The Protein Pendulum

How We Got It So Wrong, and Do We Finally Have It Right?

Enough with the business for a bit. Today we’ll explore a fundamental aspect of making sure we’re stronger for longer as we age. For that I’m turning the mic over to my better half, Samantha Clark. ~ Brian

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Remember when fat was going to kill us all? When we were pouring skim milk on our Special K and wondering why we were ravenous an hour later?

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’ve been equally wrong about protein.

Like, by a lot.

For decades, the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) told us we need 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. For a 150-pound person, that’s about 54 grams a day. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly one large chicken breast. Or three eggs and a heaping cup of Greek yogurt.

For the entire day.

But now we are in a literal protein pandemonium. And if you’re confused by the violent swing to protein-infused everything — and more than a little skeptical of the marketing — you’re not alone.

My purpose here is to give some historical context to our current macronutrient frenzy before addressing the evidentiary basis for the claims that you’re not getting enough. And just maybe convince you that the protein hype of today isn’t hype at all.

The 1940s Called. They Want Their Science Back

Let’s talk about where the RDA came from.

It was 1941. Hitler was invading Russia, Citizen Kane just hit theaters, and the U.S. government was trying to figure out how to feed troops and ration food during World War II. They needed a baseline and landed on:

What’s the absolute minimum nutrition people need to not get sick?

Enter the Food and Nutrition Board, tasked by the National Defense Advisory Commission with creating standards for food relief efforts for both the military and civilians facing rationing. Let’s be clear on what this committee was not. It was not formed to determine how people could thrive well into their later years. Nor was it concerned with helping people gain and maintain muscle mass. Instead, the question before this committee was, “What keeps people from malnutrition while we’re at war?”

The answer came from a methodology called nitrogen balance studies. Here’s how that works. Protein is the only macronutrient that contains nitrogen. So, researchers measured how much protein nitrogen the study subjects consumed versus how much they excreted in their urine, feces, sweat, hair, and nails.

When inputs equaled outputs, that is, when they were not losing more nitrogen than they were taking in, they had reached “nitrogen equilibrium.” And that level became the protein RDA.

The problem is that this method literally measures the point at which you stop wasting away. It’s designed to prevent deficiency, not optimize function. It’s like measuring the minimum amount of sleep you need to not crash your car, rather than the amount you need to actually feel good and perform well.

The Current State of the Field

Fast forward to the 21st century. We can now conduct nitrogen balance studies with far greater precision than wartime researchers could. And we have newer methods with intimidating names like “indicator amino acid oxidation” (IAAO), which — instead of just tracking nitrogen in and out — measures how the human body actually uses specific amino acids at different protein-intake levels.

It’s like switching out a vintage wristwatch for an atomic clock.

Here’s what these newer methods consistently show: When researchers re-analyze the same old nitrogen balance data using better statistical methods, protein requirements come out 16% higher than the current RDA. When they use IAAO methods, requirements are 55% higher.

We’re talking about needing 50% more protein at baseline than the RDA.

Multiple studies using IAAO methodology across different populations — young adults, older adults, pregnant women, children, athletes — all show the same thing: The RDA is way too low. In fact, the RDA appears to be an outlier on the low end compared with every other approach to measuring protein needs.

So if the RDA is out, what’s the new number? The research converges on 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight as optimal for adults. That’s 50–100% more than the RDA. For our hypothetical 150-pound person, we’re talking 80–110 grams daily instead of 54.

Why Did It Take So Long?

Here’s something that applies far beyond the topic of nutrition: Official standards don’t just codify scientific findings; they ossify the cultural assumptions of the era in which they were created. The 1941 RDA was a reflection of wartime’s scarcity thinking, limited methodologies, and a “minimum viable human” approach to nutrition.

But once those standards got etched into institutional practice, the predictable happened: People and institutions whose careers were built on those standards had a stake in defending them. Admitting the foundation was flawed meant questioning decades of dietary advice, rewriting nutrition curricula, and awkwardly explaining to millions of people that the number on the cereal box was wrong.

So as time passes, the evidence evolves and assumptions get challenged, but the official number stays frozen in 1941. The RDA for protein hasn’t meaningfully changed in over 80 years not because the science supports the old number, but because changing it requires institutional willpower that is only now starting to emerge.

But if you think the current (and overdue) emphasis on protein is a new-fangled thing, sit tight. We’ve actually been through this all before.

When “Most Important” Became “Eat All of It”

The word “protein” comes from the Greek “proteios,” meaning “of the first rank” or “primary.” Dutch chemist Gerardus Johannes Mulder coined it in 1838 when scientists of the era believed they’d discovered the most essential component of nutrition.

And while they weren’t entirely wrong, they did a very human thing and completely overshot the runway.

The First Time We Took the Focus on Protein Too Far

After the discovery of the protein macronutrient, the 19th century became the golden age of protein worship. In 1877, German physiologist Carl von Voit declared that a working man needed 118 grams of protein daily — a number that came from his observations of what Bavarian laborers ate, then blessing it as optimal.

His student Max Rubner took it further, ranking foods by their protein content as if it were the only metric that mattered. “Flesh makes flesh” became the rallying cry of an era convinced that protein was the master nutrient, the one ring to rule them all.

And then came the backlash.

The “flesh makes flesh” doctrine led to some spectacularly bad ideas. Arctic explorers and frontier settlers learned the hard way that trying to survive on lean game alone causes death even with a full stomach. The condition is called “rabbit starvation” or “mal de caribou” by northern Indigenous peoples, who’d seen it happen to desperate Europeans more than once. The Inuit knew how to avoid it, which is why they prized fat-rich seal and whale over lean caribou.

So, what happens during rabbit starvation? Our bodies prefer fat and carbs for fuel because they break down cleanly into energy — we even store them for lean times.

But protein is different. Burning amino acids for energy releases ammonia, a toxin your liver normally clears via the urea cycle. When a lean person (say, an Arctic explorer) continually eats protein alone, ammonia accumulates faster than the urea cycle can clear it. In days to weeks, the liver and kidneys become overloaded with this toxic byproduct, and victims suffer nausea, diarrhea, headaches, fatigue, and eventually death… despite being technically “fed.”

Explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson documented this extensively after spending years with the Inuit in the early 1900s. He noted that experienced Arctic hunters would sometimes throw away rabbit meat entirely during lean times.

In fact, he was so intrigued by what he’d seen that in 1928 he checked himself into the metabolic ward of New York’s Bellevue Hospital and deliberately induced rabbit starvation by eating only lean meat with the fat removed. Symptoms appeared within days. When fat was added back in, he recovered.

His experiment confirmed what the Inuit had known: The body needs something in addition to protein to actually burn for fuel. As for the upper limit when you don’t have fat reserves to fall back on, it’s about 35% of total calories — a ceiling that rises and falls with how much you’re eating overall.

So, Then We Swung the Other Way

By the early 20th century, the pendulum had already reached its far end. The protein obsession gave way to vitamin mania (when scurvy and pellagra were the scary diseases), then calorie counting, and then the great fat panic of the late 20th century.

Each era convinced itself it had found THE thing to fear or worship.

Protein quietly slipped into the background, nominally “important” but certainly not a priority. With the RDA already locked in at the wartime bare minimum, protein was already sidelined. The war on dietary fat through the ’70s and ’80s finished the job, and carbohydrates won by default.

As a result, bread, cereal, rice, and pasta occupied the entire base of the 1992 pyramid, with 6–11 servings daily. The most protein-dense foods got one undifferentiated tier shared with dairy and a modest 2–3-serving maximum that was intended as a ceiling, not a floor. Fats got a tiny triangle at the very tip, with instructions to essentially disappear.

We went from “protein is everything” to “you get plenty of protein from grains and vegetables” without ever stopping to ask what “enough” actually meant.

Next week, we’ll dive into what we now know, and what that means in practice:

• Why you can’t trust labels

• The Leucine Factor

• The truth about supplements

• The Protein Tax

• Why older muscles get “hard of hearing”

• How to fight back at midlife

Keep going-

Samantha (and Brian)

further: flashback

🎶 Anthrax & Public Enemy - Bring The Noise, Attack of the Killer B's, 1991 🎶

The greatest rap/metal mashup is either Linkin Park & Jay-Z with Points Of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer, or Anthrax & Public Enemy doing Bring The Noise. I can’t decide, it’s up to you. (YouTube)

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