JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
There is something new happening with a very old diet staple, and NPR host Brittany Luse took notice.
BRITTANY LUSE, BYLINE: I have been thinking so much about our culture's current obsession with protein. Despite the fact that many doctors and researchers feel that most Americans already get more than enough protein each day, many Americans are trying to find ways to consume even more protein. Now, protein's being advertised on pancake mix and candy bars and on ice cream pints. It's kind of maddening if you really think about it.
SUMMERS: Brittany thought about it and explored this phenomenon on a recent episode of It's Been A Minute. That's the NPR podcast that unpacks some of the biggest cultural happenings and tells us why these trends matter. Brittany told me more about why so many people and products seem to be putting this macronutrient all up in our faces these days.
LUSE: Well, OK, there's definitely the emphasis of protein as a method for weight loss and also for gaining muscle mass, so it's got a good reputation right now with pretty much anyone looking to change their body composition. But there are two other really interesting things going on with protein culturally. So first, I was talking to food writer Samantha Maxwell, and she noted that protein is one of the few macronutrients that hasn't been villainized. Like, think about, like, fat or carbohydrates. Like, you go back to the low-fat diets of the '90s or the Atkins low-carb craze of the 2000s. But protein, it's never really had a, quote-unquote, "bad reputation."
SUMMERS: Right. OK, you said there were two cultural things going on here. That was the first one. What's the second?
LUSE: Well, this is the one that gets me the most. A big reason why protein has never really gotten a bad rap among modern dieters is because it's a masculine macronutrient. It's the nutrient for men. People of all genders need protein. It's just that protein, because of its relationship to muscle growth, has been masculinized. And thus, certain high-protein foods like meat also become masculinized. Vox senior correspondent Kenny Torrella shared with me some examples of where this pops up in culture.
KENNY TORRELLA: You know, I think men are advertised to, to eat a lot of meat to be manly. I mean, there was a Burger King commercial, I think, like, 10 years ago or so - was called I Am Man.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, singing) I am man, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore. And I'm way too hungry to settle for chick food.
LUSE: (Laughter)
TORRELLA: And it was all these men kind of joining together, singing this song, saying that they were going to wave tofu goodbye. But we see this also in pop culture. I mean, think of, like, Ron Swanson in "Parks And Recreation."
LUSE: Yeah.
TORRELLA: He was kind of this hyper-masculine figure who was always eating bacon.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PARKS AND RECREATION")
NICK OFFERMAN: (As Ron Swanson) I call this turf and turf. It's a 16-ounce T-bone and a 24-ounce porterhouse. I'm going to consume all of this at the same time because I am a free American.
SUMMERS: So, I mean, men and dieting, it is not something we talk about that frequently.
LUSE: No, you're absolutely right. But maybe we should because you're exactly right - this is about a kind of dieting, and it seems like food and nutrition companies have found a way to even more explicitly tap into a wider diet market by focusing on masculinized diet trends.
SUMMERS: Speaking of those masculinized trends, there is one more influencer that you mentioned in your episode, and it's someone who's known as...
LUSE: (Laughter).
SUMMERS: ...The Liver King. Am I getting that right?
LUSE: Yes, the Liver King. His legal name is Brian Johnson, but he goes by the Liver King on many social media platforms. He has millions of followers, and he is this social media and fitness influencer whose main focus was being totally ripped - OK? - having a very, very, very muscular physique, walking around in the woods in gym shorts and no shirt and eating raw meat. I mean, and he didn't just make content out of this. He spun this out into actual, like, products, like liver pills. And then it was found that he was spending thousands upon thousands of dollars every single month on steroids to actually achieve his physique.
But yeah, it was interesting for me, as a woman who's been inundated with diet content for my entire life, to see that there were so many men who had that same experience of being sold one type of, you know, body that could be achieved in only one kind of way. But I do want to say before we go that while this is the culture around a macronutrient, it also points at a bigger trend, which is that this current protein obsession all points to a desire for Americans at large to want to live and eat healthier, regardless of how they might go about that.
SUMMERS: And I know that there are also some political implications in this cultural conversation, too, and you can hear more about that in the full episode of It's Been A Minute. Brittany, thank you so much for bringing some of this to the show.
LUSE: Thank you for having me.
SUMMERS: That was Brittany Luse. She's the host of It's Been A Minute from NPR. And you can listen to It's Been A Minute every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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