Protein-Packed Junk Food: Helpful Upgrade or Just Better Marketing?

Introduction

Walk down any grocery aisle and it looks like the same story on repeat:

Protein chips.

Protein cookies.

Protein toaster pastries.

Even candy bars quietly rebranded as “protein bars.”

Food companies know most people have heard that protein is “good,” so they’ve started adding it to highly processed foods and slapping big numbers on the package: 12g, 16g, 20g of protein.

The implied promise is simple: “Hey, this is basically health food now. You can trust this.”

But there’s a harder question underneath: Does adding protein to ultra-processed foods actually help you eat less and feel more satisfied—or does it just make overeating feel more justified?

A recent study tried to answer that by taking people into a controlled environment and feeding them ultra-processed diets with different amounts of protein. The results were… nuanced.

In this review, I’ll walk you through:

• What the researchers actually did

• What they found about appetite, calories, and metabolism

• What this means for your snacks, meals, and so-called “high protein” treats

By the end, you’ll have a clear, grounded way to think about protein-enriched processed foods—without fear, without hype, and with a practical plan you can actually live with.

What the Science Says

Ultra-processed foods now make up close to 60 percent of the average person’s calories.

They’re engineered to be easy to eat, hard to stop, and dense in energy. That’s a big part of why so many people end up eating more than they realize.

A team of German and French researchers wanted to know:If we load those ultra-processed foods with protein, will people naturally slow down and eat less?

To test this, they brought 21 healthy young adults into a metabolic chamber—basically a sealed, comfortable room where scientists can precisely measure how many calories your body burns by analyzing the air you breathe out.

Each participant stayed in the chamber twice for 54 hours at a time.

On both visits:

• 80 percent of their calories came from ultra-processed foods

• They were allowed to eat as much as they wanted (“ad libitum”)

The only major difference between the two stays was the protein content:

• Higher-protein ultra-processed diet

  • 30% of calories from protein

  • 29% from carbohydrates

• Lower-protein ultra-processed diet

  • 13% of calories from protein

  • 46% from carbohydrates

When researchers analyzed the data, here’s what they found with the higher-protein ultra-processed diet:

• People ate 196 fewer calories per day on average

• They took longer to eat their meals

• Their eating rate slowed down (more bites and more chews per bite)

• Levels of ghrelin, a hunger hormone, were lower

• They burned about 128 more calories per day, likely due to diet-induced thermogenesis (the energy cost of digesting more protein)

So on paper, that sounds great: More protein → fewer calories eaten, more calories burned, slower and more mindful eating, and lower hunger signals.

But here’s the catch:

Even in the higher-protein condition, participants still ate more than they burned. They just overate by less:

• High-protein ultra-processed diet: about 18% more calories than they needed

• Lower-protein ultra-processed diet: about 32% more calories than they needed

In other words, adding more protein to ultra-processed foods helped—but it did not fix the underlying tendency to overeat them.

This lines up with other research showing that when people follow similar nutrition “rules,” but one group eats mostly minimally processed foods and the other eats mostly ultra-processed foods, the minimally processed group tends to lose more body fat over time—even when the guidelines are otherwise matched.

There’s another important nuance: how we define ultra-processed foods.

The researchers used the NOVA classification system, which has four levels of processing.

But NOVA has its flaws. For example:

• Whole-grain bread and white bread can both count as “ultra-processed”

• A protein-enriched toaster pastry and a regular toaster pastry can sit in the same category

If you only think in black-and-white categories—“ultra-processed = bad, whole food = good”—you miss the reality that foods live on a continuum, and some choices are “a little better” even within the processed world.

That’s where this study is most useful: It reminds us that protein can help, but processing still matters.

Actionable Insights

Let’s pull this down from the lab and into your pantry.

1. Protein helps—but it doesn’t cancel out ultra-processed overeating

This study showed that boosting protein in ultra-processed foods:

• Reduced calorie intake by about 196 calories per day

• Increased calories burned by about 128 per day

• Improved appetite signals and slowed down eating

That’s meaningful. Over weeks and months, those small differences add up.

But participants still overate in both conditions. The high-protein versions were less bad, not suddenly “good for you.”

So if you grab a high-protein snack occasionally to bridge a gap between meals, that can be reasonable. If you rely on them as the backbone of your diet, you’re still swimming upstream.

2. Think in terms of a continuum, not perfection

Instead of asking, “Is this ultra-processed food good or bad?” a more helpful question is:

“Is there a slightly better version of this I’d still enjoy?”

For example:

• Regular toaster pastry → Protein-enriched toaster pastry → Flavored Greek yogurt with fruit → Veggie omelet

• Candy bar → “Protein” bar → Greek yogurt + nuts → Cottage cheese with berries

• Chips → Protein chips → Lightly salted popcorn or nuts → Veggies with hummus

Each step nudges you toward:

• More protein

• More fiber

• Lower calorie density

• Slower eating

• Better overall satisfaction

You don’t have to leap from “protein cookie” to “plain chicken breast and broccoli.” You just keep sliding along the continuum toward foods that fill you up with fewer hidden calories.

3. Some processing is fine. The dose is what matters.

Trying to eliminate all ultra-processed foods usually backfires. It turns eating into a morality test and piles on guilt when you inevitably have something from a package.

A more realistic guideline for most people:

Aim for 70–80% of your calories from minimally processed foods and 20–30% from more processed, convenience, or “fun” foods.

That 20–30% gives you room for:

• Protein bars when you’re busy

• Chips on a Friday night

• A dessert you actually look forward to

Within that slice, choosing the higher-protein, slightly better processed option is absolutely worth it—as long as you remember it’s still dessert, still a treat, still easy to overeat.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve watched a lot of “protein hacks” come and go over the past 15 years.

I’ve seen people switch from regular cookies to protein cookies, from regular cereal to protein cereal, from candy bars to protein bars—and then wonder why their weight, energy, and appetite still feel out of control.

What I’ve learned over time is this:

Protein is powerful, but context is king.

When you wrap protein in ultra-processed, hyper-palatable foods, you often end up with something that’s easier to justify and still very easy to overeat. You feel like you’re “doing better,” but the total volume of food—and the way it’s engineered—quietly keeps you stuck.

On the other hand, when people start anchoring their days with simple, minimally processed protein—eggs, Greek yogurt, beans, meat, fish—and surround those with fruits, vegetables, and some healthy fats, things begin to shift. Cravings soften. Portions regulate themselves. The food drama quiets down.

What still amazes me is how little it takes to change how you feel. One upgraded breakfast. One more whole-food meal. One less “healthified” snack. Over weeks and months, those choices carve out a very different path.

You don’t need to fear ultra-processed foods, and you don’t need to worship protein. You just need to keep nudging your choices toward foods that love you back.

Your health is your wealth - Michael Beiter

Personal Trainer

Nutrition, Sleep, Stress management, and Recovery coach

References / Resources

1. Dicken SJ, Brown A. Is energy density an implicit part of the purpose behind ultra-processed food? A comparison of relative energy density across ultra-processed and minimally processed food. medRxiv. 2025.

2. Dicken SJ, Batterham RL. Ultra-processed food and obesity: What is the evidence? Curr Nutr Rep. 2024;13(1):23–38.

3. Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, et al. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019;30(1):67–77.e3.

4. Laster J, Frame LA. Beyond the calories—Is the problem in the processing? Curr Treat Options Gastroenterol. 2019;17(4):577–86.

5. Juul F, Parekh N, Martinez-Steele E, Monteiro CA, Chang VW. Ultra-processed food consumption among US adults from 2001 to 2018. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022;115(1):211–21.

6. Hägele FA, Herpich C, Koop J, et al. Short-term effects of high-protein, lower-carbohydrate ultra-processed foods on human energy balance. Nat Metab. 2025;7(4):704–13.

7. Dicken SJ, Jassil FC, Brown A, et al. Ultraprocessed or minimally processed diets following healthy dietary guidelines on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, crossover trial. Nat Med. 2025;31(10):3297–308.