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Big Technology Podcast · Friday, August 14, 2026

Low Protein in Processed Foods May Drive Overeating

Yuval Hari discusses research by Professor David Raubenheimer, suggesting that processed foods often have low protein content. Since the body has a specific hunger for protein for essential functions, people may overeat these low-protein processed foods to meet their protein needs.

personYuval HaripersonDavid Raubenheimer

The tape

2 quotes
So, for example, processed food has a very low amount of protein in it. Much, low on average, as a class, processed foods have quite low levels of protein.
So if you have a diet that's dominated by processed foods, which are low in protein, you have to eat a lot more of those processed foods to get the amount of protein your body needs.
Heard on Big Technology Podcast — “Best of Big Technology: How Ozempic Changes Our Bodies, Minds, and Economy — With Johann Hari, published Friday, August 14, 2026. Heardvine summarizes and quotes with attribution and timestamps, and links to the original everywhere.
Transcribed via Gemini audio transcription · $0.06