From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrow-F.

This is the Daily.

Seemingly overnight, Americans have become obsessed with pumping as much protein as possible

into every drink, snack, and meal imaginable.

Today, food writer Elizabeth Dunn explains how we arrive at this latest nutrition craze

and whether protein maxing has gone too far.

It's Tuesday, August 26th.

Thank you. It's Tuesday, August 26th. Elizabeth, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

Today, we're going to be having a conversation about protein, because let's be honest, we are in our big protein era. It's

everywhere. You simply cannot escape the protein boom. And it's gotten to the point where we need to

talk about how and why this happened. So I have been writing about food for about 15 years.

And for most of that time, the stories that I was working on were about things like fine dining trends or celebrity chefs. But in the past couple of years, it's become increasingly clear to me that people really don't care as much about those stories anymore.

Like when I go to a cocktail party or a dinner party and somebody finds out that I write about food,

what they'll want to know about isn't whether I've been to Noma. They want to know about protein.

Wow. Yeah. And I'm not surprised surprised because as you say, protein is everywhere.

Here are seven different ways you can get in 50 grams of protein in 30 seconds or less.

Nine slices of Kirkland uncured Black Forest ham. If you open your social media feed, if you're like me. If you want to eat more protein, start snacking on chicken.

You're going to see influencers sharing their favorite protein powders or giving you

high protein recipe ideas.

Everything I eat in a day as an act of 27-year-old trying to get at least 130 grams

of protein in every single day.

And then in the grocery store or convenience stores, protein-loaded foods are really everywhere.

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