Protein Blends: Beneficial or B.S.???

By Mark Glazier, NutraBio Founder and CEO Mixing different types of protein together can be beneficial to muscle building. I am in total agreement with this opinion, which is why some of NutraBio’s products combine fast release whey isolates with slow release micellar casein protein. However, there is a lot of B.S. that sports supplement brands are feeding consumers under the guise of the benefits of mixed proteins and I want you to be aware of them. I agree that there is benefit to mixing some types of proteins together, but that is not why the industry so widely blends whey concentrate with whey isolate. The real reason is purely economical: Consumers don't realize that one of the most common whey proteins blended into supplements is a protein called WPC34 (Whey Protein Concentrate 34%). This protein is 34% protein value and only 1/3 the cost of the standard WPC80 (whey concentrate 80%) and only 1/5 the cost of WPI (whey protein isolate 90%). As a raw ingredient, WPC34 it is sold out in the industry. Every pound manufactured is contracted out months in advance by sports supplement manufacturers. Why ?? Because WPC34 is dirt cheap, but uses the same label claim as the higher grade WPC80. The label claim “Whey Protein Concentrate” is used identically for WPC34 or WPC 80 on protein labels so the consumer never realizes it’s used in the product they are purchasing. In my honest opinion, this is one the biggest scams out there. It used to be true that a consumer could calculate the protein value of a particular product by dividing the (grams of protein per serving) into the (total serving size) so if too much WPC34 was used in a product, the protein value would drop so low that a consumer would realize it. But the industry always stays one step ahead of the consumer and resolved this problem with the use of amino acid spiking. For those of you who are not familiar with amino acid spiking, see this article. -Mark G. - NutraBio, Founder & CEO