption. It also brought back the iconic food pyramid from the 1990s - but inverted it to underscore the value of protein and vegetables in a healthy diet.
"We are ending the war on protein," declares the food pyramid's new slogan.
The new guidelines came together under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - the de facto leader of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, which urges less consumption of ultraprocessed foods and a higher intake of protein and fat.
Protein was already having a moment. It helps fight sarcopenia - the aging-related loss of muscle mass and function - in older adults. It's highly encouraged for women in menopause, and it can keep you full for longer if you are trying to lose weight. Even a dairy-aisle staple like cottage cheese has been in short supply after TikTokers talked up its value as a protein source.
It's a decades-in-the-making response to the low-fat movement, which indirectly prioritized carbohydrates in favor of lowering intake of saturated fats and their related risk of high cholesterol and heart disease. But in an era of GLP-1s, biohacking and viral wellness trends on TikTok, protein is once again viewed as a cornerstone of good health - even as the debate over how much protein, and what kind is best, rages on.
??"All the social-media stuff [is] making us think we have some sort of protein deficit," Deirdre Kay Tobias, an assistant professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said this week during a call with reporters. "Protein foods - and protein the nutrient - are the one thing America has consistently excelled in. There is no issue for protein. Every other food group falls short."
Just how healthy is a steak?
At the center of the protein debate is saturated fats. Foods that are high in saturated fats, like steak, bacon and butter, are calorie-dense. And without careful tracking, people can gain weight, which increases "bad" cholesterol and eventually puts them at risk for heart attacks and strokes.
Eating several servings of red meat or chicken with the skin on every day likely means your intake of saturated fats is too high. As was the case with the last version of the dietary guidelines, which come out every five years, Americans are still encouraged to limit their intake of saturated fats to 10% or less of their diet.
The original food pyramid (left) came out in 1992; the new inverted pyramid (right) was revealed by HHS earlier this week.
At the same time, the new dietary guidelines now recommend that people in the U.S. consume between 0.54 grams to 0.73 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. If you weigh about 150 pounds, that works out to at least 80 grams and up to 108 grams of protein per day, depending on your activity level.
"That's 12 ounces of chicken or other animal food," Blake said. "That's a heck of a lot. And if you have your plate looking like that, you're going to be crowding out other things on the plate - and what you're going to crowd out is vegetables."
Blake's worry is that the new pyramid doesn't do enough to message the nutritional value of legumes like chickpeas or black beans, which are cost-effective and have both protein and fiber. (Animal protein does not have fiber.) Plus, not all animal-based proteins are the same: Eating 100 grams of salmon has about 3 grams of saturated fat, while the same serving of a ribeye steak has about 10 grams.
That's a point of contention for the American Heart Association, which called for research into the "appropriate amount of protein consumption and the best protein sources."
However, other experts are happy that the guidelines no longer emphasize plant proteins to the same degree - a point also mentioned by HHS officials this week.
"For decades, Americans were advised to minimize protein - particularly animal protein - despite mounting evidence that inadequate protein intake contributes to sarcopenia, insulin resistance, frailty and metabolic decline," Mark Hyman, a leading functional-medicine physician and a friend of Kennedy's, wrote on his blog.
The business of protein
Many brands are already on board with pro-protein messaging.
Protein-fortified foods and drinks are projected to become a $101.6 billion global market by 2030, according to Grand View Research. And companies have already started pumping up their products with protein to meet consumers' ever-changing appetites.
While the food pyramid was being turned upside down this week, Dunkin' and Subway launched coffee drinks with "Protein Milk" and "Protein Pocket" sandwiches, respectively. This comes just a month after Starbucks $(SBUX)$ began whipping up Khloe Kardashian-endorsed protein lattes, while Chipotle $(CMG)$ launched a "high-protein menu" with adobo chicken and steak. Mars's Pop-Tarts and Pepsi's $(PEP)$ Doritos have also landed in stores with new protein-packed formulas.
Kellanova, which is now part of Mars, recently launched Pop-Tarts Protein, which have 10 grams of protein per serving.
The trend led McMaster University kinesiology professor Stuart Phillips, who specializes in exercise, nutrition and muscle health, to declare 2025 as a time when "protein was oversold, overvalued and overhyped" in a recent column for The Conversation.
"In 2025, protein became a metabolic Jack-of-all nutrients: protein for fat loss, protein for longevity, protein for weight loss, protein for hormone balance, protein for menopause, protein for people on GLP-1 drugs, protein for people who exercise, protein for people who do not. Protein everywhere, and the more, the better," he wrote
And the new food pyramid is urging people to eat even more. In fact, nearly 1 in 4 Americans believe they aren't getting enough protein - particularly millennials (29%) and women (27%), according to a recent Numerator survey. People are tracking their protein intake the way they used to count calories, with the same research finding more than three-quarters of consumers (78%) said they are paying at least some attention to protein in their diets - a higher share than those tracking sugars, fats, carbohydrates or total calories.
"If I start seeing protein and toothpaste, that's going to be the end of it," Blake said.
-Jaimy Lee -Nicole Lyn Pesce
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 10, 2026 08:30 ET (13:30 GMT)
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