Decoder Ring | How Protein Muscled Its Way to the Top

Summary

Podcast Summary: Decoder Ring | How Protein Muscled Its Way to the Top

Podcast: Slow Burn (Slate Podcasts)
Episode Air Date: November 19, 2025
Host: Willa Paskin
Featured Guests: Dr. Samantha King (Queen’s University), Dr. Gavin Weeden (Nottingham Trent University)

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Decoder Ring investigates the historical, social, and commercial forces behind America’s—and, more broadly, the West’s—obsession with protein. Tracing the journey from 19th-century scientific discovery to modern-day gym culture and omnipresent protein labeling, the episode asks: How did protein become the charismatic, must-have nutrient marketed to everyone? And what cycles of scarcity, abundance, and commercial ingenuity have shaped our attitudes toward it?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Protein in the Modern Marketplace (01:09–04:41)

• Willa Paskin takes listeners on a grocery store tour, noting the omnipresence of “protein” on packaging—from soups and yogurts to pasta and popcorn.
  • Quote: “It’s like actually the biggest piece of text on the can, including Progresso. It’s bigger than Progresso.” (01:26)
• Americans are enamored with protein; the supplement market is booming and protein is marketed as key to health, beauty, and longevity—not just muscle-building.
• Protein is sold to every demographic, from kids and women to the elderly.

2. Capitalism and Commodification of Nutrients (04:41–07:02)

• The phenomenon echoes previous nutritional fixations: capitalism repackages necessities as exclusive commodities, encouraging overconsumption.
  • Quote: “Capitalism has a knack for taking things we genuinely need and selling them back to us as though we need them even more than we really do.” (04:44)
• The episode proposes that the current “protein boom” is just the latest in a centuries-long cycle.

3. The Science and Early Marketing of Protein (07:02–18:06)

The Birth of Protein as a Nutrient (08:51–11:06)

• Protein named by Dutch chemist in 1838 from the Greek "proteos" (primary/first).
• Early scientists, led by Justus von Liebig, overestimated protein's role, seeing it as the singular fuel for growth and vitality.

Justus von Liebig and the First Protein Boom (11:06–18:06)

• Liebig, a German biochemist and promoter, links meat consumption to strength and national health, pushing governments to encourage meat/protein intake.
• In the 1860s, Liebig develops “extract of meat,” an early protein supplement, marketed as a cure-all but ironically low in actual protein.
  • Memorable Moment: The extract, widely popular, actually contained “too small [an amount] to be measured” (16:56).
• Spinoffs like Oxo cubes and Bovril arrive, cementing protein’s association with strength and health.

4. The Colonial “Protein Gap” and the Second Boom (18:06–24:46)

Kwashiorkor and Colonial Science (19:13–21:34)

• In colonial West Africa, a mysterious childhood illness (kwashiorkor) is blamed on protein deficiency, fueling the idea of a global “protein gap.”
• Colonial and later international interventions target a presumed protein shortfall in the Global South—a view steeped in ethnocentrism and racism.
  • Quote, Dr. King: “Protein deficiency came to explain not just a set of symptoms, but the whole problem of underdevelopment in the global south.” (20:38)

Synthetic Solutions and The Great Protein Fiasco (21:34–24:46)

• Governments and aid groups push synthetic, often unpalatable protein products—made from food and industrial waste—on developing countries.
• By the 1970s, research shows the real issue is calorie deficiency, not protein, leading Donald McLaren to famously call this effort “The Great Protein Fiasco.”
  • Quote, Dr. King: “It’s not just the fact that they failed to assist... but they had done so with very racist rhetoric.” (24:33)

5. Whey Protein: From Dairy Waste to Health Craze (26:26–37:13)

Surplus Milk and Cheese Production (26:26–28:54)

• Post-war U.S. dairy surplus, fueled by government subsidies, leads to excess milk and massive cheese production.
• Whey, the byproduct, is environmentally disastrous—dumped into rivers, highly toxic, killing fish and polluting water.

Turning Waste into Gold (28:54–31:56)

• Innovations in drying and filtering allow for the first time the mass production of edible whey protein powder.
• Originally used in processed foods, it soon catches the eye of a new audience: bodybuilders.

Bodybuilding, Carb Backlash, and Supplement Culture (31:56–37:13)

• The 1970s see whey protein embraced by bodybuilders and gym subcultures, even as mainstream focuses on “carbo-loading” for endurance sports.
• As the anti-carb movement rises in the '90s and 2000s (e.g., Atkins diet), protein regains the spotlight, now universally marketed as a “superior” macronutrient.
  • Memorable Moment: Starbucks’ “protein latte” and “whey-infused beer” are called out as exercises in nutritional branding gone wild.

6. The Unique Status of Protein Today (38:06–39:49)

• Unlike fat and carbs, protein is rarely demonized; it has escaped the stigmatization that plagues other nutrients.
  • Quote, Dr. King: “It doesn’t have that history of stigma that carbs and fat have...it’s never been pathologized.” (38:47)
• Protein’s popularity unifies diverse social and political groups in America: “The one thing that unites the left and the right.” (38:20)

7. Critical Reflections and Lessons from Protein History (39:05–39:49)

• Host and guests caution that this relentless elevation of protein is another example of oversimplifying food and commodifying basic needs.

• History suggests this cycle of obsession is not permanent.

  • Quote, Dr. King: "It's hard to predict the future, but history would suggest that this is not permanent. Nothing's permanent." (39:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Willa Paskin: “It’s like actually the biggest piece of text on the can, including Progresso. It’s bigger than Progresso.” (01:26)
• Dr. Samantha King: “If you have enough to eat, you’re getting enough protein.” (08:24)
• On Liebig's extract: “How much protein is in Liebig's extract of meat? Too small to be measured.” (16:56)
• Dr. Samantha King: “Protein deficiency came to explain not just a set of symptoms, but the whole problem of underdevelopment in the global south.” (20:38)
• Dr. Gavin Weeden: “Liquid whey, untreated, it’s extremely potent. It’s about 175 times more toxic than untreated human sewage.” (30:01)
• On trends: “When you start to look at it over long periods of time, it’s hard not to see them just sort of vying for nutrient-ic status.” (35:37)
• Dr. Samantha King: “It doesn’t have that history of stigma that carbs and fat have...It’s never been demonized, it’s never been pathologized.” (38:47)

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 01:09 | Introduction at the grocery store—protein everywhere | | 04:41 | Capitalism and commodified necessities | | 08:51 | The scientific discovery and early misconceptions | | 11:06 | Justus von Liebig and the first protein boom | | 18:06 | Colonial protein gap and global interventions | | 24:01 | "The Great Protein Fiasco" paper, end of the second boom| | 26:26 | Surplus milk, cheese, and the whey problem | | 31:01 | Environmental crisis and technological innovation | | 32:57 | Bodybuilding and protein powder adoption | | 35:37 | The carb-to-protein cultural transition | | 38:06 | Why protein never fell from grace | | 39:49 | Conclusion: Nothing’s permanent in nutrition trends |

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Takeaways

• Protein’s status as a “superstar nutrient” is built as much on marketing, cultural trends, and industrial leftovers as on science.
• Societal obsessions with nutrients are cyclical—each fixation spurred by commercial opportunity and public anxieties, then replaced by the next.
• Protein, uniquely, has maintained a “halo” effect, never stigmatized like fats or carbohydrates.
• The foods and supplements we see today often have roots in surplus and byproducts, cleverly remarketed as healthful necessities.
• Cultural histories of nutrients like protein can reveal the forces that shape our diets—and remind us to approach such phenomena with skepticism and perspective.

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This summary covers the full arc of the episode, includes notable moments and direct quotes with attributions, and provides clear timestamps for important segments. The tone and content reflect the insightful and slightly irreverent approach of the original discussion.

Transcript

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[Willa Paskin]

All right, let's see what happens when we go into this supermarket. A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip to my local grocery store. Do you know what you're having for dinner tonight? No, actually, I don't. I was looking for something in particular. Okay, so I'm now in the soup aisle. I've got a Progresso. I was looking for protein. 20 grams of protein on a Mediterranean style meatball and chicken. 17 grams of protein on a chickpea and noodle. These are all right on the front of the progresso. It's like 19 grams of protein. It's like actually the biggest piece of text on the can, including Progresso. It's bigger than Progresso. When I say I was looking for protein, I don't mean I was trying to find some steak or chicken or beans or tofu. I mean, I was trying to get a sense of the product's bragging, like all of those Progresso soups about how many grams of protein they contain, and boy, did I find them. Oop, chobani zero sugar. 12 grams of protein is telling me right on the packaging. Ooh, ratio's got 25 grams of protein. All these yogurts, every, like most of them have on them how much protein they have. Ooh, bumblebee, tuna, albacore. 18 grams of protein in water and then protein plus rigatoni from Barilla. The pasta tastes. You love protein plus.

[Samantha King]

Look at that.

[Willa Paskin]

These are like lunchables and they're yellow top, nice big lunchables font and then the protein is in a big red circle on them. 20 grams of protein in hardwood smoked oysters. Oh, protein crackers. Milton's protein crackers. Lean cuisine, even protein kick Swedish meatballs. Oh, here's protein pints. There we go. Mint chip. 30 grams of complete protein in the pint wild. There were also frozen dinners, bone broth and chilies, veggie burgers and beef burgers. Stouffer's Hot Pocket. I was in the grocery store for over an hour and I'm sure I didn't see it all. And I'm also sure I'm not alone in noticing protein's proliferation.

[Bill.com Advertiser]

Protein packed food now seems to be

[Samantha King]

everywhere you turn, adding protein to everything

[Willa Paskin]

from ice cream pancake mix to Starbucks lattes.

[Gavin Weeden]

Searches for protein have doubled in the last year alone.

[Willa Paskin]

The truth is though, I didn't even need to leave the house to observe protein being sold to me. I could have just gone on the Internet, listen to a podcast.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

This episode is brought to you by Cachava.

[Bill.com Advertiser]

Each serving delivers 25 grams of plant based protein. Code DAX for 15% off.

[Willa Paskin]

Americans are currently besotted with protein. The protein supplement market alone is $21 billion and growing. And according to some studies, as many as 85% of Americans want to consume more of it. It's touted as being good for basically everything. Strength and muscle growth, but also weight loss, nicer skin, mental acuity, toning, and longevity. And while men who are really into fitness make up the bulk of the market, protein is getting sold to all kinds of different people. Protein provides a number of amazing benefits for women of all different shapes and sizes.

[Bill.com Advertiser]

I want to show you three ways

[Willa Paskin]

your kids can boost their protein intake.

[EarnIn Advertiser]

There is not one macronutrient more important to an elderly person than protein.

[Willa Paskin]

Personally, I know so many people thinking and talking about protein. They're eating more of it. They're trying to eat more of it. Someone told them they should eat more of it. And earlier this year, when Khloe Kardashian started selling popcorn dappled with protein powder like some nutritional fairy dust, I finally decided I gotta figure out what's going on here. Cloud popcorn.

[Samantha King]

My protein popcorn.

[Bill.com Advertiser]

Hey, bag.

[Willa Paskin]

So capitalism has a knack for taking things we genuinely need and selling them back to us as though we need them even more than we really do. We've talked about this before, namely in our episode about the modern day fixation on hydration. And a quick scan of the lattes, face creams and frozen foods currently boasting about their protein content supports the idea that's happening right now with protein too. But what I've learned by looking at protein is that there really is something unique about. Turns out when it comes to protein, we've done this before. This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. What's happening right now is not the first protein boom. It's not even the second protein boom. Instead, it's something we've been doing with protein for nearly two centuries. And with the help of two authors of a forthcoming book, All About Protein, we're going to look closely at our past protein fixations and see what they can tell us about our current one. Because though each protein mania is unique in its own way, they also have a lot in common. Not only does each one feature people getting very passionate about a charismatic nutrient, they also have at their centers products made out of garbage, like actual waste we decide to eat. And these crazes have also, up to now at least, always ended. So today on decoder Ring, let's get to the meat of the matter. What's so irresistible about protein? So, as I just said, we've gone nuts for protein before. And to talk us through exactly when and where and why are the two authors of the forthcoming book the Making of a Nutritional Superstar.

[Samantha King]

My name is Samantha King and I'm a professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

[Gavin Weeden]

And my name is Gavin Weeden. I'm an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University in the sociology of sport, health and the body.

[Willa Paskin]

And for both of them, their curiosity about our protein obsession began in the same place.

[Gavin Weeden]

I remember going to the gym and having kind of protein promoted to me, as obviously something would benefit me irrespective of what my goals were, because it seemed like there weren't really any goals that wouldn't be boosted by not just protein consumption, but supplementation.

[Willa Paskin]

A few thousand miles away, Sammy saw the same thing happening at her gym.

[Samantha King]

And I just thought that was really strange. Here we were, a relatively privileged bunch of people going to this private gym with personal training and eating very well. And I was just curious why they thought that we needed more protein.

[Willa Paskin]

The idea that we need more protein is one you hear all the time. I can guarantee you you are not getting enough protein.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

There is no point in exercising if you're not eating enough protein, sweetie.

[Willa Paskin]

You need to eat more protein. And yet, Sammy found need to be an odd phrase here, because protein deficiency is almost unheard of in people who are getting enough food.

[Samantha King]

If you have enough to eat, you're getting enough protein.

[Willa Paskin]

So if you're talking about what we need to live, most people already get what they need just by consuming food, any food, basically. And to understand how we simultaneously have as much protein as we need, but also apparently need more, we need to do a little protein primer.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

Proteins make possible this incredibly complex organization that we call life.

[Willa Paskin]

In 1838, a Dutch chemist theorized that there was a universal substance found in all animal and plant tissues. He gave the substance a name, protein, from the Greek word proteos, meaning primary or first. But it would take scientists many more decades to understand what proteins actually are. And simply put, they are complex molecules made up of smaller molecules.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

These small molecules are called amino acids.

[Willa Paskin]

Our DNA is basically a set of instructions for how to make amino acids. When they link together into proteins, they perform a dizzying amount of functions.

[Gavin Weeden]

There are millions, if not billions of proteins. They play at least some part, maybe a pivotal part, in almost every cellular process within our bodies.

[Willa Paskin]

So we need proteins, and we need amino acids to make proteins. We make some amino acids ourselves, but there are others we only get from our meat, dairy, vegetables, bread. They all contain protein.

[Gavin Weeden]

So when someone says it's really important to have enough protein in your diet, it'd be difficult not to get enough protein in your diet. If you've got access to enough food,

[Willa Paskin]

it would be difficult not to get enough to live. But protein has become about something other than survival. In fact, when someone says you need more protein, survival is almost surely not what they're talking about. They're talking about how you need it to live longer, stay sharper, and especially to get bigger muscles. But even then, there is quite a lot of debate about what exactly it means to need protein in these ways. How much protein you should eat in a day, when you should eat it, what it can help with, how much it can help whether or not protein really makes you feel more full nutrition. Scientists are still debating these things, and they have been for close to 200 years.

[Gavin Weeden]

All these different debates, sometimes fierce debates. I think you can pull that thread back to the mid 19th century, to the beginnings of protein as a category.

[Willa Paskin]

So let's head back there to what Gavin and Sammy think are the roots of our protein dusted Kardashian popcorn age. Let's head back to the first protein boom. And we're going to pick it up with a bunch of foxes in the lab of a scientist named Justus von Liebig.

[Samantha King]

Justus von Liebig was a larger than life German biochemist entrepreneur who is recognized as one of the founding fathers of organic chemistry.

[Willa Paskin]

And like many of his contemporaries, he was fascinated by the question of what our bodies are made of. So in the 1840s, he conducted some experiments on animals, including on two different kinds of foxes. Some had been shot and killed while being chased, and one was slaughtered after far less exertion.

[Samantha King]

They had had a fox that they had kept in a cage for 200 days and fed only meat.

[Willa Paskin]

Liebig examined all the fox's muscles under a microscope, and he observed that the muscles of the ones killed while on the run look different from the captive one. Specifically, they had more of the amino

[Samantha King]

acid creatine, 10 times more creatine.

[Willa Paskin]

And he concluded from that what he

[Samantha King]

concluded that proteinous compounds must be responsible for muscle action. That protein provided not only the substance of our muscles, what they're made of, but also the energy required to fuel their work.

[Willa Paskin]

He was not entirely right. We actually get most of the energy to move our muscles from carbohydrates and fats are important too. But Liebig didn't have the tools or techniques to figure that out. All he could see when he looked at muscle tissue under a microscope was protein. And so he decided that protein was everything. Based on this not complete information, he assumed that protein was the most important nutrient. And this idea spread very quickly. That's because Liebig was not just some cloistered scientist. He was an evangelist.

[Samantha King]

He was a dogged self promoter, running around all over Europe, you know, giving lectures, writing for popular audiences, and promoting a model of how we should eat.

[Willa Paskin]

And for Liebig, the key thing we should be eating was meat.

[Samantha King]

Liebig helps cement the link between meat and protein and meat as the most desirable form of protein.

[Willa Paskin]

Liebig was making his case to the powerful. He convinced many European governments that it was, in today's language, a question of their national security to keep their newly industrialized workers hale and hearty and full of meat.

[Samantha King]

Liebig's quite explicit about that. He called it a matter of conscience for Western governments. But where to get that meat from and how to make it affordable for this growing population was a big question.

[Willa Paskin]

And so Liebig did not stop at spreading the gospel of animal protein. He also decided to spread the stuff itself.

[Samantha King]

He developed this thick, black syrupy liquid in his lab that he called extract of beef.

[Willa Paskin]

Extract of beef was made by separating cow flesh from fat, pulverizing it into very small particles, and then boiling it in water for so long that the water largely evaporated, leaving behind a kind of tarry substance, a gooey bouillon. Liebig paraded around Europe, telling heads of states in large crowds that this meaty black sludge could solve the problem of getting workers extra protein. And word of his extract eventually reached a German railway engineer living in Uruguay who had an idea.

[Samantha King]

He had come across this scene of great waste. As he described it in his letter

[Willa Paskin]

to Liebig, what he'd seen was a

[Samantha King]

bunch of dead cows, piles of carcasses of cattle.

[Willa Paskin]

They'd been killed for their hides to make leather, but then left to rot in the sun.

[Samantha King]

We didn't have refrigeration, so meat was not easily shipped around the world.

[Willa Paskin]

And this German in Uruguay saw these piles of rotting cattle and thought, maybe we can do something with them.

[Samantha King]

What if we actually use this flesh in this product that Liebig has been shopping around?

[Willa Paskin]

And so he wrote to Liebig with a why not set up your beef syrup business here with me in Uruguay? And Liebig did.

[Samantha King]

By the end of 1864, they were exporting £50,000 of extract.

[Willa Paskin]

Liebig's extract of meat was sold under the very creative brand name Liebig's extract of meat.

[Samantha King]

We think of it as the first protein supplement.

[Willa Paskin]

Why?

[Samantha King]

Because it was developed and marketed with the idea that it could be added to to food in order to make that food more nutritious. It wasn't seen as something that would suffice on its own, but it was seen as something that would optimize what you were already eating.

[Willa Paskin]

Liebig marketed as a kind of medicine, a cure all that promised all sorts of benefits.

[Samantha King]

Muscle and strength and vim and vigor and vitality.

[Willa Paskin]

And he offered a lot of ideas for how to consume his paste.

[Samantha King]

People might spread it on their toast, or they might drink it with hot water as a beef tea, or it's a flavor enhancer like MSG or something like that.

[Willa Paskin]

Just how popular was this?

[Samantha King]

It was very popular. It was a household name for many, many decades.

[Willa Paskin]

There is just one wrinkle with Liebig's extract of meat, Though one way that it does differ from contemporary protein products. How much protein is in Liebig's extract of meat?

[Samantha King]

Too small to be measured.

[Willa Paskin]

Protein is in everything but this.

[Samantha King]

Yes, exactly.

[Willa Paskin]

Turns out boiling pulverized Beef down into a gooey substance was not, in fact, a great way to extract protein. But it didn't matter. Liebig's protein prosthetizing had had its intended effect. Other products similar to Liebig's crowded into the marketplace, some of which are still with us today. Spreads and bullions like the British staple oxo cubes, as well as the beef tea Bovril.

[Gavin Weeden]

Bovril.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

Delicious, warming, reviving. There's nothing quite like Bovril's beefy taste

[Willa Paskin]

to put new heart into you.

[Gavin Weeden]

Fast sucks us up.

[Willa Paskin]

Warms like crew helps us through the day. By the late 19th century, protein's connection to strength and health had become entrenched. Scientists were avidly studying it, physicians were recommending it, and governments were trying to get people to eat more of it.

[Samantha King]

In fact, meat consumption increases exponentially among people, especially who couldn't previously afford it.

[Willa Paskin]

The public had gotten the message that extra protein is a crucial part of a healthy diet.

[Samantha King]

So that's the first protein boom.

[Willa Paskin]

But with every boom comes a bust, or at least a fade. In the 1910s and 20s, newly discovered molecules called vitamins began to grab all the attention as they became nutritional superstars. Protein took a backseat, waiting for our scientific understanding to catch up to its complexities. But the idea that eating more protein would help make us strong was out there. And so was its corollary, that not eating enough might make us weak. When we come back, the fear of a protein deficiency spreads. If the first protein boom was occasioned by European countries fretting about their industrial workers, the second was driven by their concern for their colonial subjects.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

The wide stretches of forest on the Gold coast in British West Africa provide the right surroundings for the cocoa trees which have been introduced into the country and which flourish there.

[Willa Paskin]

In the 1930s, Ghana was under British colonial rule and known as the British Gold Coast. One of the colonial officials working there was an Oxford educated physician named Cicely Williams. And she grew concerned about the children she was seeing in her clinic. Many had swollen bellies and limbs, diarrhea and discolored hair and skin.

[Samantha King]

It was a condition that would show up in infants who were being weaned from breastfeeding when the mother had to start feeding the newly born child.

[Willa Paskin]

There was a name for this condition in the Ga language already Kwashiorkor. And in Cicely Williams writings, she began to speculate as to what might be causing it.

[Samantha King]

She wondered if a lack of protein was responsible. She had many other theories. She mentioned that in passing.

[Willa Paskin]

But other colonial researchers Picked up on the idea and took it further. Over the next couple decades, they became convinced there existed a gap in the amount of protein the inhabitants of rich and poor countries, and that this was a problem not just in Ghana, but across the British empire.

[Samantha King]

Protein deficiency came to explain not just a set of symptoms, but the whole problem of underdevelopment in the global south.

[Willa Paskin]

Much of what was driving the idea of a protein gap was racism. Colonial officials believed they were dealing with a problem created by uneducated mothers with unhealthy diets. They were skeptical that women in these places could properly care for themselves and their children, and they were disdainful of the food they ate to boot.

[Samantha King]

There's this mentality of what we eat should be what everyone eats. What we eat is the best.

[Willa Paskin]

And unlike a lot of people in India and sub Saharan Africa, what the colonial nations ate was meat. Especially after the first protein boom. Meat signified strength, vigor. The ideal western body.

[Samantha King]

The counterpart of that is that other bodies that don't conform to that diet or don't conform to that appearance and constitution are somehow defective.

[Willa Paskin]

Even as the British empire and other colonial powers began to splinter and former colonies gained their independence, New international organizations like the UN and the WHO sprung into action to fight protein deficiency.

[Samantha King]

A surge of energy and resources was poured into the idea that a deadly protein gap existed between the world's rich and and poor.

[Willa Paskin]

Throughout the 1950s, global conferences were held, Task forces were formed, and eventually a plan emerged to flood poor countries with protein products. Products that, unlike meat, could be kept for lengths of time without refrigeration. It began with dried milk, but soon they settled on another idea, Developing a new kind of synthetic flavor food products engineered to be chock full of protein.

[Samantha King]

Like alien techno foods. They include a fish protein concentrate that was made from awful leftover from filleting fish. There's a single cell protein developed by BP British praetoleum that was cultivated in oil, and they include chlorella, which is an algae grown on sewage.

[Willa Paskin]

So it's basically like a free for all for people who are like, can I turn my waste into another product?

[Samantha King]

Exactly. Thus continuing this long tradition of trying to capitalize on waste.

[Willa Paskin]

But less appetizing even than meat tea.

[Samantha King]

It sounds like absolutely less appetizing. And so far removed from the culture and tradition of the context in which they lived.

[Willa Paskin]

Into the 1970s, the International Development community kept a laser focus on the protein gap. Instead of larger systemic issues brought on

[Samantha King]

by colonialism, Protein was really convenient. Like it was much more convenient to have a theory that a single nutrient was in short supply and the cause of malnutrition and not have to address the social and economic roots of poverty and malnourishment.

[Willa Paskin]

Protein was presented as a simple solution to a big problem. But over time, it revealed itself to be a bogus solution to a misdiagnosed problem. Because it turned out there was no protein gap.

[Samantha King]

New science started to emerge that suggested that the problem was actually lack of calories, not a lack of protein.

[Willa Paskin]

In 1974, a nutritionist named Donald McLaren published a paper called the Great Protein Fiasco. He said that all the time and resources that had been spent trying to close the supposed protein gap were a tremendous waste. After decades of this, more children were suffering from hunger and malnutrition than ever before.

[Samantha King]

It's not just the fact that they failed to assist the people they were supposed to be assisting, but they had done so with very racist rhetoric.

[Willa Paskin]

The fallout from McLaren's paper was swift. The idea of a protein deficiency as the cause of global malnutrition was discredited. But as you already know, the fear of not getting enough protein was hardly gone forever. Just about everyone is deficient in quality protein in their diet. There's a lot of people out there

[Bill.com Advertiser]

that are under eating their protein without enough protein.

[Gavin Weeden]

You're really not going to go that far.

[Willa Paskin]

If I listen to one more girl tell me that they don't have energy, they feel off, they're fatigued, and they are not eating remotely enough protein, I'm going to. I'm going to lose my mind. Protein anxiety heads for the 21st century. After the break, I hope you're starting to see all the history that has been leading us to the third great protein boom, the 21st century one we are in right now. But there is one more origin story I want to tell you about. It's about the beginnings of the product, without which our current protein boom could never have happened. And like Justus von Liebig's extract of meat made from cow carcasses rotting in the sun. And like products made from fish guts and oil and algae, during the great protein fiasco, it too is tied up with garbage. Garbage made by cows again. Only this time, the issue was not their carcasses, it was their milk. It all starts around the two world wars.

[Gavin Weeden]

That's when dairy farmers first start ramping up production to help soldiers to get sustenance.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

The job of supply gets more difficult as a million men go overseas. Space is saved through dehydration. Thus, one ship can Carry the load of 10.

[Willa Paskin]

Milk was powdered and evaporated and sent to soldiers on a massive scale. But when the wars ended, demand for milk immediately started to decline.

[Gavin Weeden]

You never really reach those heights again. But dairy farmers have already ramped up their modes of production and they're left with the surpluses and all this other stuff.

[Willa Paskin]

Farmers had too many cows making too much milk and not enough customers to turn a profit. The federal government started heavily subsidizing the dairy industry, which continues to this day. But the farmers still needed to figure out what to do with all that extra milk. And you know what they tell you to say?

[Cheese Expert]

Say cheese and you please. The family agrees. They love every way you serve cheese every day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea. Restore lost protein and energy. Make the most of cheese.

[Gavin Weeden]

The amount of cheese that people started to eat in the post war era grew significantly at the same moment that there was this downtrend in milk consumption.

[EarnIn Advertiser]

Cheese, glorious cheese.

[Gavin Weeden]

The turn to cheese and away from milk was so successful that the amount that Americans eat had almost tripled by 1970.

[Willa Paskin]

Making cheese on an industrial, industrial scale solved the immediate problem of having too much milk, but it created another one.

[Gavin Weeden]

With the industrialization of that production, you get an unprecedented scale of whey.

[Willa Paskin]

So what is whey?

[Gavin Weeden]

Whey is the thick, yellowy liquid that remains after cheese production.

[Willa Paskin]

I think I've seen whey. It's like maybe I've seen it in a Sesame street video about like making mozzarella or something.

[Cheese Expert]

When the milk curdles, it turns into curds, and curds are like the lumps and cut into cheese. And whey is in milky liquid.

[Gavin Weeden]

That's the stuff. Yeah.

[Cheese Expert]

Cheese is made from the curds and the whey is poured off.

[Willa Paskin]

Only about 10% of the milk used in the process actually gets turned into cheese. The 90% that's left over is the whey. That is a lot of excess, basically just runoff to have to deal with. In the thousands of years before this that humans had been making cheese, they'd always found uses for all the whey they were left with.

[Gavin Weeden]

You might use it as fertilizer, you might use it as feed elsewhere on your farm. You might use it in some artisanal recipes.

[Willa Paskin]

If you were a little Miss Muffet sitting on your tuffet, you might even have some for yourself. But as cheese production exploded in the 50s and 60s, dairy farmers were now dealing with way more whey than anyone could manage at the time. A normal cheese making factory in Wisconsin would typically be producing 100,000 gallons of whey per day. By 1965, the state was producing 7 billion pounds a year.

[Gavin Weeden]

So it presents people on these dairy farms with the question, well, what do we do with this vastly accumulating substance that we previously didn't have to think too much about?

[Willa Paskin]

And they start to do what with it?

[Gavin Weeden]

They start to dump it. They dump it in local rivers and lakes and streams.

[Willa Paskin]

Fully half of the 700 cheese factories in the state were dumping all of their whey into local bodies of water. And this was doing something far worse than raising the water levels.

[Gavin Weeden]

Liquid whey, untreated, it's extremely potent. It's about 175 times more toxic than untreated human sewage.

[Willa Paskin]

175 times.

[Gavin Weeden]

I know, I really. We have checked that number.

[Willa Paskin]

Why? What's so toxic?

[Gavin Weeden]

Well, its nitrogen density is extremely high.

[Willa Paskin]

And its nitrogen levels are so high because whey is really high in protein. Amino acids, the molecules that make up protein, are full of nitrogen. Often we measure how much protein something contains by measuring the amount of nitrogen in it. Nitrogen is also a key element in fertilizer, which makes it a problem when you dump it into rivers and lakes.

[Gavin Weeden]

It would stimulate plant growth and ultimately rob fish of the oxygen they need to survive. And as you can imagine, this was environmentally devastating to the aquatic life in those bodies of water.

[Willa Paskin]

In places like Wisconsin, those whey filled bodies of water started to reek and turn scummy. And there were huge die offs of local fish. Recreational fishermen and environmentalists complained in newspapers and town halls, and local and state government would hand out fines.

[Gavin Weeden]

And so you have these waves of activism and investigative journalism.

[Willa Paskin]

And so the pressure was on for dairy farmers to find some use for all that excess whey.

[Gavin Weeden]

Maybe there's something that you could do with this substance that wouldn't be just wasting it, but that could actually create value.

[Willa Paskin]

To preserve whey for any length of time, it has to be dried into a powder. But at this time, the process was expensive and the results were unappetizing. On its own, the dried powder was so clumpy and gross that it was not considered suitable for human consumption, just for animal feed. Whey powder that was better, or at least somewhat edible, that was the holy grail.

[Gavin Weeden]

And so that's the point at which you see this enormous investment in desiccation and filtration technologies.

[Willa Paskin]

In the early 1970s, a handful of technicians working in Wisconsin's dairies made the fateful leap forward using techniques that had first been developed to desalinate water. The result was a more Affordable, easier to produce, finer grained, less clumpy, edible, very high in protein. Whey powder. It was heralded immediately as a breakthrough, or as a Wisconsin paper put it, a minor revolution. Finally, here was a method to take whey, something literally being dumped into streams, and turn it into a potential revenue stream. And the thinking was mostly to use it as a dried milk substitute to go in things like cake mixes and baby food. And perhaps subbing in for dried milk would have remained whey powder's primary use case if a subculture hadn't come up with their own use for it.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

Mighty men of muscle from many countries flexed, tensed and bulged biceps in a bid to become Mr. Universe, each and every one looking like the ancient Greek idea of a God.

[Willa Paskin]

Bodybuilders have always been looking for help bulking up. And so for as long as professional bodybuilding has existed, they have been dabbling in protein.

[Gavin Weeden]

Protein has always had this association with growth, right? And growth of muscle particularly. So it was naturally going to find this home, maybe in bodybuilding subcultures.

[Willa Paskin]

In the mid-1970s, bodybuilders began to take notice of this new dried whey powder, which was full of protein and now not totally disgusting. And they took notice just as the bodybuilding community started to swell.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

You are the top bodybuilder, right? Yeah. How long have you been the top bodybuilder? Well, I've not been beaten for the last seven years.

[Willa Paskin]

That's a clip from Pumping Iron, a 1977 documentary about bodybuilding that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

I don't have any weak points.

[Gavin Weeden]

My goal always was to even out

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

everything to the point that everything is perfect.

[Willa Paskin]

Bodybuilding, while absolutely still a subculture, was now more popular than ever before. Big enough, in fact, to be worth selling to, which is exactly what dairy farms started to do. This is how cheese waste dried into a powder started to make its way onto health food store shelves. Muscle men and gym rats wanted to buy tubs of protein, but at the time, not that many other people did, because outside the bodybuilding subculture, another substance was hoovering up all the attention.

[Gavin Weeden]

Carbohydrates was having its moment in the 1970s, because that's the source of energy, right? That's what helps you do marathon running, which is really popular.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

Then, whether in training for the marathon or just jogging around the block, millions of Americans have got the running fever. Tonight, a look at the running craze. Is it good for the health or dangerous? Jim?

[Gavin Weeden]

Carb loading was a thing people would try and work out Based on the knowledge available to you, how long before you run the race that you should be eating an enormous plate of pasta?

[Willa Paskin]

You know, it's so funny, Gavin, because of course I know about carbo loading, but it never really occurred to me that it was born out of a moment when people were like, no, carbs are good for you. Because as a person born in the very early 1980s, I feel like the only thing I've ever, anytime I've ever heard about carbs, it was like, absolutely, we should all be eating so many less of them. Like, 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.

[Gavin Weeden]

Yeah, you're right. When you start to look at it over long periods of time, it's. It's hard not to see them just sort of vying for nutrientric status.

[Willa Paskin]

And protein did take over for carbs for quite some time. Even as the carb backlash set in during the 90s and 2000s, carbs were still taking up all the attention. People were fixated on them. As you can hear in this talk show interview with the creator of the infamous no carb Atkins diet.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

What we're trying to do is restrict carbohydrates.

[Willa Paskin]

Exactly what you mean when you say low carb.

[Bill.com Advertiser]

Potatoes and bread. And what, what else is a carbohydrate?

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

Sweets and fruit and milk.

[Willa Paskin]

But restricting what you eat sucks. Who wouldn't prefer to eat more, even if in an extremely regulated way? And so, as carbs and fats continued to be vilified, as nutritionists and doctors did research about the importance of muscle to overall long term health. And as more and more Americans started to care about fitness, protein was ready to re enter the stage spotlight. The new diets were very similar to the Atkins diet, just now rebranded as high in protein instead of low in carbs. And they also offered a tool for getting as much protein as you could possibly want. Whey protein powder. The right way to supplement protein is with whey protein, a protein source naturally found in milk. Today I'm going to share with you guys the 10 really unique benefits of whey protein powder and why I use it as a nutritionist.

[Samantha King]

Got some fitness goals. You're looking to hit find your whey with whey.

[Willa Paskin]

It took a couple of decades to become omnipresent. But all that cheese waste didn't just find a market, it created one. Desiccated whey powder is now the most visible form of supplemental protein. And it and other protein powders are slipped into a wide variety of products.

[Gavin Weeden]

You start to see it in bars and gels and gummies and yogurts and breads and all these weird and wonderful products.

[Samantha King]

Yeah, the Starbucks protein latte, the whey infused beer.

[Gavin Weeden]

I mean, the dissonance of the whey infused beer. What are you trying to achieve in that moment?

[Willa Paskin]

But the argument that Sammy and Gavin are making is that cold foam lattes and whey infused beer are just newfangled interpretations of something old.

[Gavin Weeden]

It begins with Justus von Liebig's extract of meat all the way back to the mid 19th century.

[Willa Paskin]

And now, 200 years later, protein is more ubiquitous and popular than ever before. It's for men and women, the old and the young, the protein obsessed and the merely protein curious and more besides.

[Samantha King]

I also think it's the one thing that unites the left and the right and everyone else in between. Right? We're so polarized politically, this seems like the one thing on which we can

[Willa Paskin]

all agree have more protein, have more protein. Alone among the nutrients, protein is undinged. It falls out of favor, but never out of grace.

[Samantha King]

It doesn't have that history of stigma that carbs and fat have. So even though it's definitely gone through peaks and troughs, it's never been demonized, it's never been pathologized. Right. It doesn't come with all that baggage.

[Willa Paskin]

But what all this history suggests is that maybe there ought to be a little baggage. Though without disdaining or dismissing protein or anyone's protein regimens, we might still stand to get something from looking at it more holistically. We might see then that the way we talk about protein breaks food down into strange parts. We might observe that protein, like water and sleep, is a necessity now, being commodified and oversold to us. We might notice that we are always looking for one magic thing to solve complicated nutritional problems. And we might realize that when something is as sick cyclical as protein seems to be, we won't feel this way about it forever.

[Samantha King]

It's hard to predict the future, but history would suggest that this is not permanent. Nothing's permanent.

[Willa Paskin]

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. If you aren't already a Slate plus member, please subscribe now from the Decoder Ring show page or Apple Podcasts or Spotify or visit slate.comdecodering+ to get access. Wherever you listen, Slate+ members get access to our bonus episodes and they get to hear our show and every other Slate podcast without any ads. This episode was produced by Max Friedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by me, Katie shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. We had editing help from Josh Levine, fact checking from Sophie Summergrad and Merritt Jacob is senior technical director. Samantha King and Gavin Whedon's book the Making of a Nutritional Superstar will be out in March. Go get it. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email [e-mail] you can also call us now at our Decoder ring phone number that is 347-460-7281. Give us a shout and we'll see you in two weeks.

[Narrator/Archive Audio]

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[Bill.com Advertiser]

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