Sam Sanders

But what I had never heard of before was somebody on the inside offering to be a whistleblower, to leak documents to a journalist in real time.

This is In Conversation from Apple News.

I'm Sam Sanders, in for Shamita Basu.

Today, why we're so obsessed with protein.

We are in the middle of a protein boom.

Protein food products are a $100 billion plus industry and it's projected to grow even more in the next few years.

You see it.

Walk into any grocery store and you'll find unending lines of products with added protein.

Everything from protein popcorn to protein pasta to protein beer.

You can even add protein to the foam on top of your latte at Starbucks.

If there's a combination of food and extra protein you can dream of, it probably already exists.

That's health scholar Samantha King.

She's written a new book with sociologist Gavin Whedon.

It's called Protein, The Making of a Nutritional Superstar.

Protein is an essential nutrient for our bodies to build muscle and maintain other functions.

It's also found naturally in lots of foods.

And in their book, Sammy and Gavin argue that our obsession with protein consumption is driven a lot more by industry and marketing and cultural forces than by actual nutritional science.

I sat down with Sammy and Gavin to talk about how protein became the most popular nutrient and how to think about it differently.

Can we just start with a question for me as a real live human living in a protein world?

How much protein do we actually need?