Oct 2, 2026 · 23 min · 11 segments
Protein water? protein cereal or how about protein infused vodka? Protein products are everywhere but earlier this week the Bank of America issued a warning to the food industry that the protein craze…
Adam MaguireGuest
Sarah KeoghGuest
Fran McNultyHost
Adam, talk to us about the marketing of this, because you see it in the supermarket, these huge 20 grams, 15 grams, massive text on loads of, sometimes, frankly, weird products.
Yeah, uh, and, you know, as you say, you know, everything from, you know, donuts.
I suppose the one thing to point out, I was looking at the, the Food Safety Authority rules on this in terms of the, the labeling, and there's two kind of d- designations.
So one i- is you can say y- you are a source of protein if 12% or more of the energy in the product comes from, uh, from protein, and it, it, you have to do a bit of maths on that because it's not 12 grams per 100 grams.
... it's, you know, each gram of protein is four calories, and you have to work it out that way.
And if you have, if, if you have 20% of the energy or more, you can say you're high in protein.
And just to kind of, that's a, a relatively low bar, because, you know, full fat milk would pass that threshold.
So when you see these products saying, "High in protein," as if, you know, they're, they're absolutely jam-packed with it, they've probably just put a little bit of extra in.
And sometimes when you, if you compare, you know, there's, uh, there's protein Weetabix and regular Weetabix, and you can have a look at the two labels, there's a tiny bit of extra protein in it that gets them over that threshold to be able to say they're, they're protein products, and that's partially why you have so many of these products.
Sometimes they're products that they didn't really have to add anything, like, like yogurt, like, you know, shakes.
Adam, talk to us about the marketing of this, because you see it in the supermarket, these huge 20 grams, 15 grams, massive text on loads of, sometimes, frankly, weird products.
Yeah, uh, and, you know, as you say, you know, everything from, you know, donuts.
I suppose the one thing to point out, I was looking at the, the Food Safety Authority rules on this in terms of the, the labeling, and there's two kind of d- designations.
So one i- is you can say y- you are a source of protein if 12% or more of the energy in the product comes from, uh, from protein, and it, it, you have to do a bit of maths on that because it's not 12 grams per 100 grams.
... it's, you know, each gram of protein is four calories, and you have to work it out that way.
And if you have, if, if you have 20% of the energy or more, you can say you're high in protein.
And just to kind of, that's a, a relatively low bar, because, you know, full fat milk would pass that threshold.
So when you see these products saying, "High in protein," as if, you know, they're, they're absolutely jam-packed with it, they've probably just put a little bit of extra in.
And sometimes when you, if you compare, you know, there's, uh, there's protein Weetabix and regular Weetabix, and you can have a look at the two labels, there's a tiny bit of extra protein in it that gets them over that threshold to be able to say they're, they're protein products, and that's partially why you have so many of these products.
Sometimes they're products that they didn't really have to add anything, like, like yogurt, like, you know, shakes.
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