What Does “High Protein” Actually Mean?
Egg White (raw) has 10.9g of protein per 100g. Almond (whole, raw) has almost double that, 21.2g. Judged by grams alone, Almonds looks like the clearly higher-protein food. But UK law doesn’t judge a “high protein” claim by grams at all, it judges it as a share of the food’s own energy value, and by that real measure the two foods swap places entirely: Egg White clears the legal bar by a wide margin, at roughly 84% of its energy from protein, while Almonds, at roughly 15%, falls well short of it.
The real number: at least 20% of energy from protein
Under the same Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims already covered in our low calorie article, the exact wording for this specific claim is: “A claim that a food is high in protein… may only be made where at least 20% of the energy value of the food is provided by protein.” Not a gram figure. A percentage of the food’s own total energy.
Working that out for a real food means converting protein to energy first, at the standard 4 kcal per gram, then dividing by the food’s total energy and multiplying by 100. Egg White: 10.9g protein × 4 = 43.6kcal from protein, out of 52kcal total, roughly 84%. Almonds: 21.2g × 4 = 84.8kcal from protein, out of 579kcal total, roughly 15%. One clears 20%. The other doesn’t, even with nearly double the raw grams.
Still UK law after Brexit, with one real regional difference
This regulation didn’t disappear when the UK left the EU. In Great Britain it’s now retained EU law, carried over by the Nutrition (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and 2020, and enforced through the UK’s own system rather than an EU one. In Northern Ireland it still applies directly as EU law, under the terms of the Windsor Framework. Same rule, same numbers, two different legal routes to the same answer.
Why grams alone can be misleading
A food can have a genuinely large amount of protein in absolute terms and still fail this specific claim, if it also carries enough fat or carbohydrate to dilute protein’s share of the total energy. Almonds is a real example: 21.2g of protein is a lot of protein, more than most foods in our database, but it sits alongside 49.9g of fat, and fat carries more than double the energy per gram, 9kcal versus protein’s 4. That fat content is what pulls protein’s own share of the food’s energy back down to around 15%, below the legal bar, even though the raw protein number looks impressive on its own.
It governs labelling, not a verdict on a food
Same caveat as our low calorie article: this is a rule about what can be printed on packaging or in marketing, a specific legal test for a specific claim. It’s not a statement that Almonds is somehow a poor protein source, or that anything failing this claim isn’t worth eating. Almonds still contributes real, useful protein to a diet, just not at a high enough share of its own energy to legally carry the words “high protein.”
Where you will see it used on this site
Our own High Protein badge, and every High Protein hub and category page, use this exact same at-least-20%-of-energy threshold, computed from each food’s own real protein and energy figures, not a flat gram cutoff. Egg White (raw), at roughly 84%, genuinely qualifies and shows up on our Dairy & Eggs High Protein page. Almond (whole, raw), at roughly 15%, genuinely doesn’t, and it won’t appear there, even though it carries more raw protein per 100g. Check both for yourself.
*This article is general information, not legal advice. Food labelling law changes and gets re-interpreted over time, so check an official source directly if you need this for your own business’s compliance.