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Reddit Reviews
Garden of Life vanilla is really good stuff and pretty clean.
I love garden of life sports vanilla. Great taste and nutrition profile.
Garden of Life Whey Protein Bob's Red Mills Whey Protein Nutricost Bob's Red Mills Almond Protein All have little to no extra ingredients, just simple Whey Isolate or Concentrate. None of them has sucralose. It's best to purchase frozen berries in bulk and create your taste w/ a blender, i.e. strawberry or wildberries. This way, you also get Fiber.
So Garden of Life (now I’m on whey but used to take their vegan one) is super high quality and tastes good to me but is not cheap. For great value I’d go for iherbs house brand California Gold Nutrition , also vegan and whey. The whey tastes good to me , the vegan less so. Both of them are some of the cleanest out there
I wondered about the difference in flavors. I found Garden of Life’s self published metal tests and between sport protein powder chocolate and vanilla, chocolate had higher levels. Edit: the article OP posted actually mentions this: Chocolate protein powders, for instance, were found to have a staggering 110 times more cadmium [1] than vanilla-flavored varieties.
Yeah there’s few options if you want caffeine plus clean testing. Legion Pulse, Momentous Strength + Caffeine, and Kaged Clean Burn all publish full COAs (heavy metals included). For something closer to a “protein coffee,” Truvani, Garden of Life SPORT, and Ritual Essential Protein are decent picks — all third-party tested and low-to-zero contaminants. If you just want a daily protein + caffeine combo that feels similar to Chike, you can also stack your own — i.e., a scoop of Momentous whey or Transparent Labs protein + an espresso shot or cold brew. Same function, but way more transparency.
Avoid: * Naked Nutrition * Huel Once per week: * Garden of Life * Momentous 100% Plant Protein Occasionally: * MuscleMeds * Optimum Nutrition Serious Mass * Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Protein Shake * Jocko Fuel * Vega * Quest * Orgain * Equip Foods * Plant Fusion * Ensure * Muscle Milk * KOS Better Choices for Daily Consumption: * Owyn * Transparent Labs * Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey * BSN * Momentus Whey Protein Isolate * Dymatize * Muscle Tech Only the last one - Muscle Tech - is listed as no limit on safe consumption.
Garden of Life protein powder is really good, and no whey. Super easy to digest and tasty
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