Do you need to become smarter about protein?

Are you eating enough protein at breakfast? Most people aren’t!

Excerpt: "Optimizing your protein intake can be tricky. It’s not just how much protein you eat that matters, but when you eat it, and the foods that you get it from. You may even have higher protein needs than you think depending on your overall health, your age, your activity levels and other factors.

Protein makes up our muscles, vital organs and skin cells, and it influences our metabolism, appetite and immune system. While our bodies can make some amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, others we can only get from eating certain foods.

“We store carbohydrates, we store fat, but we don’t store protein — so we do need to eat it every day,” said Anne Kozil, a registered dietitian nutritionist in the food science and human nutrition department at Colorado State University. “If we consume too little protein for too long then we resort to consuming our muscle mass as a protein source, which you don’t want to do.”

We spoke to experts and analyzed studies to identify common protein pitfalls. Here are six of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to eating protein."