It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. You’ve been craving a brownie for what seems like forever after an especially laborious workday riddled with unanswered emails and back-to-back Slack messages. To your surprise, you see a small basket full of individually wrapped snacks in your office kitchen. Your prayers have been answered; Your sweet tooth, soon to be satisfied. You pick up the package and step back in agony: Protein bar. Again.

2025 is the year of protein, apparently. Starbucks recently added a new beverage to its portfolio of weird drinks that nobody asked for: Protein coffee. Aside from the fact that videos and images of the unappetizing drink have gone viral on social media, the emergence of keto-reminiscent diets begs the question: Why does everything need to have protein? What happened to fiber, to childlike wonder?

Protein is one of the most important macronutrients humans can consume. Still, without its other macronutrient sisters and brothers, a once-healthy human becomes someone who needs to consume Metamucil every day because their life depends on it. Still, the emerging social media protein-first approach to food consumption has many consumers thinking a brownie with 25 grams of protein and 100 other weird additives (such as LEAD) is healthier than a normal serving of pasta with some turkey meatballs. The rise of colon issues is increasing in younger generations, and the protein fixation might be a part of the cause.