The Truth About High-Protein Packed Foods and Your Fitness Goals
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Protein is popping up everywhere. It’s in chips, cereals, creamers, cookies, ice cream, and even water. It always seems like a whole new set of foods (and drinks) are adding “protein” labels to their packaging and boasting the amount of grams it has to help people hit their fitness goals.
But for gym-goers and weightlifters chasing gains, they may want to approach the growing list of protein-packed snacks and foods with a bit of caution.
Nutrition experts say eating protein is good, it helps with feeling full, managing weight, and building muscle, but the quality of the protein you eat is not something to brush over, and the seemingly easy access to adding more of it into your diet may be too good to be true.
“I think it’s just marketing and companies meeting the demand of protein being the craze right now,” said Breanna Pottebaum, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Los Angeles Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and LA Times Studios Contributor. “People see protein [on a product]. They don’t know anything outside of that. They just know protein is going to help them gain muscle, lose weight — they’re going to buy it.”
Maya Feller, a Brooklyn-based registered dietitian nutritionist and cookbook author, agreed that protein’s popularity on social media has led to confusion.
“With all of these nutrition trends from my perspective and my clinical experience, the nuance is lost,” she said.
Feller uses her Instagram page to debunk nutrition myths and inform people’s views on diets and their relationship with food, especially communities of color.
“We’re now in the spot where people are probably taking in more protein than they need and are confused about what they should actually be doing,” Feller said.
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How Much Protein Do You Really Need?
Part of the confusion with protein comes from numbers floating around online. Some lifters hear “one gram per pound” as gospel. Others aim for 200 grams a day, regardless of body size.
Pottebaum said these blanket approaches can become unhealthy and unrealistic, especially for weightlifters who are bigger in size.
“Some people, depending on your weight, you definitely want to cap it at some point,” she said. “It’s not going to be helpful and beneficial if you’re say 300 pounds, you should not be trying to reach 300 grams of protein a day.”
Feller adds that many overshoot without reason. Active people who are in the gym or active multiple times a week do need more than a sedentary office worker, but doing something that you can be consistent with, but not obsess over, is necessary.
Feller said if she has a client taking up a more active lifestyle or training for a race, “maybe we need an adjustment, but you’re not an athlete in that professional sense,” so suddenly eating steaks every night or downing shakes multiple times a day would be overkill.
For most active adults, 1.2–1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of their desired body weight per day is enough to support muscle growth and recovery, according to the research. That’s roughly 0.55–0.73 grams per pound, still less than the whole gram per pound often repeated online.
For example, if someone weighs 260 pounds, they’d calculate their daily protein number based on their targeted weight and factor in their activity level. If they are working toward 200 pounds, the range works out to be around 110 to 145 grams per day.
The exact intake depends on each person’s energy needs and their nutrition goals. The critical thing, Feller said, is to examine the sources of protein you’re consuming and add in real food where you can, not making protein snacks and shakes the center of your diet.
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Quality Over Quantity
Both dietitians pointed to quality as the real problem plaguing the proliferation of protein-packed foods. The type of protein in the foods can affect the way it actually helps you build muscle.
“Whey protein, soy protein, casein protein, those are going to be complete amino acids, which that’s the goal of what we want when we’re picking a protein source,” Pottebaum said. “It’s going to have all the amino acids basically to help build that muscle mass that we’re aiming for and help with actual recovery.”
Many marketed protein snacks lean on collagen to boost their advertised grams, even though collagen is an incomplete protein. In studies directly comparing whey and collagen, whey consistently produced bigger gains in muscle and body composition.
“I’m never going to say no to whey protein powder or whey protein shake, because that is a high-quality protein, but you know, it’s still encouraged to try to get it from a food source,” Pottebaum said.
The gap between the number on the label and the quality of what’s inside shows up in other ways, too.
An extensive 2025 analysis of over 1,600 protein bars found that while most products easily met the definition of “high in protein,” their protein quality (DIAAS and PDCAAS) scores dropped sharply when the finished bars were tested, compared to just testing the ingredients like isolated protein powders that were used to make them. The other ingredients in the bars — like added fibers, fats, and sweeteners — also reduced how well the body could access key amino acids.
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Plant-based snacks can face similar issues. A single source, like rice or pea protein, often lacks one or more essential amino acids. That doesn’t make them useless, but it does mean that blends (like pea plus rice) or pairing with other foods are needed to create a more complete amino acid profile.
For athletes and gym-goers, the takeaway is simple: the grams on the wrapper don’t guarantee equal impact. A bar that claims 20 grams of protein may not deliver the same muscle-building potential as 20 grams from a shake, eggs, or Greek yogurt.
Feller said you also shouldn’t fool yourself and lean on protein snacks or supplements to replace a meal, or choose to eat more ice cream or cookies, just because the added protein could make it healthy.
“Ice cream is ice cream, and cookies are cookies. So even if they’ve increased the protein content of the ice cream or the cookies, it’s still a dessert,” Feller said. “We have this very warped relationship with food, so that we try to ‘healthify’ things, when really what I would love folks to do is be like, ‘You know what? I want to have ice cream.’”
“If you look at the nutrition facts label on a lot of those products, the sodium and even the fat, the saturated fat, is just like crazy high,” Pottebaum said. “You look over at the ingredients and it matches and makes sense on why … it hits the protein that you’re wanting, but then also it’s coming along with a bunch of not so fun, high-fat, high-sodium, and high-sugar” ingredients.
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Whole Foods First, Snacks as Backup
When it comes to actually hitting your protein goals, both experts don’t totally shy away from protein snacks and supplements. They just recommend them in moderation, with whole foods as the foundation.
“Chips and protein bars and stuff like that can be a supplement and helpful to get that little extra protein, but definitely should not be the main base for really, anyone, especially athletes,” Pottebaum said. “If you can hit 70% of whole food protein sources a day. That is wonderful. That’s a great place to be.”
Feller gave a slightly stricter ratio, suggesting 80% of protein comes from whole foods and 20% from supplements or packaged snacks.
Despite the slight difference in numbers, both stress that the anchor for hitting protein goals should be lean meats like chicken and seafood, and adding beans, lentils, eggs, Greek yogurt, or tofu to your diet, plus spreading these whole food sources throughout the day.
“Aim for 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal,” Pottebaum said, adding that dinner can be closer to 40 grams.
Studies back up the recommendation. Research shows that approximately 0.25–0.4 g/kg per meal, about 20–40 grams for many adults, stimulates muscle protein synthesis best.
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The Final Shake
For people who train, protein snacks can absolutely have a place. Shakes and protein bars are useful for convenience, especially around workouts. But people should work with a dietitian to get direct advice for their protein intake, and always take a step back to read the label before thinking every protein cookie or protein cereal is automatically a smart choice.
Feller also adds that spending your money on a meal or buying some nuts to snack on is the better financial option, too.
“We default to ‘make trail mix at home,’ because not everybody’s gonna be out there spending four or $5 on a bar when many people need to be spending like, $6 on a meal,” she said.
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