Reassuring I suppose to see the Grauniad sticking to its current narrative: poor people good, women good, feelings good; rationality bad, Westerners bad, masculinity bad, self-improvement bad, meat bad, science bad, progress bad. Apart from that I hope anyone here would agree the article seems long on assertion and short on references. The one thing I would agree with is that diet should be considered holistically, but then many that are consuming protein supplements also put great effort into their diet i.e. the fitness obsessed. It is possible to have a balanced diet and still bang down a protein shake after a workout..

I eat one or two protein bars a day. Whilst they aren't cheap, they stop me snacking on chocolate/biscuits (fruit just doesn't do it for me) and contain only a couple of grams of sugar per bar, with the remainder being polyols, which give me the sweet hit I crave without mountains of horrible destructive sugar. Am I really expected to replace that with a bowl of kidney beans? Yum.