Every food commercial, advertisement, and packaging in the US is currently protein obsessed. I just bought 3 burritos, and the most noticeable thing on the entire package is its protein content. TV commercials about waffles are advertising that they have X amount of protein per serving. The products in my jobsite’s vending machine have protein all over every package.
Did America have a protein thing recently?
It’s not entirely pseudoscience. I imagine a lot of people don’t normally get the recommended 1.2g per kg per day https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/
Just to note 1.2g per kg per day is a highly contested number. To my knowledge, the usual recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of most countries sits at around 0.8. As it says in that link, this was the RDA in the US, too, before the Trump bros recently increased it.
And the RDA covers the needs of 97.5% of the population. So, per definition, most people need less than that.
At the same time, with an average Western diet, you can easily get 1.5g per kg bodyweight per day. There’s cases where folks can’t deal with excess protein due to a kidney failure, and actually getting them to not eat excess protein can be quite the challenge.
Source for that second block is this podcast/video where a nutrition professor is interviewed: https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-should-i-eat-more-protein
That seems high per https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/are-you-getting-too-much-protein
Which quotes 0.8 g/kg