Depending on which corners of the internet you’ve been hanging around in lately, how much protein you eat is either the single most important factor determining your health and athletic performance, or an overhyped and overconsumed indulgence that’s driving you to an early grave. The truth is obviously somewhere in the middle—but where, exactly?
Last month, the University of Toronto’s Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport hosted a conference on high-performance sports science. Along with deep dives into esoteric topics like NBA motion-capture data, artificial intelligence in pro sports, and international rules about intersex and transgender athletes, attendees got a practical primer on the current state of knowledge about protein for athletes from University of Toronto professor Daniel Moore, one of the world’s leading experts on the topic.
Moore’s talk addressed a series of commonly circulated protein myths, misconceptions, and truths. Some of the points were ones that I’ve written about recently—most notably, the question of whether very-high-protein diets damage your kidneys, and the idea that
