Don’t Get Your Protein From French Fries
Am I lovin’ it?
Yes. French fries do have protein.
If you weigh 165 pounds and decide to hit your daily recommended protein intake through french fries, it’s possible. You will have to consume about five large McDonald’s Fries1 every day, which is about 1.25 pounds of fries—quite the happy meal.
If I try selling this idea to anyone, they would think I’m moronic - unless they’re a competitive eater.
Look at the bright side - you just hit your macros.
You can now relax. But there’s one problem now, other than your rising cholesterol. You just ate 4,3502 calories, twice the amount you were supposed to eat in a day.
That’s a bad deal.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t have to tell you it was a bad deal. It was apparent to you even without the numbers. Then why do we still try to get all our protein from french fries every day?
We try to get our pleasure from a job that sucks.
We try to get our peace from a distracted environment.
We try to get our happiness from a relationship that drains our energy.
This is scarier than the cholesterol from the fries. But they have one thing in common—they’re both silent killers.
You have a job. You know this job is protein (happiness) deficient, but you still try to find it. You might find traces of it if you look very hard, just like you will find protein in fries if you consume 1.25 pounds of it. But that’s impractical.
Just because the fries are in front of you, you won’t try to hit the protein target through it. But we will do the same thing in our lives every day.
Trying to make the current job work requires less effort than finding something new, which is the trap.
It doesn’t matter how you prepare the fries—whether you air fry, shallow fry, or deep fry them—they’ll still be protein-deficient. You can’t change its composition, so seek it elsewhere. Maybe the best way of finding what you want is to look in a place where it's abundant—by default. Seek your pleasure, peace, and happiness from the thing rich in it—by default.
If you're looking for a tech job, you're better off trying to find one in San Francisco or Bangalore. Yes, more people are competing for your jobs in those cities—but there's a reason for it. They have more jobs (protein) by default—it's the same as getting your protein whey protein rather than the fries.
Maybe we'll have protein made from fries in the future—but until then, don't get your protein from fries.
The recommended dietary allowance to prevent deficiency for an average sedentary adult is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. For example, a person weighing 165 pounds or 75 kilograms should consume 60 grams of protein daily. (Source: Mayo Clinic).