The first protein bar I ever tried was a cookies and cream Quest bar. It tasted artificially sweet, and it left a chalky feeling in my mouth. It hurt my stomach, and my boyfriend at the time told me it was the only way I’d build muscle. I trusted him because he had big pecs. I ate two every day for the next two years before I graduated to shakes.
In the protein-obsessive landscape of today, a couple of Quest bars sounds positively quaint. “Big protein” has inserted itself into every food you can think of. There’s protein water and protein popcorn and protein beer. There is protein ice cream. There is something called Spiked Protein, which comes in a flavor called Swoleberry, which I am 85% sure is not a type of berry that exists in nature.
When I saw an invitation to a Protein Slop Potluck posted on TikTok, I felt a grim acceptance flood through me. A couple weeks later I found myself on a cold Bushwick street corner, rotisserie chicken in hand, on my way to that very potluck.
The event was organized by Grownkid, a New York–based social club cofounded by Gael Aitor and Kayla Suarez. It’s built for 18-to-24-year-olds, with the mission of “making young adulthood less lonely through community and play.” It’s a noble goal: Making new friends has never been harder, particularly for Gen Z, which has been dubbed the loneliest generation. The concept, as laid out by the online flyer, was simple: “1. Bring protein. 2. Feast together. 3. Get a pump.” The event description, in one vaguely threatening passage, read “25+ will be turned away at the door.”
The same poster, in pink and black this time, had been taped to the door of the subterranean gym. “The joy of communal dining will never kill your gains,” it read in small print in the corner.
Inside, past a forest of hanging black punching bags, a crew of volunteers had erected a folding table in the center of the gym’s boxing ring, where they were nervously arranging and rearranging various and sundry proteins on top of it. Rx bars were fanned out on a silver platter, Lean Body shakes dotted the table, cups of Chobani were arranged in a pyramid. Hyperpop remixes pumped out of a massive portable speaker in the corner, and the volunteers shouted to be heard as they debated how to best display the four rotisserie chickens on the table.
“I’m a gym rat,” Aitor says, sipping a coffee as the first attendees began to trickle in behind him. “I think protein is so funny, seeing the big push you get toward fiber, protein, carbs, healthy fats, no carb, keto—all of these fads.” That big push is coming from every direction: The MAHA movement is distinctly protein-forward, meat has become a measure of masculinity, and animal protein looms large.
Like many of Grownkid’s events, today’s potluck was designed to grab attention, and cloaked in a thin veil of irony. Last year it hosted the world’s largest game of freeze tag, and at a recent event attendees gave each other resumé-building entry level jobs. “That’s how you bond. You’re all doing this thing that you know is silly,” Aitor says. “Do it for the bit, and see what comes out.”
Dressed in slacks, Aitor didn’t seem prepared to get a pump. But the exercise—and perhaps the proteinmaxxing of it all—began to seem less important. More people had arrived. They were gathering in small groups, standing on one foot, or leaning onto the ropes as they traded names and back-pocket anecdotes.
Aitor sprung into action, putting the group through an introduction exercise (“what's your name and what’s your favorite protein?”), before the workout started. Workout may be a generous term—what the group went through was rather perfunctory. It began with group stretching, then a lengthy explanation of how to pick a weight up off the ground.
While the crowd worked out, Aitor and Suarez made promotional content. They filmed vertical videos explaining the event. They took pictures, their teeth bared in a snarl, over the protein-laden folding tables. They posed, stone-faced, beholding the amino-based bounty.
“Are we mogging or—?”
“Yeah, we’re mogging.”
“Okay.”
The duo deadpanned at the camera. On the other side of the gym, the group had moved on to half-hearted dumbbell lunges.
Then, finally, it was time for protein. The proteinmaxxers leapt on the buffet, heaping spoonfuls of hummus and shreds of rotisserie chicken onto paper plates. They unwrapped jerky and grabbed slices of cold cuts. The crinkle of protein bars being unwrapped blended with the jostle of conversation. Someone cracked a raw egg directly into their mouth. Aitor filmed as 23-year-old Jason Paz estimated how much protein was in each item.
“Forty grams,” he says, pointing to a rotisserie chicken breast. “Eleven grams,” he says, pointing to one of the cups of Chobani.
But although he seemed to be a macronutrient guru, Paz wasn’t particularly concerned with proteinmaxxxing. “I like to work out,” he tells me. “Most of the time it’s just sprinting to work. Or just sprinting when I feel like it.” But protein? Meh. “I just know I have to eat well, eat enough, and eat when my body demands it.”
His ambivalence toward protein was not unique. “Protein is gross,” says Mabi Moeng, a 22-year-old paralegal. “It comes across my mind sometimes, but I’m not thinking about protein all day,” 21-year-old Jline Inez confesses. Pen Gerow was just passing through town, and like many other attendees, he mostly came to meet new people. The protein was simply a bonus. “I was hungry,” he says. No one at the Protein Slop Potluck could possibly care less about protein.
Except Francisco Pincay, one of the few potluckers in real sweat-wicking workout clothes, who told me he dutifully eats at least 170 grams of protein every day. Sometimes that’s in the form of shakes, steaks, chicken, or fish. Other times, it means full-on protein slop: a bowl full of whatever protein you can find, some carbs, and a drizzle of hot sauce. “Mix it up, and that’s the dog bowl,” he says.
Three rotisserie chickens remained untouched, sitting charred, still atop their stainless-steel platters in the center of the ring. The protein buffet was abandoned, and everyone had broken into small groups around the gym, laughing as they corrected each other’s form while doing tricep pushdowns or spotting each other on a bench press.
In an era of profound loneliness, when our social skills are being degraded by AI and even our romantic partners are being replaced by those same LLMs, these would-be protein heads had managed to have a good time in real life. Perhaps, I found myself thinking, we must embrace slop to be free.