Let it be known: I don’t hate bros. I really don’t! Bro culture is a living nightmare of perpetuated patriarchal norms, but I count a few card-carrying bros among my nearest and dearest. In college, I dated a guy for a couple of years who subsisted almost entirely on omelettes, beef jerky, Camel Blues, and protein shakes. We’re now in touch about twice a year, on our respective birthdays, and each time I hear from him it’s a nice little confirmation that he’s still alive.
The cause for my now-mostly-dormant concern for his life lies in the fact that getting a significant portion of your diet out of a plastic tub labelled MUSCLE MILK!!11!!1 probably doesn’t make for the healthiest of organs. On the ingredient list of MUSCLE MILK, the ratio of things I can’t readily pronounce or identify to those that I can is very, very high.
Enter the ever-savvy marketing team of Organic Valley, and their campaign to “save the bros” from the harms of “niacinamide,” “ferrous fumarate,” and “biotin”* with an entirely organic, non-synthetic, GMO-free protein shake of their own. As I said, bros have always had a special place in my life, so I am definitely on board with “sav[ing] the bros.”
But let’s get right down to it: Protein shakes, organic or otherwise, are absurd. Would you like some protein for your bulging muscles? Fine — that is your first problem, but let’s accept it and go from there. Why don’t you just consume some actual food that has protein in it? Some helpful examples: Meat, fish, literally any kind of bean, tofu, all dairy products. You don’t need to buy MUSCLE MILK, or STRENGTHXPRO4000, or MANCRUSHERWHEYPARTY, or whatever Organic Valley is trying to sell you. Just eat some food/drink a thing that already has protein it. That’s it.
*Actual ingredients of MUSCLE MILK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
![surprised man](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/surprisedman.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=768)