It’s lunchtime at Fountain Grains & Greens in East Hollywood, a counter-service restaurant where customers increasingly prefer their rice and vegetable bowls piled high with hunks of chicken or steak.
More and more, diners are leaning into “proteinmaxxing,” the viral health trend that promotes increased protein intake with the goal of boosting metabolism, decreasing appetite and increasing muscle mass.
As orders flood into the restaurant via online food delivery services and a walk-up window, a butcher slices through whole chickens while one cook flips thin slabs of steak and chicken on a grill. Another builds rainbow-colored bowls overflowing with blackened chicken, rice, leafy greens, fresh vegetables and other thoughtfully placed garnishes.
Many of the restaurant’s customers pay extra for double or triple add-ons of eggs, chicken or steak.
Daniel Rasmussen is a Fountain Grains & Greens regular who tries to consume 190 to 200 grams of protein each day, roughly half of which he can get through adding a chicken breast and egg to his bowl.
“I’m trying to hit 100, 120 grams a day,” said Vera Iwanoff, who often orders the restaurant’s market bowl with extra chicken or steak to meet her daily protein goal. Like Rasmussen, she doesn’t use the proteinmaxxing label, but said, “I’ve never thought about protein this much in my life.”
Protein consumption is also a priority for the Trump administration. This year, the federal government’s recommended daily allowance of protein was set at 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram or 80 to 110 grams for a 150-pound adult, up from the longstanding RDA of 0.8 grams per kilogram or approximately 55 grams of protein per day for a 150-pound adult. In announcing the change, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared, “We are ending the war on protein.”
Since opening Fountain Grains & Greens two years ago, co-owner Arda Jooharian said she has seen a shift in how customers order. “Sales of our proteins and modifiers have increased 300 to 400%. They’ll substitute out three ounces of chicken and get a full chicken breast, which is eight ounces of chicken.”
Jinell Singletary, owner of Urban Comfort Foods in Carson, has also seen a change in how her older, majority Black customer base orders.
“Black men are definitely ordering more protein,” she said. “So much so that we had to create a policy around it [to charge for protein add-ons] because it wasn’t something that we considered at first.”
Last November, Sweetgreen restaurants briefly offered a Protein Max Protein Bowl that claimed to contain 106 grams of protein. The fast-casual chain still offers an entire section of protein plates in addition to its classic bowls. Chipotle has undergone a similar shift, now offering a “high protein menu,” with some bowls made in collaboration with major athletes.
Some attribute the recent emphasis on protein intake to the rise of GLP-1 medications, which often decrease appetite and make it challenging to eat enough protein to preserve lean muscle mass during weight loss. A 2026 Gallup poll found that 11% of U.S. adults take GLP-1s for weight loss purposes, up from 3% in 2024.
Yet this isn’t the first time protein-rich meals have dominated modern mainstream diet culture. In the 1970s, cardiologist Robert C. Atkins developed the Atkins diet, which limits carbohydrates while increasing protein and fat intake. It reached peak popularity in the early 2000s.
Meat-heavy paleo diets, which aim to mirror hunter-gatherer eating habits, as gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin described in his 1975 book “The Stone Age Diet” surged in popularity after the 2002 publication of Loren Cordain’s “The Paleo Diet.”
In 2020, a ketogenic or keto diet promoting high-fat and low-carbohydrate consumption in order to burn fat was the most Googled diet in the United States.
The American Medical Assn. and some nutrition experts, however, warn that consuming too much protein could cause digestive issues, weight gain, gout and other adverse effects.
Kacie Carter, a nutritionist, chef and the founder of Honey Hi, a gluten-free breakfast and brunch spot in Echo Park, said, “I’m not of the mind that we should be ‘maxxing’ anything.”
This hasn’t stopped proteinmaxxing influencers, who detail their meals on social media, often featuring protein bowls and “steakboards” — cutting boards loaded with strips of steak, chicken, fried eggs, potato, fruit, avocado and other high-protein foods. Vegetarian food influencers demonstrate non-meat ways to increase protein in everyday meals with Greek yogurt, beans and cottage cheese.
To keep up with the portions of protein her customers order, Singletary, who opened Urban Comfort Foods in October, has switched to a different distributor for beef and lamb. Her signature and build-your-own bowls range in price from $12.50 to $19.50, with flavors that reflect Black food cultures. One popular order is the Diaspora Delight with blackened salmon and jollof rice. Many of her customers add sides of garlic shrimp or honey jerk chicken, with full-size protein sides costing between $7 and $10. Additional 2- and 4-ounce sides of Cajun barbecue chicken, jerk chicken and suya beef can be added for $2 and $4.
Bowls at Fountain Grains & Greens range from $16 to $36 (when a 5-ounce grilled hanger steak replaces the usual two-thirds of a chicken thigh in the kimchi bowl), with add-ons ranging from $4 to $18.
But restaurant owners are finding that customers’ willingness to pay for extra protein does not mean added profits.
“We have not raised our protein prices since we opened, but our costs have gone up,” said Fountain Grains & Greens’ Jooharian.
Since the restaurant’s 2024 opening, with a menu designed by chef and co-owner Aric Attebery, Fountain Grains & Greens pays 15% more for chicken and 25% more for steak. “There were all the supply chain issues,” Jooharian said. “Fertilizer became super expensive, so more difficult for the farmers.”
As a small business, Singletary at Urban Comfort Foods said that she’s had to do a lot of “back-and-forth” with distributors to help reduce some of the overhead costs of protein, but negotiation hasn’t been easy.
“It doesn’t matter how much we’ve gone viral,” she said. “We’re not the big guys, so they don’t see the value in us getting those discounts.”
At Fountain Grains & Greens, the owners’ dedication to using local, carefully sourced ingredients also make it difficult to meet the increased demand for protein.
The rice, according to co-owner Andrew Pettingell, comes from a regenerative farm in Chico. The bowls contain freshly sprouted grains. The chicken is brought in whole before being butchered and brined in-house. Continuing this practice is not cheap.
“There is a cost in doing that business, but that’s the cost we want to pay,” Pettingell said. “We want to be supporting the local farms, and we want to serve the best quality ingredients we can, because we’re looking for hope that more people [will] start to recognize what they’re eating.”
The charcoal-grilled hanger steak, which Pettingell said is sourced from natural beef ranchers, is by far the biggest cost.
“We don’t make money off [the steak], but … it’s not always about that,” he said. “It’s a long journey getting people to switch their minds into the investment in eating higher-quality proteins and vegetables and grains. We’re committed to that.”
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