Some protein powders and shakes tested by Consumer Reports contained levels of lead, a heavy metal, that experts say could raise the risk of long-term health problems.
Scientists hired by Consumer Reports, an independent non-profit based out of the U.S., tested 23 popular protein products, and found lead levels ranging from zero to 7.7 micrograms per serving — above the stringent limits set by the state of California, but below U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standard for females of childbearing age.
There is no safe level of lead for human consumption, though it finds its way into many foods because lead is present in the environment.
Wow, what a great quote. Just perfect:
I’m a vegetarian, so maybe as a result I’m prone to notice it more (because, even in 2025, I get people asking me “but how do you get your protein?!”), but calling the protein phenomenon when it comes to culture a “health halo” is just one of the best ways I’ve seen it described.
Probably one of the best examples was the creation of the “protein bar”. And now we see the protein amounts listed prominently even on some restaurant menus. We have people thinking protein is some kind of health food.
I suggest reading The Protein Myth - great book.
Amazon reviews say the book doesn’t debunk our need for protein. The bigger you are in terms of muscle mass, the more protein you need in your diet. That doesn’t change if you’re vegan.
Vegan strongman Patrik Baboumian eats 410 grams of plant-based protein per day, a lot of which is made up of vegan protein powders. These are exactly what this report about lead is warning against.
Plants are ultra-concentrators of metals in soil, including heavy metals like lead and cadmium. Protein powder is an ultra-concentrated product, further increasing the risks of high lead levels. Anyone like Baboumian who wants to build a lot of muscle while maintaining a vegan diet needs to be very careful about where they source their protein powder.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone make that claim. I sure hope no one is out there making that claim. I surely am not. I’m talking about the way it gets treated in society as if it’s somehow “healthy” to be eating massive amounts of protein, especially animal protein. Just pay attention to how it’s marketed for everyday foods, including at restaurants.
And yes, in some cases, there are people that may need more protein if they are trying to build/maintain muscle mass. I’ve seen the documentary w/ Patrik in it. This is hardly typical kinds of intake, though, and I’d wager a lot of people that are eating lots of protein are just overworking their kidneys and pissing most of it out a few hours later. Even athletes.
If I had the ability, I’d actually be curious to measure my own intake vs. waste, much like the author of that Bowflex book I mentioned. This guy was also a body builder…
Most people these days are terribly out of shape, overweight/obese, and have way too much body fat and way too little muscle mass. People eat way too much fat and carbs and way too little protein. They also don’t move nearly enough, of course, so eating protein without doing the work is not going to help.
Since I’ve started lifting weights and trying to build muscle and lose weight, I’ve begun to realize how difficult it is to get enough protein to do that without spending a lot of money on meat or eating a bunch of legumes (and feeling awful all day the next day).
Forget 410 grams per day. It’s hard enough to get 100 grams per day without supplementing.
Eh, YMMV. I went vegetarian many, many years ago and stuck with it because I feel fantastic on it. It was like night and day, and just prior I had already cut red meat and pork to nearly zero, but was still eating things like seafood and poultry. I still felt very low-energy as an omnivore even when trying to really watch everything I ate.
I was also working on losing weight/keeping lean with strength training and cardio at the time. I still am. I’ve never worried about getting enough protein in that process. But I’m not trying to bulk up or anything, either. I’m shooting more for health goals, not aesthetic ones.
The over-the-top marketing of the protein myth has gotten so bad that even Lewis Black just commented on this ridiculous trend last night:
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=YFJx0zFxNAk
Eating high protein isn’t about health it’s for body building. I don’t know anyone that uses protein supplements that isn’t on some kind of strength training plan. Listing protein on products is useful to those that need more than the recommended minimum to recover and build muscle as it can be difficult to get a sufficient amount in that scenario, especially if your options are limited to fast food crap.
I was talking about this kind of thing (see link). People have lost their minds over this macronutrient, LOL. The marketing about protein has always been rather silly, IMHO, but in the recent 10-15 years, it’s been getting more and more absurd and the “bro science” is creeping into everything…almost no one is telling people to actually measure their input and their output (like the Bowflex author’s professor told him to do), they are just being marketed to that they need more protein, and to even supplement with it…and now it’s being marketed in Doritos, LOL.
Lewis Black is joking about the protein enema, but honestly, I think there just might be some real money in this. Tell people all that over-consumption of protein they are already doing is not “bioavailable” and they need to get it via an enema, then charge about 100x the markup…
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=YFJx0zFxNAk
Do you actually read anything about nutrition? It takes minimal effort to find things that tell you how much you should have. There is a ton of stuff out there telling you how to monitor/calculate your nutrient intake. There are apps that make it easy. Protein intake is a very well studied subject with plenty of material on it and more coming out all the time (if anything the recommended protein amount is higher than the generally suggested amount of .8g/kg of bodyweight for sedentary individuals). These products are intended for those who want a snack with protein while keeping their calories in check. If you overeat, of course you can expect to have problems. I personally don’t consume any of these high protein chips or icecream products because I’m a small dude and I don’t have a lot of spare calories to play with for snacks, if I need a snack I usually go for jerky, but for other people these can be a good option. If you pay attention to what you are eating it can actually be difficult to get the recommended amount of protein with pre-packaged foods while keeping your calories in check, most products and fast food options are very high calorie for what you’re getting out of them. If you want to bitch about too much of something in our food you should be focusing on carbs, sugar, and fat. Protein can stand to be dialed up a bit.
Lewis Black is a very funny man but not someone I’m going to take nutritional advice from.
Here is a source for the recommended numbers: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5872778/#sec2-nutrients-10-00360
Heh. Given that I’ve been a vegetarian for ~20 years, yeah, I would say I’ve looked into nutrition, with particular focus on the commonly held myths around protein, a fair bit. 😆
We vegetarians are asked about this apparently scarce macronutrient so often that we laugh and repeat the “but where do you get your protein?!” phrase when we are with each other. That’s because we’ve all heard it countless times when someone learns we are vegetarian. I cannot tell you how many people in my life that are still convinced that I’ll waste away, I will be weak, I will lose muscle mass, have anemia, fatigue, etc…despite all the years of empirical evidence I have by living it and by the literature I could point them at. That’s how predominant the myths about protein are. I don’t ever offer up that I’m vegetarian IRL for a whole host of reasons, but not walking people through the protein thing is definitely one of those reasons.
If people feel the need to supplement, they now have multiple ways to do it without eating any whole foods, including ice cream, chips and drinks from Starbucks. If people want to believe marketers over the science, it’s understandable since the marketing is everywhere, while the science is something you usually have to seek out. The science says that most people, including athletes, do not need to supplement. In the cases of actual extreme athletes or people age 65+, etc., some probably actually do measure and get empirical evidence of needing to up their intake or not, because it’s probably good to know if they are just literally pissing away money and/or causing unwanted issues. I bet most people never measure, though.
Lastly, I don’t think anyone was suggesting getting nutritional advice from Black. He’s just skewering the people taking nutritional advice from marketers such as those at Frito-Lay and from influencers.
Whether or not someone needs to supplement depends entirely on their diet and what food options are available to them. My target is 70-80g/day on ~1800 calories, if I go much below that it adds days to my recovery from working out. If I’m restricted to fast food meals and pre-packaged shit that I can take with me on the go that day it can be hard to get there, I have to supplement it 2-3 times a week, especially if I’m cutting and need to keep my calories extra low as well. Obviously if I could meal plan properly and eat only whole foods this would be easier but due to my living situation my choices are limited. It’s not about marketing.
Personally I havent seen the protein craze in real time but I remember a Frontline episode from 3 to 5 years back that called out how unregulated the supliment industry is. None of this is surprising
Ha, Daily Show and Lewis Black to the rescue…it’s so weird that this thread happened just a few days before this.
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=YFJx0zFxNAk
I think it’s just marketing to people that are sort of half-tuned in, but know that protein is something your body does need. And they aren’t wrong. But unless you are eating a very bizarre or restricted diet, it’s not likely you have to count grams of protein. One of the ways you see this kind of thing slip into menus is to have someone select “a protein” as an option to be added to your meal. Typically, it’s a protein from a dead animal, thus reinforcing the false notion that “protein” = meat. It’s extra amusing when the portion already includes egg and/or cheese…and the “protein” is actually a “fat”.
The author of The Protein Myth has a funny anecdote where he has to dig deeper into people’s proclaimed dietary habits. He asks them what they eat for breakfast, and they’ll say something like “a protein”. He digs deeper and finds out it sausage or the like. It’d be more accurate to describe that as “a fat”, if we are only thinking of foods as what macronutrient they have the most of…
If you pay attention, you’ll notice the marketing in any case - I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it on fast casual dining boards.
Look, I have zero problems with the notion of giving a good breakdown of what’s in your food, including protein. But it’s weird to see it as some kind of marketing gimmick, if you ask me. It’s not as if nutrition and health works like that - take one value, dial it way up, and we’re good, LOL. I bet most Americans have little to no idea how much sodium (or even sugar) they consume in a given day, but I am quite sure a few of the “bro science” types could definitely tell you how many grams of protein they ingest…