{"id":385414,"date":"2021-08-23T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/formnutrition.com\/us\/?p=385414"},"modified":"2021-08-17T18:38:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T22:38:28","slug":"the-complete-and-unusual-history-of-protein-powder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formnutrition.com\/us\/inform\/the-complete-and-unusual-history-of-protein-powder\/","title":{"rendered":"The Complete (And Unusual) History of Protein Powder"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the industry hits an estimated market size of $20 billion, protein powders<\/a> in 2021 are everywhere, commonplace. No longer confined to bodybuilders and athletes, supplement shops and online stores, they\u2019re stocked in supermarkets and petrol stations, marketed to senior citizens and children.<\/p>\n

But in 1946, when US health food guru \u201cProfessor\u201d Paul Bragg suggested that Bob Hoffman, founder of the Pennsylvania-based York Barbell Company, should expand into the nutrition business, which offered more scope for repeat purchases than weightlifting equipment did, protein powders were an alien concept; the only food product Hoffman could even think of making was protein-enriched bread.<\/p>\n

A former US national canoeing champion turned influential strength coach and publisher, Hoffman, said Bragg, had \u201cdone what no other barbell man has\u201d: made his students \u201cnutrition-conscious\u201d. But while Hoffman had recognised the importance of protein \u2014 from the Greek meaning \u201cprimary\u201d \u2014 for building and repairing in his 1940 book Better Nutrition for the Strength and Health Seeker, he didn\u2019t consider it any more important for weightlifters. If anything, he thought most people consumed too much protein. Compared to starches and sugars, protein was expensive, and only a limited amount could be utilised, the rest wasted. The recommended daily intake of protein was 0.02g per kg of bodyweight.<\/p>\n

\"\"A decade later however, and Hoffman\u2019s Strength & Health magazine were advertising something called \u201cJohnson\u2019s Hi-Protein Food\u201d. Available to order via York, the supplement was \u201cendorsed and recommended\u201d by \u201cfamous Olympic coach\u201d Hoffman himself.<\/p>\n

The Johnson in question was Irvin, who ran a Chicago health studio with gym and kitchen. In 1950, he published an article entitled \u201cBuild Bigger Biceps Faster with Food Supplements\u201d in rival magazine Iron Man, which that year also advertised something called Kevetts \u201c44\u201d: the first protein powder marketed to weightlifters, containing soy beans, wheat germ and sea kelp.<\/p>\n

The editorial pages of Iron Man meanwhile were still filled with Johnson\u2019s nutritional inventions and the startling transformations credited to them, such as one young man who apparently gained 12lbs in 24 hours. \u201cMr Johnson says, \u2018No one will believe this so there is no use writing it up,\u2019\u201d wrote Iron Man publisher Peary Rader, who didn\u2019t share Johnson\u2019s belief that heavy, intense training was \u201cneither necessary nor desirable\u201d. Otherwise Rader ate up the claims and himself gained 15lbs on the products: \u201cEven without exercise I found my muscles becoming firmer and apparently growing somewhat.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 1952, Hoffman himself had entered the race, advertising \u2018Bob Hoffman\u2019s High-Protein Food\u2019 (later changed to \u2018Hi-Proteen\u2019), in the same package size and flavour range as Johnson\u2019s Hi-Protein Food. The eulogizing ads spoke of \u201ca world-famous food research laboratory\u201d where the protein was manufactured, overseen by chemists and doctors. This differed somewhat from the process later described by Hoffman\u2019s former managing editor Jim Murray, who claimed he saw his sweating boss pour soy flour into a vat of melted Hershey\u2019s sweet chocolate and stir it with a canoe paddle.<\/p>\n

According to bodybuilding chronicler Randy Roach, the soy in these early protein powders was often runoff from industry that had been defatted with toxic solvents to extract the oils for paint and grease and would\u2019ve been used as fertiliser or fed to pigs.<\/p>\n

Hoffman boasted his products didn\u2019t contain toxic defatted soy, but they had to be refrigerated so the unstable oils didn\u2019t turn rancid and were notorious for causing hives and flatulence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

These stomach-churning speed bumps did little to slow the growing market though. Muscle mogul Joe Weider, instrumental in decoupling bodybuilding for aesthetics from weightlifting for strength, advertised his own \u201cHi-Protein Muscle Building Supplement\u201d in a 1952 issue of Your Physique, one of his stable of magazines, six months after the appearance of Hoffman\u2019s product. Weider\u2019s Hi-Protein was, said the advertisements, \u201crecommended by medical doctors\u201d, with pictures of physicians, an official-looking certificate and a seal. The \u201cWeider Research Clinic\u201d referenced therein, according to 1966 Mr America Bob Gadja, was a door at Weider\u2019s offices that led to a broom closet.<\/p>\n

Weider\u2019s wasn\u2019t the first protein powder to boast medical credentials. Described in promotional materials as \u201cthe albumen of pure fresh milk in the form of a dry, soluble granulated, cream-white powder\u201d, Plasmon had, according to a 1900 edition of British medical journal The Lancet<\/a>, been used to build up hospital patients in Germany. There, Dr CR Virchow, son of prominent 19th century physician Rudolf, had enumerated Plasmon\u2019s virtues to the German government: cheap, digestible, hygienic, and superior to meat for strength, endurance and vitality. Dr Virchow had ran trials in which, he said, men had subsisted for several days of hard work and reduced sleep on Plasmon alone.<\/p>\n

The British entrepreneurs who in 1899 acquired the rights to sell Plasmon outside Germany and Russia marketed the product to a wider, more able audience with the help of key influencers. Plasmon \u201cjustified all that is claimed for it\u201d, said England footballer and cricketer CB Fry, who ran advertisements and testimonials in his own publication, Fry\u2019s Magazine. Explorer Ernest Shackleton supposedly packed Plasmon for his expeditions. \u201cPlasmon is the very essential food I have long wished for, and I would never be without it,\u201d said Eugene Sandow, the \u201cfather of bodybuilding\u201d after whom the Mr Olympia trophy is christened.<\/p>\n

\n