May 11, 2026

5 min read

Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm

Protein is being added to everything from Starbucks' cold foam to Pop-Tarts. Here's how much you actually need

Extra protein can be found in everything now, from potato chips to Pop-Tarts. Does this benefit the average eater?

By Bethany Brookshire edited by Tanya Lewis

Starbucks now offers protein-boosted cold foam as a menu option.

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Coming home from a harder-than-usual workout, I felt I deserved a reward. When I saw that my local Starbucks menu advertised a vaguely healthy-sounding iced caramel protein matcha latte with the option to add protein-boosted cold foam, I decided to give it a try. The drink boasted 46 grams of protein—more than seven times the amount of protein in an egg.

It tasted like drinking a cup of melted caramel ice cream. I gave up after a few sips.

Protein-boosted foods and drinks are everywhere these days, from lattes to Pop-Tarts to potato chips. The protein-packing trend has even reached the government’s new upside-down food pyramid: The new dietary guidelines website declares that the U.S. is out to win the “war on protein.”

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Yet evidence suggests many Americans already get more than the recommended daily amount of protein. And although some people might benefit from a higher protein intake, simply consuming protein-packed Pop-Tarts, scientists say, isn’t the way to do it. (Starbucks declined to comment for this article; Kellanova, the maker of Pop-Tarts, did not respond to a request for comment.)

The body needs protein, but how much?

Protein is essential for our bodies. The amino acids in the proteins we eat get broken down and used as building blocks for the proteins in our own cells that perform vital functions such as generating energy, copying DNA and turning DNA instructions into other proteins. Our cells rely on 20 amino acids, most of which our bodies can build themselves if needed. But nine of these, called essential amino acids, must come from our diet.

“You can have very high or very low amounts of fat and carbohydrates and survive,” says Anja Bosy-Westphal, a nutrition researcher at Kiel University in Germany, “but you need a certain amount of protein.”

Diet studies in the U.S. in the 1980s found that the average person needed 0.66 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass to maintain their muscle mass. Until recently, the recommended daily allowance, or RDA, for protein has been 0.8 grams per kilogram (g/kg)—a healthy amount above the estimated average to ensure people get enough. The new dietary guidelines which Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced this year, pump it up to 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg.

Most people in the U.S. are getting more than 0.8 g/kg, says Claire Berryman, a nutritional scientist at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University. In a 2018 study, she and her colleagues analyzed protein intake from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey—a study of thousands of Americans’ eating patterns—from 2001 to 2014. “Most people were at one gram per kilogram body weight or higher,” she says.

Why some people might need more protein

Even if the majority of people get enough protein, most people isn’t everyone, says Joseph Matthews, who studies protein metabolism and protein nutrition at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. “The case study I like to use here is my mum—who is 67—who doesn’t eat a lot of calories across a day,” Matthews says. “It becomes quite hard for her to get sufficient protein within that calorie budget.”

In addition, many older adults are at risk of muscle wasting—especially if they become ill or injured. Some short-term trials have suggested that high-protein diets can prevent muscle loss in older people, Berryman says. If older people consume more protein, they may be able to stop the loss and maintain muscle mass, she says.

Another group at risk of muscle loss is people who lose large amounts of weight in a very short amount of time—say, as a result of taking glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs such as Wegovy. These individuals are taking in fewer calories than the average person. “I would suggest that those people should have a higher protein intake” in this phase of massive weight loss, Bosy-Westphal says. And associations of nutrition researchers already recommend that severely ill people and athletes consume higher levels of protein, she says.

To cater to those who need more protein and those who need less, Matthews sugg