When is whey good vs bad, content wise?

Hi

Thanks for all interesting content you guys post.

Jordan talks about good and bad whey (as in how pure it is). But where is the threshold? For example, my whey has 76g protein per 100g, its concentration of leucin/valin/isoleucin is 8g/4,7g/5g. Is this a good or bad whey? It’s fairly cheap compared to many of the big international names but one of very few that list its amino acid content (at least here in Sweden) which is one of the reason I buy it. Then, at least, I know what I get. Plus it’s when of the best tasting ones:)

You might have answered this in another thread or on your podcast but I can’t seem to find it. Which brings me to a second question, is there a way to search a form and not only a specific thread? I only seem to find a search button in the different threads.

Eh, I’m not terribly concerned with the concentration of protein per unit volume per se’, but rather the concentration of essential amino acids as they compare to a reference whey protein (isolate or concentrate). Then I look at how many calories per serving it has, if there’s evidence of spiking, what filler (if any) they’re using, and price point.

So, I’m not sure if I can say if your whey is good or bad, though it seems like it’s low on BCAAs if what you listed is for 100g.

This could be interesting to find out the quality of your supplements: https://www.supplementlabtest.com/

Ok, I see. Then I must have misunderstood you before.

Yes the BCAA figures are per 100g.

A serving is 30g which contains 23g EAA where the BCAA stands for 5,5g, Calories are 117.

I pay roughly 18 USD/kg for this so quite cheap and I don’t expect it to be the best. But at least they are honest enough to list the EAA composition.

Eh, I think these types of sites aren’t terribly useful given their methodology. I’d much prefer cGMP and NSF/UL/Informed sport or Informed consent labeling

I think my main question to you is what is the benefit of saving ~5 dollars on a protein? Overall, it would be hard to make a strong argument for or against changing your protein type outside of 5 dollars not being a significant amount of money and that extra money affording you a (likely) significantly better protein.

Pardon my ignorance, but can you please elaborate on this? Are these existing standards or protocols, or are they ideas that are not in existence yet?

I have heard so much about the “quality” of whey proteins, but I have no real idea how to verify the product that I use (truenutrition.com whey protein concentrate). If there exists a resource intended for lay people I’d love to know about it

Their lab processes are not subjected to appropriate reference standards that allow them to definitively say anything. There are strong financial interests and influences that conflate listicles and ranking lists. Finally, the companies are usually not run by any sort of scientist, researcher, or organization who is involved in sport or nutrition.

A cGMP and NSF/UL/Informed sport or Informed consent labeling >>>> labdoor, supplement lab test, etc.

Thank you for the clarification. One further question, if you can spare a moment to educate someone with no meaningful exposure to these topics.

Are there any public-facing ways to access cGMP or NSF/UL methods/protocols/whatever they are? How does a layperson interested in acquiring a reliably-labeled, quality protein supplement go about doing so?

The FDA (for GMP), NSF, UL, and Informed Consent all publish their methodologies online.

Sorry if you mentioned this in another article/podcast but for you, Jordan, what would be an ideal BCAA concentration per 100gr of a good whey protein supplement?

Something north of ~24g BCAA per 100g would be good.

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Whey-RX has about 23% BCAA’s according the label.
So anything in that neighborhood (same or over) would be acceptable I guess.
And a relation of 2:1:1 would be ideal?

@Jordan_Feigenbaum Thanks for the input, now I know the protein I buy it’s not that bad, it contains 23gr of BCAA and ~11gr of leucine per 100gr

Sure- I should’ve specified 24g BCAA per 100g protein (not of the supplement). Even so, we’re still pretty close given the additional BCAAs we include per serving. Again, I wouldn’t only look at BCAA content when deciding on a protein supplement’s quality.

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I have read some old Bill Starr articles where he says powdered milk is as good as protein powder and cheaper. As for protein content a cup of skim powdered milk is about equal to the protein in the protein powder I use. The caveat is higher carbs and therefore more calories. If the calories aren’t as big of an issue does this advice still hold or is more modern protein better than the days when Starr was giving this advice?

There are only two reasons to use whey protein:

  1. Low calorie source of high quality protein
  2. Portable with minimal prep needed

Otherwise, I don’t think you need whey. For most people, I think the calorie/protein ratio for powdered milk is unfavorable and whey is a better choice.