Walk through any grocery store in Burnaby right now and you’ll see it everywhere – cereals, granola bars, yogurts, bread, rice mixes – all stamped with “high protein” on the front. Most people grab them thinking they’re making a smart choice. They’re not. In Episode 24 of the Kraken Power Podcast, Josko and Brandon walked into the grocery store 5 minutes from the gym and grabbed the first products they could find with protein claims on the label. What they found on the back of those boxes tells you everything you need to know about what “high protein” actually means.
Listen and Watch
Why Everyone Is Talking About Protein
Protein is having a moment. And honestly, that’s not entirely wrong – most people probably aren’t getting enough of it. But somewhere along the way, the food industry figured out that “protein” is the magic word that makes people buy things. And now it’s everywhere.
McDonald’s has protein products. Burger King has protein products. Every cereal brand has a “high protein” version. The problem isn’t that protein is bad – it’s that the word has basically stopped meaning anything useful on a food label.
As Josko put it: “Everybody’s pushing protein and just protein and everything. And they’re just completely neglecting other nutrients.” When the whole conversation becomes protein at the expense of everything else – calories, food quality, bioavailability – you end up with people who think they’re eating well and can’t figure out why they’re not losing weight or building muscle.
The “high protein” trend has created a new kind of confusion. People scan labels for protein content, grab things that check that box, and end up with products that have more calories, worse ingredients, and less useful protein than just eating real food.
What “High Protein” on the Label Actually Means
There’s no strict regulation on what makes something “high protein” – and that matters a lot for what ends up on the shelf.
As far as Josko and Brandon can tell, companies compare their product to the average of similar products. A bread that has 5 grams of protein where most breads have 3 grams can technically call itself “high protein” or “double the protein.” It’s not lying, exactly. But it’s not meaningful either.
That two-gram difference isn’t going to change anything for you. And the marketing that comes with the “high protein” label usually means a price premium and, more often than not, extra calories.
There’s no consistent regulation for protein the way there is for fat, sugar, or sodium. Those nutrients have established thresholds for what “low” or “high” means on a label. Protein claims are essentially a free-for-all. Companies know that most people believe more protein is always better – so putting “high protein” on the front of a box is free marketing that nobody’s policing.
The result: a grocery store full of products where “high protein” tells you almost nothing about whether the food is actually good for you.
Bioavailability: Not All Protein Is Equal
The grams of protein on the label and the grams your body actually uses are not the same number.
Bioavailability is how much of a nutrient your body can actually absorb and put to work. Protein bioavailability varies a lot depending on the source. Meat, fish, dairy, and eggs are all highly bioavailable. Protein powder – particularly whey – is also highly bioavailable. Cereal protein? Not the same. Plant-based protein fillers? Not the same.
Collagen is one of the worst offenders. It’s getting added to everything right now – yogurt, coffee creamer, bars – because it’s cheap and shows up as protein grams on a label. But it doesn’t support muscle protein synthesis the way complete proteins do. It’s filler protein. If a product lists collagen as a primary protein source, those grams on the label aren’t doing what you think they are.
The process of stripping fat and sugar from dairy products to create high-protein versions is also worth understanding. That processing removes a lot of the nutrients that help your body actually use the protein. So even when a dairy product has been engineered to be high in protein, it may not be as useful to your body as just eating the less-processed version.
If you’re eating protein for muscle building, recovery, or body composition – collagen and plant-based fillers won’t get you there.
The Grocery Store Test: 3 “High Protein” Products
Before recording this episode, Brandon walked into the grocery store 5 minutes from Kraken’s gym in North Burnaby and grabbed the first products he saw with protein claims on the label. Here’s what the back of the box actually said.
Vector Cereal – 213 calories per serving, 5.6 grams of protein. For comparison, a can of tuna has around 20 grams of protein. Turkey slices from the deli will get you 20 grams for roughly 120 calories. Vector has about a quarter of that protein for nearly double the calories – and you’ll probably eat more than one serving.
Love Crunch Protein by Nature’s Path – The front label says 14 grams of protein. The back label says 9 grams. The difference? The 14 grams includes half a cup of skim milk – not just any milk, specifically zero-fat skim milk, chosen so it wouldn’t make the macros look even worse. The actual product alone is 9 grams of protein and 580 calories per cup. It also has 27 grams of fat and 66 grams of carbs, with sunflower oil listed near the top of the ingredients. The company name is Nature’s Path. The label says “protein.” Over a third of this product is essentially oil.
Nature Valley Protein Bar – 9 grams of protein, 180 calories, 37 grams per bar. This was actually the best of the three. The macros are more reasonable. But a 37-gram bar is gone in two bites. Nobody eats one of these as a meal. You’re eating two or three, and now you’ve added 360-540 calories for 18-27 grams of protein – which you could get from a couple of eggs and some chicken for way fewer calories.
The pattern: protein content is measured against unrealistically small serving sizes, calorie counts are high relative to protein, and each product is positioned as a health food when it’s mostly a calorie-dense snack with a protein sticker on it.
The Calorie Trade-Off Nobody Mentions
Here’s a realistic version of a day where someone is genuinely trying to eat more protein using “high protein” products.
Breakfast: high-protein cereal with milk – 15 grams of protein, around 500-600 calories. Lunch: high-protein yogurt with a turkey sandwich – maybe 20 more grams of protein, another 400-plus calories. Dinner: chicken breast with high-protein rice mix – 20 grams from the chicken, 6 from the rice, another 400-500 calories.
End of day: around 60 grams of protein. 2,500 to 3,000 calories.
For most people trying to lose weight, that calorie count is way too high. And a chunk of the protein they did get isn’t bioavailable anyway. They’ve worked hard to hit a protein number using a strategy that doesn’t actually work – and they’re wondering why the scale isn’t moving.
The alternative: swap those “high protein” products for actual protein sources and you can hit 100-plus grams of protein in the same calorie range. A can of tuna, some Greek yogurt, a piece of fish, a few eggs. No clever marketing required.
What to Actually Eat for Protein
The straightforward answer: meat, dairy, eggs, and fish.
These sources are highly bioavailable, naturally high in protein relative to their calorie count, and they come with the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients your body needs to actually process what you’re eating. You don’t need to decode a label.
A can of tuna – 20 grams of protein, around 100 calories. A cup of Greek yogurt – 15-20 grams. Two eggs – 12 grams. A chicken breast – 25-35 grams depending on size. Turkey slices from the deli – 15-20 grams for around 100 calories.
If you want to add protein powder, whey is a solid option. It’s highly bioavailable and easy to mix into oats, smoothies, or just with milk. Overnight oats with a scoop of protein powder can pack 40-50 grams of protein in a breakfast that actually keeps you full – and it ends up around the same calories as that Vector cereal with milk.
The rule Josko and Brandon use: eat things that are made of protein, not things that have had protein added to them. An egg is made of protein. A cereal with added soy protein isolate has had protein added to it. One of those is going to do a lot more for you than the other.
FAQ
Are “high protein” food labels regulated in Canada?
There’s no strict regulatory threshold for what makes a food “high protein” in Canada. Companies can use comparative claims – like “double the protein of regular bread” – without meeting a defined standard. Fat, sodium, and sugar have regulated claim thresholds; protein does not. Always flip the box and check the actual grams and calories per serving.
Is plant-based protein as effective as animal protein?
Plant-based proteins are generally less bioavailable than animal proteins. They often lack one or more essential amino acids, and your body absorbs and uses less of the total protein content. To get the same muscle-building effect as animal protein, you typically need to eat significantly more of it.
Is collagen a good protein source for building muscle?
Collagen is not a useful protein for muscle building. It’s missing essential amino acids and has poor bioavailability for muscle protein synthesis. It gets used as cheap filler in supplements and food products. If a product lists collagen as a primary protein source, those grams on the label aren’t building muscle.
What’s the easiest way to hit your daily protein without tracking everything?
Include a whole food protein source at every meal – meat, eggs, dairy, or fish. A palm-sized portion of protein per meal (roughly 20-30 grams) gets most people to an adequate daily intake. Greek yogurt or a protein shake as a snack fills gaps without adding many calories.
How much protein do most people actually need per day?
A solid starting point is 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. For a 160-pound person, that’s 112 to 160 grams per day. Most people relying on “high protein” packaged foods fall well short of this – and a portion of the protein they are getting isn’t fully usable by their body.
Ready to Start?
If you’ve been eating what feels like a high-protein diet and still not seeing results, you’re not alone. A lot of people in Burnaby are stuck in exactly this trap – spending more on “health food” that isn’t doing what the label promises. Kraken’s coaches work with everyday people to build simple, realistic nutrition habits that actually work. No complicated tracking apps, no gimmicks – just a plan that fits your life.
About the Author
Josko is the Founder & CEO of Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby and host of the Kraken Power Podcast. He’s been coaching everyday people – not gym people – for over a decade. The whole philosophy at Kraken is built around what actually works for real people with real lives, not what looks good on a supplement label.
Brandon is the Co-Owner & COO of Kraken Fitness and co-host of the Kraken Power Podcast. He’s the kinesiology brain behind the show – takes the science and makes it usable. If there’s a clinical explanation for why something works, Brandon finds it and Josko puts it in plain English.
[Josko]
You’re never going to get the right type of protein from cereal, a fruit bar, or something like that. Just because those products say they have protein in them doesn’t mean that your body is going to be absorbing it the same way that it does for fish, dairy, meat products. On the box, it may say high in protein, but what is actually on the back side of the label is high in calories as well. Welcome back to the Power Podcast.
The biggest scam right now is protein. And I know this is crazy coming from a fitness professional, but honestly, I’m so sick of it. Everybody pushing protein powders and just protein and everything. And they’re just completely neglecting other nutrients and it’s, you know, everybody was saying like, “Oh, remember when they said fat was bad and carbs were bad and all that?” It’s like now they’re just flipping it and just saying protein is great and it’s just not true.
[Brandon]
Yeah. The companies have really caught on that most people think that protein no matter what is the best thing for you. And you’re going to walk through any grocery aisle and you’ll see tons of items now that are marked high protein – protein this, protein that. But when you actually look at the label and look a little bit further, what’s in the ingredients, it might not always be as good as you actually think.
[Josko]
You know, it’s a big problem, especially when you start seeing McDonald’s and Burger King and all those companies start to create all these protein products and they’re just following trends and people are falling for it. And there are issues with – I think that people are probably chronically undereating protein, but they’re also chronically undereating the right types of protein. One of the issues with all these companies that are pushing high protein is that you’re never going to get the right type of protein from cereal. You’re never going to get the right type of protein from a fruit bar or something like that. Just because those products say they have protein in them doesn’t mean that your body is going to be absorbing them the same way that it does for fish, dairy or meat products. Protein powders – those are highly bioavailable sources of protein. But when you have a cereal like Vector, just because it has 8 grams of protein per serving or whatever, doesn’t actually mean that your body is going to be utilizing potentially any of that protein. And the big trade-off here is on the box it may say high in protein, but what is actually on the back side of the label is high in calories as well. And so for a mass populace who is having a hard time losing weight, they’re not going to be able to lose weight even though it has three or four more grams of protein, but it has three to 400 more calories in it.
[Brandon]
Yeah, for sure. And the other thing is – just because something says high protein, that’s relative to other products. So like let’s say you have a high protein bread and it says that it has five grams of protein. Regular bread has like three grams and so they can say “double the amount of protein” but it’s just like an extra two or three grams. That’s what I always look for. And that’s why I was always wondering – what is the actual criteria for marketing companies to be able to put high protein on the label?
[Josko]
Yeah, I’m not entirely sure, but if I had to guess, it would be something like averages. Like the average bread has this much protein in it. And you could say, oh, mine has double that, so double the protein, high protein. I’m assuming that’s how it works. Or there may not be any kind of regulations.
[Brandon]
Yeah, because I don’t think there really is. There is around fat, there is around sugar or sodium, but I don’t know if the food industry is really caught up for protein because everyone just thinks that more protein is a net positive.
[Josko]
Yeah. But yeah, like you said, let’s say you have a high protein cereal in the morning – it has six grams of protein, but it has 500 calories. And then on top of that you’re putting in a little bit of milk. Now you added maybe like a cup of milk that has an extra 9 grams of protein. So now you have like 15 grams of protein. And then later on you have a high protein yogurt for lunch with your turkey sandwich – it adds an extra like 20 grams of protein. So what are you at? Like 35 grams of protein. And then for dinner you have some chicken breast and what’s another high protein item you could buy – like a high protein rice mix or something. They use like different combinations of wild rice and now it’s a little bit higher than regular rice. So the chicken breast has like 20 grams of protein and then you have the high protein rice which maybe has like an extra six grams. So now you’ve totaled your entire day with like 56, 60 grams of protein – and you worked so hard. But the thing is though, each of those items had a ton of calories that came along with it. And now you’re eating like 2,500, 3,000 calories when you should maybe be eating like 1,800 with more protein. And then you end up gaining weight and that protein was completely useless because it wasn’t bioavailable.
[Brandon]
It’s actually really funny when you – it’s kind of sad. And so we did a little bit of a fun exercise. Right before we got to this conversation, we actually went into our local grocery store, which is 5 minutes away from here. I went in for 5 minutes and grabbed pretty much the first five things that were labeled high protein. So let’s pull them up here. I have a Vector, and it says that it’s high protein with crunchy granola clusters.
[Josko]
Sounds pretty good.
[Brandon]
Yeah. So if we turn around on the back, it says per serving 213 calories with 5.6 grams of protein. Just to contrast this – a can of tuna has like 20 grams of protein. Or let’s say you went and got some turkey slices from the deli – you can easily add in like 20 grams of protein to your sandwich with like minimal calories, like I don’t know, like 120 calories or something. And the funny thing is you go in there and you’re scanning the cereal aisle and you’re like, that one has high protein – that must be really healthy.
[Josko]
I’ve never had Vector. Does it actually taste good? I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever had Vector. It doesn’t look that good.
[Brandon]
Yeah. Like they put that on the front of the box – it doesn’t look that appetizing to me. But you know what you could do? You could just get an oatmeal and then put some protein powder inside, put a little bit of milk inside, and then now you actually have a high protein breakfast. And it’s still relatively easy to do.
[Josko]
Yeah. Like people have overnight oats and they’ll pack those things with like 50 to 60 grams of protein. And it’s totally doable. And it’s gonna be bioavailable and it’s gonna taste good because you’re at relatively the same amount of calories as well.
[Brandon]
Yeah, that’s the other thing – equate to the same amount of calories. By the way, if you’re watching this thinking, I wish I had a coach like that – you can. We coach people online. You get a real dedicated Kraken coach writing your program, checking in every single week through video, all through your phone. The links in the description. Okay, so the next one that we have here is the Love Crunch Protein from Nature’s Path. This one’s actually pretty insane. For one cup, which is 120 grams – and somebody could easily eat one cup in the morning – it has 27 grams of fat, 66 grams of carbs, 25 grams of sugar, and then nine grams of protein. Total calories is 580 minus the milk. Once you include the milk, it’s like insane. And one of the top ingredients is sunflower oil. And it has 27 grams of fat – so 36% of this product is basically oil. You’re like trying to be healthy, but it’s clearly not. There’s also like a little bit of peanut butter in it. But yeah, this is not healthy at all – ingredients-wise, macro-wise. But it’s labeled as a health food. The company’s name is Nature’s Path. It says protein. It says 14 grams of protein right on the front.
[Josko]
The reality is it’s not even 14 grams. It’s actually nine grams. That’s the funny thing – they’ll label the front side with a different amount of protein and when you look at the serving size on the back it’s actually less.
[Brandon]
Yeah. So where did they get 14 grams from? Because it says nine, right? It’s with half a cup of milk – and not just any milk, skim milk. The zero fat milk – they’re like, we don’t want to ruin our macros even more. So the milk is what brings it up to 14. So if you’re just having this with like almond milk or something, it’s basically just worthless.
[Josko]
And so the last product that we have today is a Nature Valley protein product. Nine grams of protein. So if you look at the nutrition label here, 180 calories, 11 grams of fat, 14 grams of carbs, but 9 grams of protein. However, the serving size is 37 grams per bar. So if you’re like, hey, I want a healthy snack to curb my hunger – 37 grams is going to do nothing. You’re going to devour that in one to two bites and be like, I still need to eat another meal. That’s why I can easily eat two of those.
[Brandon]
Yeah. And again, this is labeled with protein, high in saturated fats. And most of it is just from peanuts.
[Josko]
Just to be real though, that’s probably the best product out of all these.
[Brandon]
Yeah, actually. Macro-wise, this one is actually better than the other ones. But just think about how it practically fits into someone’s day – people are just not going to eat just one of these. If they eat one, it’s going to be in addition to another meal or another snack, or they’re going to have to eat multiple bars. So at the end of the day, just don’t fall for any of this stuff. Eat the things that actually have protein in them – things that are made of protein, not just things that have had protein added to them. Meat, dairy, eggs, fish – stick to those foods and you’re going to be able to fill up your entire day with protein. Because not only are you going to get the protein with a lower amount of calories, you’re also going to get the nutrients and vitamins and minerals that actually come with that food.
[Josko]
Yeah, that’s so true. Because these don’t have any nutrients – they’re stripped of their nutrients. And also, when you look at so many dairy products out right now that have removed all of the fat, all of the sugar, and all that’s left is just protein – the process they use to do that is very processed. And in that process, they’ve stripped a bunch of the nutrients that help you process the protein. So at the end of the day, maybe it’s not even as bioavailable, maybe it’s not even as good for you. And then maybe at the end of the day it’s not even building that much muscle. A lot of these products are filled with collagen, and people think that that is going to help them with their muscle protein synthesis, but in reality, it’s just kind of filler protein.
[Brandon]
At the end of the day, we’re not saying that protein is bad for you. We’re just telling you – read the labels and start getting comfortable with realizing that the best thing for you is going to be sticking to the whole foods.