Even a quick walk through the aisles of your local market will confirm what you’ve probably already suspected – just about everyone wants more protein in their diet.

While keto and paleo dieters are centred around it, others are seeking ways to get enough of it through powders, beverages, bars, pasta and snacks.

While many consumers are loading up on as much protein as they can get, experts say, we can jump off the “all protein, all the time” bandwagon and start looking for a more generally balanced diet.

Protein does lots of great things

Dr. Zhaoping Li, chief of the division of clinical nutrition at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said protein provides the building blocks of our organs and body, and that it’s essential to improve the immune system. “It’s also used to make neurotransmitters, can function as hormones or can provide fuel through glucogenic or ketogenic pathways.”

“Protein is essential for health because it’s a central component of all our tissues and bodily functions, such as enzyme secretion and immune function,” said Jorn Trommelen, an expert on nutrition and an assistant professor in the department of human biology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

“Bodily proteins are continuously broken down to amino acids, which are recycled in new proteins. But there is a net loss of bodily protein in the absence of protein ingestion, so dietary protein is essential to maintain our tissue mass and function.”

If you're adding grilled chicken to everything you eat just because it has protein, it may not be doing what you think it's doing.

Most people in the developed world are getting more than enough

When you read that list of important jobs protein does, it makes sense that you’d want to get lots of it in your diet. But experts are saying that, as so often happens, we’ve gone overboard with our latest “superfood” ingredient.

“The vast majority of Americans already consume enough protein, and we don’t need more,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director at the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute, and a cardiologist, public health scientist and professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

“The nation’s growing obsession with protein arises more from misconceptions than value for health.”

“We’ve been sold the idea that protein is the golden ticket to health, but this has far more to do with marketing than with science,” said Dr.

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