Naomi Girson | opinions editor

I’ve always had pretty terrible eating habits. I would like to say they have evolved from when I was a kid, but in all honesty, they haven’t.

I eat at least a bagel everyday (if not two), pizza is my favorite food on earth and there is never a shortage of carbs loaded up in my stomach.

In the last few years, however, as I began college and attempted to make my own food more and pay a little more attention to what I had to eat each day, protein entered the scene.

I imagine like most people, before the eye of the protein storm swirled me up into the whirlwind, I kind of just qualified protein as meat; beef, fish, pork. Foods that make you feel full, and give you a little boost of energy. School lunch chicken patties contributed to a huge portion of my protein input from ages 5 to 18. Ditto with Jif Creamy Peanut Butter.

For me, as of late, to be healthy means working out (which I have never been good about anyway), and, more importantly, what my diet consists of. I know my diet as it stands isn’t perfect, but worrying about it didn’t make anything better for me. And, according to every fitness influencer online, you probably aren’t eating enough protein with normal food and the only way to fulfill the appropriate daily input is through unconventional means.

Enter protein supplements.

You can get protein-enhanced anything nowadays. Popcorn, pasta, powder, the list goes on. It just all feels a little fake to me, and thinking about it so much didn’t change my life the way I kind of got the feeling it would. Sometimes it seems all that was missing from my life was the appropriate amount of protein.

Last year, when I needed some sustenance, I would head to the market and make a b-line straight to the protein bar section. They have every flavor, with pictures on the wrapping of cakes and brownies and everything that I can guarantee will hold no similarity with the protein bar you are about to choke down. They have numerous brands, all with different recipes to get slightly different chalky dense flavors, and all of them are pretty terrible. Trust me, I’ve tried almost all of them.

Some people feel differently, and I can understand that, if it’s 6 a.m. and you’re about to hit the gym, it might be easier to chow down on a protein bar than cook yourself an omelette. I just can’t do it anymore. The fake protein made me feel worse than any carb could.

Last year, I kind of forced myself to eat a protein bar when I didn’t have enough to eat on campus. They kept my weight steady and my energy fine, but I really had to stuff them down. It was miserable, and they are so expensive for little tasteless slabs.

It feels almost ridiculous to admit that for a short time I forgot that protein naturally exists in food I eat almost everyday.

Instead I was mindlessly looking for a bold and colorful logo telling me how many grams of protein is in this product that also normally has protein in it. They are overpriced and unnecessary, and though I fell under the spell for a moment in time, I am proud to be on the other side of the aisle now.

Call me crazy, but I would rather enjoy what I’m eating than just “power through it.” Maybe that’s why I eat so much bread.

The protein obsession has brought me good too, when I started paying attention to all of it. I started incorporating cottage cheese into my diet and it opened a whole new world. Some people see it as just another protein enhancer, but they just don’t get it like I do.

I used to just add a spoonful or two to my egg in the morning, but slowly I started to have a spoonful for myself, and then a whole bowl. Now I can clean the whole container in a day, if I get the chance. I don’t add anything to it (I don’t believe in that malarkey), call me a purist, I just eat it with a spoon.

As a lifelong picky eater, my list of go-to snacks has always been brief, but cottage cheese was a perfect addition that came at just the right time. Pretty much every time I enter the kitchen now, even if I don’t know exactly what I want, I will probably at least indulge in a spoonful of cottage cheese. Which is certainly healthier than a handful of chocolate chips.

But the way protein is thrown into everything now, feels way blown out of proportion to me.

I can’t even point to where it first started, what first got me thinking I need to add more protein to my diet.

But after over a year of practically force-feeding myself protein bars, protein drinks and protein Pop-Tarts, I realized I could just be eating eggs. It’s really just not that big a deal.

I’m sure it’s partially the marketing these days, but somehow all this protein hoopla made me forget how I survived as a growing girl without any Quest bars.

I ate chicken fingers and chocolate milk and pepperoni on my pizza. I’m not training for a bodybuilding competition or even a 5k for that matter. I don’t really need to be feeding my body a whole other kind of junk.

I still have a pretty terrible relationship with food (I’m pretty anti-vegetable, but that’s a whole different issue), but at least I know I don’t want artificial protein taking up the place where a perfectly good bacon, egg and cheese bagel could go.

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu