Best Protein Powder
My history with Protein Powder
I started to drink protein powder years ago. I honestly don’t think I knew why I was doing it.
I thought I needed more protein I guess, or I saw other, “fitter” people using it and immediately imagined I needed to be joining in to look like them.
To be honest though, most of the time I found it kind of chalky, and I discovered the hard way, that whey protein upsets my stomach.
What we do know now is that protein intake is critical for your health. My genearl philosophy is to try your best to eat protein rich foods, and supplement as needed.
That said, not all protein powders have clean ingredients. Look for ones that have simple, readable labels. Do you want a vegan protein? Are you ok with whey (a milk derivative)? How are you with sweeteners? Are you looking for lower carbohydrates? Certainly start by examining your own needs, but I’ve also culled a list here to help you on your protein powder journey.
What does protein powder do?
Protein is one of the three macronutrients (the three are carbohydrates, fat, and protein) and helps to build/repair muscles.
Some say it helps with weight loss, but in my humble opinion, it’s really just meant for supplementing an already well-rounded diet. During times when I've tried to use protein shakes to reduce my weight, it hasn't really done much. If anything it's made my weight increase.
Especially if you're making smoothies, be aware of the calories going into them. A tablespoon of almond butter here, and a bit of yogurt or a dash of flaxseed, and all of a sudden you're downing something thats 400 calories.
And you're going to be hungry quickly! Chewing actually can reduce your hunger and food intake, and increase satiety. So if you’re drinking your calories, you are not going to have the same hormone reactions as chewing them.
That said, if you need more protein to hit your macro goals, protein powder is easy and can be a relatively healthy way to do that.
Protein (and fats) do help with blood sugar control, so don't shy away from making a well balanced meal (with some carbs, protein and fats). You need protein to maintain or even increase muscle mass. I’ve heard so many influencers/experts and the like say you need 1 gram of protein per body weight. To be honest though, I’m not sure that’s true. Protein can be hard on the kidneys and eating too much can cause something called gluconeogenesis, a bodily process of converting protein into glucose, and if you’re low carb, or keto this might slow progress.
I think it's always best to work with a nutritionist to figure out how much dietary protein you need, and what your macros should look like.
Lose Weight with Protein Powder
Here is my best advice if you're trying to use protein powder for weight loss especially if you have polycystic ovarian syndrome:
1) Make sure if you're sensitive to dairy or are lactose intolerant that the whey protein/ and whey protein isolate doesn't upset your stomach. If it does or you have a dairy sensitivity. Ditch the whey for something else.
2) If you use protein powder in your smoothies (protein is helpful for blood sugar regulation), be aware of the calorie intake if that’s something important or relevant to you. Losing weight is hard enough as it is, no need to make it harder by adding in a calorie-heavy snack
Use protein powder for muscle recovery support, or even as a meal replacement, but know how it fits into your lifestyle and nutritional needs.
3) I've reduced my protein powder intake for my PCOS diet. Expensive protein powders can be a big investment, and can be hard on your body not only your kidneys but too much can cause gluconeogensis, converting into glucose which if you’re lower carbohydrate or keto can be a problem.
We know if you're having issues with insulin resistance, more glucose (and blood sugar) in your body isn't actually helpful.
Protein Powder and what's in it?
What I have learned through all my research is how little goes into assessing protein powder safety.
I saw all these influencers and “fit” people drinking protein powder once even twice a day, and I thought I should be doing that too!
But when I started to look into it, I realized no one really was looking after this part of the health and wellness industry. There’s no regulation, and it’s up to brands themselves to submit to rigorous third party testing.
I assumed like most of us do, that if it's on the shelves for public consumption, it’s been studied and approved for safety.
Turns out I was wrong.
I decided to look into researching the best protein powder in 2020.
I had some time at home (like most of us, thanks Covid) and I like to buy the absolute best out there.
I like to spend hours researching items on Wirecutter, blogs and Amazon to find the very best item to buy. Yes, some might call it mildly obsessive, but I like research, and I like to know about the best out there.
Back to protein—> Here's what I was looking for:
I wanted clean ingredients, low carb, high protein, and not tons of filler. I was honestly pretty disappointed with all the “best of” lists that had the same few protein powders owned by the same big companies.
It turns out that some of the big brands listed were not always getting tested for hard metals.
There is so little third party testing that goes into protein powder!
So I went on a deep dive.
I had Initially wanted to start using vegan protein powder. But after some research I realized the supply chain was not traceable for many of the ingredients that were imported for some of these protein powders.
In fact, I found that certain ingredients were particularly problematic.
For example brown rice protein powder which for the most part came from outside the United States had very large hard metal contents, particularly arsenic.
Clean Label Project, a non-profit similar to Environmental Working Group has done thorough testing and research on protein powders. They’ve found that vegan protein powders are the worst offender when it comes to contaminants and hard metals.
They publish a report in 2018 after they tested 134 different products: “ We tested 134 of the top-selling protein powders for how clean they were. Clean Label Project has seen elevated levels of heavy metals including Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, and Mercury as well as BPA leaching from packaging into the finished product.”
Source: https://cleanlabelproject.org/protein-powder-infographic/
I’ve included their infographic above as well, but some highlights of the study include:
- Products that use egg as protein were cleaner
- Products that were plant based tested worst
- 75% of plant based samples tested positive for lead
- Organic samples had 40% less BPA than non-organic
- Organic samples had up to 1.5x more arsenic, up to 4.8x more cadmium and up to 1.5x more lead.
Let’s take a minute to define some of these and what they mean for ingestion.
Lead: This one’s easy, it’s commonly discussed. But according to the CDC, “exposure of too much lead can lead to anemia weakness, kidney and brain damange.” Lead poisoning is something that really has to be avoided. A real no-no if you ask me
Arsenic: Also according to the CDC, arsenic can cause skin, lung, bladder and other cancers.
Cadmium: What the heck is cadmium? I’ve seen this one around, but had to explore it a bit. Yes it is naturally occurring, but according to the CDC, “Exposure to low levels of cadmium in air, food, water, and particularly in tobacco smoke over time may build up cadmium in the kidneys and cause kidney disease and fragile bones. Cadmium is considered a cancer-causing agent.” Yeah, turns out I don’t really want to be eating that either.
So back to protein powder, turns out the Clean Label Project report wasn’t even the first one to discover how problematic protein powders can be.
Further still, according to Harvard health, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “…leaves it up to manufacturers to evaluate the safety and labeling of products. So, there's no way to know if a protein powder contains what manufacturers claim.”
Which, if you trust the corporations putting out the protein powder, then feel free to ignore pretty much all of this.
However, if you’re already feeling like you’d rather be more careful about the food you ingest, then it’s time to look at protein powders that are third party tested and have been approved by other independent sources like the Clean Label Project.
The good news is there are protein powders that are safer to use. Clean Label Project has a number of them.
Best Protein Powder
Puori
Puori
Puori is also Clean Label Project approved. It’s whey protein (so not vegan and not dairy free) and has 2 flavors, vanilla bourbon and Chocolate. Each serving has 21 grams of protein and 5 grams of carbohydrates. There are only 3 ingredients, so this is a YES from me.
Be Well By Kelly
I love the chocolate flavor of this beef isolate powder (not whey). It does use monk fruit as a sweetener if you’re sensitive, but you can also get it unsweetened. This has been a staple for me for a while now.
Truvani
Another excellent vegan choice, I like Truvani (also monk fruit sweetened) a lot. I find the consistency a little funny, but I love their ingredients, that they test for heavy metals and for glyphosate.
