The protein bar arms race

The David bar has become a common sight in bodegas, in New York, June 19, 2025. Online, getting enough protein has become a mainstream nugget of self-help advice, on par with strategies for getting more restful sleep. (Amir Hamja/The New York Times)

By Elizabeth Dunn

In late August, physician and longevity guru Peter Attia posted a new reel for his 1.3 million Instagram followers, featuring a close-up of a stack of golden boxes, each about the size of a hardcover book, piled up on a marble countertop. The image stood out; Attia’s grid consists mostly of snippets from his popular podcast, “The Drive,” and straight-to-camera clips of him sharing advice on topics such as Zone 2 cardio training or the importance of getting regular colonoscopies.

“Pretty awesome day in the Attia household,” he said from behind the camera. “Just received, yesterday, the first official shipment of the new David bar.”

These protein bars would become available to the public in a few weeks, Attia explained, and the teenagers in his home had been devouring his supply. “I think these are just awesome, and I am really excited for people to start trying these things,” he said.

The David bar, created by RXBar co-founder Peter Rahal and a keto cookie entrepreneur named Zach Ranen, was diving into a marketplace already up to its eyeballs in protein. In recent years, protein supplementation has crossed the species barrier from fitness-coded products such as bars into everyday foods. According to the market research firm Mintel, the number of food and beverage products coming to market with a high-protein claim quadrupled between 2013 and 2024.

The protein maximizer can now begin her day with a Legendary Foods Brown Sugar Cinnamon Breakfast Pastry (20 grams of protein), move on to Immi’s pea protein-based instant ramen for lunch (24 grams), snack on Wilde chips made from chicken and egg white (10 grams), and microwave a Vital Pursuit high-protein frozen pepperoni pizza (22 grams) for dinner.

But for the protein-obsessed, the bar still reigns supreme. The category-leading protein bar, Quest, tops out at 21 grams of protein for 180 calories: almost as much protein as a McDonald’s Big Mac for fewer than half the calories. “We knew we could do more,” Rahal said recently, during a visit to the brand’s offices in New York City. “The question is: What’s the upper limit?”

The David bar was their answer: 28 grams of protein, 150 calories and zero sugar, basically a protein Scud missile wrapped in gold foil. The protein-to-calorie ratio approaches that of boiled cod.

But just as important to David Protein’s launch was its canny marketing. Its name is a reference to Michelangelo’s sculpture of the idealized male form, the image of which has featured heavily in the bar’s marketing. Attia and Andrew Huberman, another influential voice in the self-optimization space, are David investors and pitchmen. Attia, who was not directly involved in formulating the bars, is also the brand’s chief science officer.

Adding to Attia’s hype, the brand sent out 20,000 product samples in August as a teaser, leading to a TikTok frenzy of fitness influencers brandishing the bar, gleefully reciting its protein content, and tasting it on camera. David began its first official day of sales Sept. 16, with 40,000 customers on the waiting list. The company moved more than $1 million worth of bars in a week and is on track to hit $180 million in sales this year.

Rahal and Ranen believe they can outlast David’s viral moment and build it into a lasting brand synonymous with everybody’s favorite macronutrient. Bars, they say, are just the beginning. And they have already shown they’ll do whatever it takes to muscle out other competitors.

Nutrition experts are less sure that we need so much protein. So: Can the protein craze last?

Even before its exact function was understood, protein was known to be important for building muscle strength; soldiers and laborers were historically encouraged to eat meat-heavy diets. But until relatively recently, there was little worry about the average American getting enough of the stuff, said Lourdes Castro, a registered dietitian and adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University, and the director of NYU’s Food Lab. Beginning in the 1950s, whey proteins isolated from milk began to be used in protein powders as a dietary supplement, but the use of those was limited to the relatively niche sport of bodybuilding.

Liz Applegate, a former director of sports nutrition at the University of California Davis who began teaching nutrition at the school in 1985, said she first saw protein bars and shakes break into the mainstream in the late 1990s. Physical fitness was expanding into a mass hobby, but also, crucially, protein began to be understood as a powerful tool for weight reduction.

Weight-loss regimens such as Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, the Protein Power diet and the South Beach diet dispensed with the calorie restriction or low-fat focus that had been a staple of previous fad diets, and instead centered on the idea of consuming high levels of protein while strictly limiting carbohydrates.

By the time Rahal came up with the RXBar, in 2013, nutrition culture had moved on from the Atkins craze to the likes of Paleo and Whole30 — regimens that continued to restrict carbohydrates, but also called for consuming whole, minimally processed foods.

Rahal, then in his 20s and working in transportation logistics, noticed that the energy bars offered for sale at his CrossFit gym were gathering dust on the shelf. CrossFitters tended to adhere to a Paleo diet, and the ultraprocessed energy bars of the day didn’t fit in. He and a friend, Jared Smith, each stumped up $5,000 and started spending their weekends making Paleo-compliant bars from dates, egg whites and nuts in Rahal’s mother’s basement, and selling them at CrossFit gyms.

Less than five years later, they sold RXBar to Kellogg’s for $600 million.

Rahal collected his winnings and began to dabble in investing. It wasn’t as fun as it sounds.

Rahal found a business partner in Ranen, and in September 2023, they got to work, once again mining the nutrition zeitgeist to come up with their concept. They were focused on protein from the start.

At RXBar, the goal had been to create the highest-protein bar possible within the constraints of using only natural foods, and zero additives. Rahal and Smith hit 12 grams, a respectable number by the standards of the day. But Rahal said that by the time he left Kellogg’s, in 2019, this approach wasn’t cutting it. “I saw all our customers move away to other things,” he said. The Paleo crowd had progressed to keto or carnivore diets.

Even outside the bar category, consumers were clamoring for more protein.

“When you look at the rise in protein launches in more processed foods, it’s cheaper, it’s more convenient, it’s easier than traditional protein sources” such as meat and eggs, said Julia Mills, Mintel’s U.S. food and drink analyst. Items with added protein seem to get a pass.

Although the David brand is all about protein, the bar’s major innovation has to do with fat.

In place of the plant oils typically used in bars, David uses a substance known as EPG, or esterified propoxylated glycerol. EPG is a modified plant fat that moves through your digestive system mostly undigested, delivering 92% fewer calories compared with traditional fats.

EPG was developed in the 1990s, but it is still a niche ingredient, in use by a handful of relatively small food companies globally, and manufactured by one called Epogee. Ranen thought it would be a useful tool for accomplishing David’s aggressive calorie-reduction target: The market-leading protein bars derive 40% to 50% of their calories from protein. David was shooting for 75%.

Epogee’s modest capacity to produce EPG has become the choke point in David’s ability to scale up bar production to meet demand.

Whether all the extra protein is necessary is a matter of pitched debate in the nutrition world. Federal dietary guidelines recommend 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day, which works out to 72 grams for a 200-pound man.

Castro of NYU points out that many consumers gravitating toward high-protein products today may not be using them to hit specific protein goals, but giving themselves permission to eat chips or cookies instead of a healthier whole food. Castro calls this the “healthy halo effect” — the idea that any food, if it contains protein, is automatically a good choice.

“I think, over time, people might realize that getting nutrients in these little packages is not as good as getting them in whole foods,” she said. “The healthy halo might wear off.”

Mills, the analyst at Mintel, isn’t so sure. There are still new protein horizons: According to her company’s data, products making protein claims have been on the rise since 2000.

As for David, as a measure of the company’s devotion to protein efficiency, it recently began selling packages of wild-caught Pacific cod for $55. It’s a move that has all the trappings of a viral marketing stunt, but Rahal insists it is a sincere product extension. Who among us can really tell the difference?