Slow Burn: Decoder Ring | How Protein Muscled Its Way to the Top

Podcast: Slow Burn (Decoder Ring Series)
Episode Air Date: November 19, 2025
Host: Willa Paskin
Featured Guests:

• Dr. Samantha King, Professor of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University
• Dr. Gavin Weeden, Associate Professor, Nottingham Trent University
  Main Theme:
  A deep exploration of how protein became America’s preeminent nutrient, tracing the rise, fall, and resurgence of protein as both a dietary staple and marketing juggernaut—with a sharp eye on the powerful social, economic, and cultural forces that shaped our obsession.

Episode Overview

This episode of Decoder Ring investigates the American (and global) fascination with protein: how it came to dominate grocery shelves, permeate food marketing, and anchor nutritional mythologies. Host Willa Paskin journeys through supermarkets, chemical laboratories, colonial Africa, and Wisconsin cheese factories to reveal the surprising history behind protein’s starring role. Joined by historian Samantha King and sociologist Gavin Weeden, co-authors of a forthcoming book "The Making of a Nutritional Superstar," the episode dissects three major "protein booms" over the last two centuries and asks: Why do we believe we need so much protein—and what happens when science, commerce, and culture collide?

Major Discussion Points and Insights

1. Protein: From Grocery Aisle to Marketing Mania

(00:01–04:45)

• Supermarket Scavenger Hunt: Willa Paskin tours her grocery store, tallying protein boasts on products from yogurt to pasta, crackers to ice cream.
  • "It's like 19 grams of protein—it's actually the biggest piece of text on the can, even bigger than 'Progresso.'" [A, 02:05]
• Protein is “Everywhere”: Marketing has extended protein’s reach beyond traditional sources, with products like popcorn and Lattes emphasizing protein content.
  • "Protein packed food now seems to be everywhere you turn. Adding protein to everything from ice cream pancake mix to Starbucks lattes." [B, 03:10]
• Wider Appeal and Market Growth: Protein is no longer just for bodybuilders; it’s for everyone—men, women, children, the elderly.
  • U.S. protein supplement market = $21 billion and growing.

2. The Roots of the Protein Obsession

(08:55–12:50)

• Guests Introduced: Samantha King and Gavin Weeden, researching the phenomenon for their book.
• Surplus Anxiety: Both noticed people at gyms obsessed with protein, despite already healthy diets.
  • "Here we were… going to this private gym… curious why they thought that we needed more protein." [B, 09:37]
• Biological Basics:
  • Early scientists linked protein with life itself and muscle.
  • Dutch chemist (1838) named “protein” — from Greek proteos, meaning “primary.”
  • Proteins = amino acid chains; vital for many bodily processes.

3. First Protein Boom: Liebig and the Meat Extract Miracle

(13:12–20:04)

• Justus von Liebig: 19th-century German chemist; evangelized meat-based diets and meat extract as a health necessity.
  • "He was a dogged self promoter… promoting a model of how we should eat." [B, 15:01]
• Meat and National Health: Convinced European governments that meat (protein) was crucial for the industrial workforce.
• Salesmanship and Science:
  • Created “Liebig’s Extract of Meat”—the first marketed “protein supplement”—from cattle carcasses in Uruguay.
  • “It was seen as something that would optimize what you were already eating.” [B, 17:45]
• Irony:
  • "Turns out boiling pulverized beef down into a gooey substance was not, in fact, a great way to extract protein." [A, 18:55]
  • Liebig’s extract contained negligible protein, but his ideas cemented protein’s connection with strength and health for decades.

4. Second Boom: Protein as the 'Missing Piece' - Colonial Science & The Protein Deficiency Panic

(22:24–27:48)

• Kwashiorkor in British Colonies:
  • British doctor Cicely Williams links protein deficiency to child malnutrition (“kwashiorkor”) in Ghana.
  • Idea: Poor, mainly vegetarian colonial diets lacked "enough" protein (especially meat).
• Racist and Colonial Overtones:
  • "Protein deficiency came to explain not just a set of symptoms, but the whole problem of underdevelopment in the global South." [B, 23:40]
  • Western dietary superiority justified interventions and disregard for local food cultures.
• “Protein Gap” and Global Rescue:
  • UN and WHO launch massive campaigns to close the “protein gap”—sending dried milk, inventing synthetic and waste-based protein foods.
    • Fish protein concentrates from waste, algae from sewage, bacteria grown in oil.
  • "It’s basically a free-for-all for people who are like, can I turn my waste into another product?" [A, 25:52]
• Collapse of the Theory:
  • By the 1970s, research (esp. Donald McLaren's “The Great Protein Fiasco”) showed that calorie deficiency, not protein, was the main issue.
  • “All the time and resources... coping with the supposed protein gap were a tremendous waste.” [A, 27:13]

5. The Whey Revolution: Turning Garbage into Gold

(31:06–42:12)

• Cheese Production Surpluses:
  • Post-War America had massive surpluses of milk and cheese, leading to excess whey—“175 times more toxic than untreated human sewage” [C, 34:41].
• Environmental Crisis and Innovation:
  • Dairy factories dumped whey in rivers, causing ecological disasters. Pressured to innovate, they refined whey into an edible, high-protein powder.
  • "A minor revolution… [turning] whey, something literally being dumped into streams, and into a potential revenue stream." [A, 36:43]
• Bodybuilding Embraces Whey:
  • 1970s: Whey protein finds its first mass market among bodybuilders.
    • "Protein has always had this association with growth… so it was naturally going to find this home in bodybuilding subcultures." [C, 37:55]
  • Pop culture moment: “Pumping Iron” and Schwarzenegger.
• Whey-Driven Boom:
  • As the low-carb era sets in (1990s–2000s), protein—especially via whey powders—rises as the “good” macronutrient.

6. Protein in the Present: Boom, Busts, and the Future

(42:12–44:52)

• Protein Is Ubiquitous:
  • “Protein” has spread from bodybuilders to Starbucks, snack bars, and even beer.
  • "Cold foam lattes and whey-infused beer are just newfangled interpretations of something old." [C, 42:29]
• Beyond Tribalism:
  • Protein uniquely bridges dietary dogmas—praised by vegans and carnivores, left and right.
    • “The one thing that unites the left and the right… seems like the one thing on which we can all agree: Have more protein.” [B, 43:00]
• Never Demonized:
  • Unlike fat and carbs, protein has never been seriously pathologized in popular culture.
  • "Protein… doesn't have that history of stigma that carbs and fats have… it's never been demonized, it's never been pathologized. Right? It doesn't come with all that baggage." [B, 43:27]
• Commodification & Caution:
  • Host suggests protein is now commodified and perhaps being oversold—much like previous “supernutrients” (water, sleep).
  • “We might notice that we are always looking for one magic thing to solve complicated nutritional problems.” [A, 44:17]
  • History suggests today’s protein fixation is also a cycle—and not here to stay forever.
    • "It's hard to predict the future, but history would suggest that this is not permanent. Nothing's permanent." [B, 44:29]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Marketing:
  • "Ooh, ratio's got 25 grams of protein. All these yogurts—every, like, most of them have—on them, how much protein they have." [A, 02:25]
• On Pseudoscience:
  • "Too small to be measured." (on the actual protein in Liebig’s extract) [B, 18:49]
  • "Protein is in everything but this." [A, 18:51]
• On Colonialism and Nutrition Science:
  • "It was much more convenient to have a theory that a single nutrient was in short supply… and not have to address the social and economic roots of poverty and malnourishment." [B, 26:26]
• On Reinvention:
  • "All that cheese waste didn't just find a market, it created one." [A, 41:49]
• On Cycles of Nutrition Fads:
  • "The idea that there could have been a craze for carbs cast into sharp relief just how mercurial and changeable we are about all these things." [A, 40:18]
• Summary on Undying Appeal:
  • "It falls out of favor, but never out of grace." [A, 43:14]

Key Timestamps

• 00:01 — The supermarket “protein” scavenger hunt
• 03:10–03:27 — Protein ubiquity and rise of protein marketing
• 09:05–10:17 — Guest introductions and questioning the “need” for so much protein
• 13:12–15:24 — Liebig’s evangelism and origins of the “muscle protein” ideology
• 17:29 — The “extract of beef” industry boom
• 18:49 — The central irony: protein products without protein
• 22:24 — Second protein boom and colonial science in British Africa
• 24:51–27:13 — “Protein gap” policies and their scientific debunking
• 31:06–36:43 — The whey waste crisis and technological breakthroughs
• 37:43–38:44 — Rise of whey protein in bodybuilding culture
• 42:12–43:45 — Protein as the rare undivisive nutrient: the present boom
• 44:29 — The lesson: Nutrition fads are cyclical, not eternal

Conclusion

Summary:
How Protein Muscled Its Way to the Top is a tour-de-force history of America’s protein fixation across three centuries and continents. It punctures myths, exposes cyclical fads, and illuminates how science, industry, racism, and resourcefulness have built and rebuilt the cult of protein. Willa Paskin and her expert guests remind us to question not just how much protein is in our food, but how much of our food culture—its fears, hopes, and profits—rests on “magical” nutrient thinking.

Final Reflection:
“We might realize that when something is as cyclical as protein seems to be, we won’t feel this way about it forever.” [A, 44:17]

For listeners interested in the full story and source material, King and Weeden’s book, "The Making of a Nutritional Superstar," is out March 2026.

End of Summary