The Preoccupation And Prosyllogism of Protein Intake: Are Our Brains Being Marketed Out?
The over-promotion, overselling, over-commercialisation, over-monetisation and general ballyhoo saturating the human need for protein is enough to make me bloat. Constipation and diarrhoea could possibly follow and I’m hoping to not go there. Or suffer bad breath and kidney stones. Imagine having to tell your GP what’s going on while they’re holding their breath and moving to the other side of the room.
It’s a mania to add to the piles (literally) of all the other stupidities crammed into the world without rhyme or reason. Like the 2000 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival logo; the sight of which has yet to heal more than a quarter of a century later. The resounding question surrounding that marketing mishmash presently applies – who the hell thought it was a good idea?
The festival’s okay; it’s the logo that year that will never be even on the peripheral of “okay”.
Disney exec George Kalogridis came up with the event in 1995, when food festivals were mostly just local gatherings for local people in stretchy pants. It was the year Pizzafest began in Naples, which may or may not have been an inspiration, given his Greek heritage and shared Mediterranean culture. Maybe it some kind of battle of banquets that sparked in his mind, and you can’t get much bigger with food, than going international.
Unless the theme is universal – but that would only include Milky Ways, Mars Bars, Galaxy Bars, Big Dippers and Starbursts. Although if you were going all out, in explanation for why time only moves forward and why the universe is expanding so fast, is the possibility that space is shaped like a Pringle; so you’d have them as well. Oh, and peanuts and olives because there’s also the idea that the universe is ellipsoid. In which case you’d throw in apples. Not because of anything to do with creation being tempting and snakey, but because equal to the other shape theories, the cosmos could be similarly concave and convex.
If that’s not a food festival, it’s at least a girl dinner.
It doesn’t make the cut for boy kibble, because that’s a protein load of loaded protein, which is what brought us here in the first place. Although it’s really protein water that frothed this barrage; and it’s likely already found its place beside the boy kibble lap-table in front of the tv. Where it seems that ridiculous logo was designed. By a four-year-old. On red cordial.
There was a time when we didn’t care
There was a time in living memory when nobody cared in a maddeningly micro-managing way how much protein you were eating. You. Just. Ate. Something for breakfast, something for lunch, something for dinner and not much in between. Maybe a piece of fruit, or a couple of biscuits or something likewise indistinguishable. Occasionally, maybe a packet of chips when they only came in one size of 25 grams. Not four sizes of increased air volume.
Either way, you weren’t continually slurping, crunching, munching or stuffing and looking up ideal amounts on the internet. (Because there wasn’t one.) Food consumption came from your mum or what you learned from her about balanced meals and keeping your elbows off the table.
Our human software has been hacked, and we’re being lead around by the nose. Taken to water we’re never made to drink, due to the fact that we do it so willingly. We don’t even care that it tastes of Kool-Aid. As long as the blue pill goes down easier.
It’s a technological, algorithmic overload that we inhabit and we resist; and in spite of ourselves we’re perpetually seduced by it. It’s continuous and relentless – in terms of time and duration, and the intensity of our refusal to stop. Is it technology in general, or social media that’s disintegrated certain bonds of tradition and ways we relied upon to trust each other? And ourselves – we no longer have confidence in our own logic and understanding.
The ring of truth is all clanky
What once clearly rang true now has its clapper muffled, utterly changing the volume and resonance. So enamoured are we by the idea of walking to the beat of a different drum, there’s no recognition of the chaotic wall of sound we’ve created. Ultimately the sound waves are so unbearably loud, it’s physically altered the environment and the rhythms have forcibly synchronised.
Essentially amounting to nothing much anyone should listen to, if they could actually hear what it’s saying.
Just some kind of immersive sound cloud, high-pitched and anxiety prodding. A micropolyphony of the endless crap we’ve created over the last few decades that appears to prove little but the human capacity and speed for greed, and the emerging idolatry of idiocy and idleness.
Everything is ‘maxxed’ – so much so, that one ‘x’ isn’t enough. There’s looksmaxxing, sleepmaxxing, couplesmaxxing, fibremaxxing, goblin maxxing, monkmaxxing, mogmaxxing and blah-blah-blah proteinmaxxing.
All of it is brainrotmaxxing. Any type of vague aspiration is turned into repeatable format that gives a sense of progress as ill-defined as cloudy noise but given the weight of achievement. It’s a hierarchy of self-surveillance in a world of little human connection.
Certainty doesn’t win: intensity does. Systems do. Convincing yourself that you have control in an uncontrollable world does.
Here’s a tip: we’re never in control. Never have been. It just feels like we do when life is going well.
Moneymakers dive-bomb this endless vulnerability. Like a vague-an on a double cheeseburger with the lot on a solo-holiday. Last year one of the Kardashians (Kling? Klomp? Klownie? .. who cares) set upon the world popcorn dusted in protein powder. Unsurprisingly, it’s called ‘Khloud’ because white powder’s involved somewhere in the process, and ‘Khrapp’ was off the table because there’s no truth in advertising. Seemingly, it’s a product that’s aimed at anyone unfamiliar with what a cash grab is.
Maxxmarketing a macronutrient is mad and maddening
Protein has gone the way of bottled water in terms of unnecessary overconsumption and marketing madness.
Retiring and expiring the healthy heart tick a decade ago clearly made food manufacturers feel there was something missing. After ten years of sleepless nights in sweaty sheets, it was finally decided that slapping ‘protein’ along with ‘boosted’, ‘good source of’, ‘high’ or ‘excellent source of’ ticked the unticked boxes and packs that were so clearly crying out for some kind of useless adornment.
There’s no argument that protein is a mighty necessary macronutrient.
There’s a whole list of things that happen to the human body when there’s a deficiency. If you can look that up without falling asleep on a keyboard littered with hair and nails, you’re probably doing okay. More protein isn’t actually better; and it matters where it comes from.
Minimally processed like the normal stuff of lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, lentils and tofu is what the body properly absorbs. And prefers. (Except maybe tofu.) There’s more protein in bullshit than in an estimated 90% of protein enriched products on supermarket shelves. Instant coffee with added protein powder is just a khimera the Kardashians missed; along with the breakfast cereals, biscuits, marshmallows, lollies and chocolate and ‘health’ bars.
The body can efficiently process only a finite amount of protein per day. Overconsumption through ultra-processed, protein-fortified snacks supplants necessary fibre. Frequently with an excess of saturated fats and sugars. The syllogism lies in the trap of taking the major premise rationale of sufficient protein intake for optimal health, and equating “sufficient” with “unlimited”.
Highly processed is not a wholefood source; it’s just a drain on your wallet and intelligence. Yoghurt does not have to have added protein – Greek yoghurt is protein. The gimmick of extra protein might make yoghurts thicker, but so might you be for believing it. Same with cheese. If you want more protein, eat hard aged; rather than thinking that the screaming label on the brand means anything much at all.
And the water? I can’t even go there. Even if I was lead to it by the nose, nothing but nothing could make me drink it.
