Protein for People Who Love Food

Most protein products are bought for the nutrition label and eaten out of duty. If you care about how food actually tastes, that category was not built for you. This post is for people who want the protein but won't trade away the experience of eating something that's genuinely good.

Why most protein tastes the way it does

Standard protein powders are built from a concentrate, isolate or blend, then stripped of most of what gave the original ingredient its flavor in processing. What's left is functional but flat. So manufacturers add back flavor compounds, sweeteners, thickeners and coloring agents to make it palatable — sometimes ten or fifteen ingredients to fix what processing removed.

The result tastes like a supplement, because that's what it's designed to be. If your first reference point for strawberry is a ripe Mara des Bois, a protein shake made with artificial strawberry flavoring tastes very different from it.

What to look for if you cook and care about taste

Four checks you can apply to any label before you buy:

Count the ingredients. A short list is a signal that the manufacturer didn't need to cover up much. Three ingredients means three decisions were made, and each one had to be justified.
Look at where the milk comes from. Ours comes from pasture-raised cows in the French Alps, grazing 150 to 180 days a year. It matters, in the same way it matters in a good cheese or butter.
Ask how the whey was filtered. Ours is made with a gentle cold process using micro- and ultrafiltration.
Check whether sugar was added. Added sugar masks flavor rather than building it. If a product needs sugar to taste good, it probably needs it to cover up something that doesn't.

How we approach it

The ESSENTIAL line from Protelicious has a maximum of three ingredients: whey protein concentrate from pasture-raised cows in the French Alps, a flavor ingredient (Valrhona cocoa or freeze-dried strawberries, depending on the variant), and a little organic stevia. True Original has whey only.

The whey is made with a gentle cold process using micro- and ultrafiltration. No added sugar.

The result is a good source of quality protein with less than 2g lactose per serving, made from non-GMO ingredients, formulated without gluten-containing ingredients. It mixes into milk, yogurt or water, and it tastes like what it is — not like a supplement trying to taste like something else.

Where dessert fits

Protelicious Protein Ice Cream is a different thing: a dessert with up to 28g of protein per pint and 0g added sugar. True Deep Chocolate uses Valrhona chocolate, True Madagascar Vanilla uses real Madagascar vanilla, and True Velvety Strawberry uses real organic Oregon strawberries.

It's protein ice cream you eat because it's good ice cream — not because you're being disciplined.

See the full range: Protelicious Protein Ice Cream collection.

Start here

If you're new to Protelicious, the ESSENTIAL by Protelicious whey is the place to start:

True Strawberry — 17g of protein per scoop, freeze-dried strawberries, organic stevia
True Chocolate — 17g of protein per scoop, Valrhona cocoa, organic stevia
True Original — 20g of protein per scoop, whey only, nothing added

Get the Protelicious recipe book and find out how to use the whey in your cooking: sign up here.