Hey everyone, welcome back to Your Kitchen. I'm Rajiv, and today—well, I'm actually pretty excited about this topic—we're unraveling the mysteries around how much protein we really need. You know, they say knowledge is power, but with nutrition, sometimes too much knowledge—or too many opinions—can leave you totally confused. So, let's start with the basics: that famous RDA for protein. That's 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. Most of us have heard that number, right? But, here's the thing: the RDA was designed as a kind of safety net, to prevent deficiency, not to make you thrive. It's not about peak performance or even optimal health, just about not falling apart, basically.Now, this figure, 0.8 g/kg, comes from old nitrogen-balance studies—think labs with people eating plain, boring diets, scientists measuring nitrogen in and out, and then doing a lot of math. Nitrogen in, nitrogen out, repeat. And the goal was to find the minimum protein intake to keep things steady, not to optimize muscle or bone or anything else. What’s wild is how this ‘minimum to avoid trouble’ number still gets paraded around like it’s what everybody should aim for. It’s a minimum, not the magic number for thriving. That distinction? It gets lost all the time.I remember moving from India to the US and seeing, wow, portion sizes here are... kind of legendary. But here's the kicker—in a traditional Indian meal, yeah, you might only get one small katori of dal, and maybe a little paneer or a few grams of chicken if you're lucky. In the US, you’ll get a slab of meat or a protein shake the size of your head. But purely anecdotally—this is just my own experience—when I started increasing my protein above this RDA level, not only did I notice more muscle, but my energy and recovery just, hmm, took off. Which makes you think: if the RDA is the baseline, what’s actually optimal?Sometimes I wish there was a better word for “optimal” that didn’t sound so, you know, like a supplement label. But that’s the reality—the RDA is about surviving, not thriving. We need to rethink what we’re aiming for, especially if you’re aging, active, or have specific health goals.Which brings me to my next point—what does the science actually say about aiming higher? Let’s dig in there.Alright, so if the RDA is more like the ‘fuel light just came on’ warning in your car, what does optimal look like? Well, research over the last decade or so has really shifted, and most experts now agree that getting anywhere from 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram is where the magic happens, especially for anyone who’s active, older, or wants to keep their metabolism humming. I mean, that’s not just muscle mass we’re talking about—protein supports bone, metabolism, and keeps your appetite on a pretty even keel, too.But here’s something that trips people up: it’s not just about getting a giant hit of protein once a day. Muscle protein synthesis—that’s the techy term for building new muscle—is actually maxed out with about 25 to 40 grams per meal. If you eat more than that in one go, your body won’t use the rest for muscle; it either burns it for energy or stores it. So, it’s less about total daily bulk and more about how you distribute it. Spacing it across three or four meals, each with a solid protein serving, seems to do the trick.This isn't hypothetical—there was a study with a female marathon runner, actually, who had been eating lots of carbs and not really thinking about protein distribution. When she started making sure she got around 30 grams at each meal—breakfast, lunch, dinner—her recovery improved, muscle mass went up, and she felt a whole lot less sore after workouts. Real-world stuff—nothing fancy, just paying attention to structure.Now, I should pause and say, I always get asked, “So if I eat more protein, won’t that just keep building muscle indefinitely?” Not quite. It’s not a “more is always better” situation. For most of us, 1.2 to 2 g/kg per day is the sweet spot, and even athletes rarely need more, unless there’s some crazy, super-high-level training happening. And if you’re older? There’s evidence the threshold might even need to be a bit higher because the body doesn’t use protein as efficiently with age.The takeaway here is: aim for a steady pulse of protein throughout the day, not a giant spike at dinner or a hero-sized protein shake after a workout. That way, you keep the muscle-building pathways open, your metabolism steady, and your body feeling good. But, as soon as you tell people to eat more protein, the fears come out, right? “What about my kidneys?” “Am I going to damage my bones?” Let’s talk myths versus reality next.Okay, let’s get into the biggest set of protein fears—does eating more protein wreck your kidneys or leach calcium from your bones? I still get messages from relatives in India, or from friends who’ve read a one-liner online, worrying that my kidney function must be tanking because I like protein. And look, the concern makes sense—those ideas have been kicking around for decades. But when you dig into actual clinical evidence, healthy people eating even up to 2.0 grams per kilo, or honestly, even higher in some athlete studies, just don’t see damage. No increase in kidney markers, no impact on bone health. The old studies often looked at people with severe pre-existing kidney disease, which is a totally different situation.I remember my aunt gently scolding me at a family dinner, like, “Don’t eat so much paneer, beta, you’ll ruin your kidneys!”—but, honestly, healthy bodies are designed to process a wide range of protein intakes. What’s more, there’s no evidence high protein intake causes osteoporosis—in fact, protein might help your bones stay strong by providing the building blocks they need. It’s one of those “sounds reasonable, but isn’t really true” memories that stick with you.Now, let’s talk about why nutrition research is so messy in the first place. If you’ve ever tried to make sense of all the conflicting headlines—one day eggs are good, the next they’re evil—you’re not alone. Studying humans is hard, especially over long timescales. There are confounding factors, biases—sometimes even who pays for the study influences the results. And with protein, it’s especially tough, since most studies last just a few weeks or months, but the real changes—muscle, metabolism, health—play out over years.So, the bottom line: for healthy folks, eating more protein in that 1.2 to 2 gram per kilogram range, focused on good-quality sources and sensible distribution across meals, is not just safe—it’s beneficial in nearly every way science knows how to measure. The fear-mongering is mostly leftover from outdated interpretations or mixing up sick populations with healthy ones. My advice to my family—eat mindfully, enjoy your dals and your paneer, and don’t let myths drive your choices.And that’s really where I want to wrap up today. There’s so much more we could dive into—protein from different sources, sustainability, the way traditions intersect with science—but we’ll save those for another episode. Thanks for listening, take care of your plate, and I’ll catch you next time.

Episodes

How Much Protein Is Enough?