Walk down any supermarket aisle, and you’ll notice food packaging covered in bright, bold labels bragging about “high protein” content.
From breakfast cereals and ready meals to bars of chocolate and bags of crisps, brands are slapping this health buzzword onto almost everything they can find. It’s a marketing tactic called “protein washing,” and it’s designed to make you think a product is a nutritious superfood when it’s often just overpriced junk.
Even the savviest shoppers are falling for it, happily paying a premium for everyday food that has barely any extra nutritional value. Before you spend another penny on these supposedly healthy snacks, it’s vital to understand how the food industry uses this clever psychological trick to manipulate your shopping basket.
Protein washing has become widespread in the food industry.
Protein washing is a marketing tactic where brands slap the words “high protein” or “protein-packed” on a product to make it sound healthier than it really is. Because protein has become so strongly associated with health and fitness, shoppers tend to assume anything labelled this way must be a better choice, even when the rest of the nutritional picture tells a different story.
Nutritionists describe this as the health halo effect, where one positive-sounding claim creates a general impression of healthiness that isn’t always warranted. Some of these products are heavily processed, high in sugar, or contain a long list of ingredients that would raise eyebrows if people read past the front of the packaging.
Companies use protein to improve their health scores.
There’s a financial and regulatory reason why so many brands are adding protein to their products. In the UK, the system used to calculate whether a food is unhealthy gives products positive points for things like fibre and protein, which can offset negative points scored for fat, salt, and sugar.
This means adding protein to an otherwise unhealthy product can technically improve its health score under the current framework, making it easier to market and potentially harder for the government to target through sugar or junk food restrictions. It’s not illegal, but it does mean the label can be a better reflection of clever formulation than genuine nutritional value.
There’s often added sugar hiding behind the protein label.
Some of the most popular protein-labelled products contain surprisingly high amounts of sugar alongside the protein they’re advertising. One chocolate protein milkshake contains 20g of protein but also 32g of sugars, which is already nudging against the NHS’s recommended daily maximum of 30g of free sugar for adults. A strawberry protein yoghurt contains 20g of protein alongside 12.6g of sugars.
These figures matter because consumers buying these products often do so specifically because they believe they’re making a healthier choice. When the sugar content is comparable to less health-focused alternatives, the product isn’t delivering the benefit the branding implies.
Sometimes the protein difference is barely worth mentioning.
In some cases, the gap between a protein-branded product and a regular version is so small it’s hard to justify paying a premium for it. One branded protein yoghurt contains 9.4g of protein per 100g, compared to 6.5g per 100g in standard full-fat Greek yoghurt, a difference of less than 3g.
Similarly, a protein porridge product prepared with semi-skimmed milk delivers 10.9g of protein, while a standard serving of regular porridge oats with the same milk comes in at 15g. In that case, the regular product actually wins on protein content, despite carrying no such claim on the label.
How much protein do most people actually need?
For most adults, the recommended daily intake is 0.75g of protein per kilogram of body weight, which works out to around 45g a day for a 60 kg woman and 55g a day for a 75 kg man. Most people in the UK already hit this target through their normal diet without any specialist products at all.
Older adults, those exercising regularly, and people trying to build or maintain muscle may genuinely benefit from a higher intake, but that doesn’t mean everyone needs to be actively chasing ever-higher protein numbers. For the majority of people, a balanced diet built around whole foods covers the requirement, without any dedicated protein products needed.
Where should you actually get your protein from?
Many whole foods naturally meet the criteria that would allow them to carry a “protein-packed” claim, without any processing or marketing budget required. Eggs, meat, fish, tofu, legumes, and dairy all deliver solid protein content alongside a range of other nutrients, and without the added sugars or long ingredient lists that often accompany branded protein products.
Nutritionists consistently recommend getting the majority of protein from these kinds of whole food sources rather than from processed alternatives that happen to have protein added. An egg, for example, contains around 7g of protein on its own, and a tin of tuna or a chicken breast delivers a substantial amount with nothing else added.
What to actually look for on the label
The government’s position is that people should look at the overall nutritional content of a product rather than focusing on a single claim on the front of the pack. Food labelling rules do require that any authorised claims meet legal requirements, but they don’t prevent a genuinely high-sugar product from also being legitimately labelled as high in protein.
Reading the full nutritional information rather than stopping at the front-of-pack claim is the most reliable way to avoid being misled. Checking sugar content, the ingredient list length, and how much processing has gone into a product gives a far more complete picture than the headline protein number alone.
