Lyndsey asked 5 years ago
As always, there is conflicting information/studies that say there is a protein threshold at each given meal before it becomes ineffective verses it doesn’t matter and you can eat a meal of 60g at the end of the day to hit your goal and it still be effective. Which is it?!
Dr. Jacob Wilson Staff answered 5 years ago
Hi Lyndsey,
Great question and definitely an interesting scenario. When you hear people say, “you can only digest 20-30g of protein per meal,” etc. they’re referencing several findings that show that muscle protein synthesis is typically maximized after ingesting 20-30g of protein with no further benefits from higher amounts of protein. However, muscle protein synthesis is not the only function that ingested protein is used for so that’s a limited view on how much protein you can ingest in one meal. I don’t think there is necessarily a limit to how much protein you can have in one meal, however, I do think it’s important to divide your total daily protein intake into meals spaced about 2-3 hours apart to maintain a positive protein balance throughout the day.
Further Reading