Whey Protein Isolate

Mixed up some chocolate Keto Chow

This entry is part 25 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

A commenter on my last post asked if it’s possible to mix up without any coconut flour at all. Yes but you have to increase the psyllum husk to 18g. I wasn’t sure what that would taste like but I was interested to try it. Unfortunately my shipment of Chocolate Mint, Strawberry and Vanilla proteins will not be arriving until Monday. So I mixed up some keto chow using the little chocolate flavored protein I still had, but without any coconut flour.

Keto Chow powder (1 day)

1 day of Keto Chow. There isn’t much to it, only about 140g of stuff.

It’s still funny how small it is, less than 150g of powder that you mix with around a half cup of heavy cream, some MCT oil and… that’s your daily nutrients!

Keto Chow - 3 meals in blender bottles

3 different bottles with Keto Chow mixed up.

I put it in the refrigerator and let it hang out for a while. As expected, the psyllum husk powder absorbed a lot of water and thickened up the mixture a little bit. I might not need so much Xanthan Gum, I’ll probably cut it in half for my next batch. It feels smooth and creamy in my mouth and tastes like… well, a bit like slightly watered down chocolate milk. I think it maybe can use some additional chocolate flavoring, my wife disagrees and thinks it tastes great as it is. It should work well with the different flavored protein powders that are coming on Monday. Here’s a close up of the mixed stuff after refrigeration and a few hours:

Keto Food after 3 hours

Keto Chow after 3 hours

The psyllum goes nearly transparent and it’s the majority of the bits you see in the mixture. Notably there isn’t hardly any separation whereas Ketofood does quite a bit:

Ketofood separation

Ketofood after 4 hours.

OK, let’s look a little closer!

A spoon dipped in Ketofood, no chia seeds here

A spoon dipped in Ketofood, no chia seeds for a change

Spoon dipped in Keto Chow. It's mostly bubbles and psyllum that you see.

Spoon dipped in Keto Chow. It’s mostly bubbles and psyllum that you see.

And here’s the same test in video format:

My next batch will probably be strawberry or vanilla, have half the xanthan gum and I might put back in some of the coconut flour to see what it does to the flavor and texture.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:24-06:00January 3rd, 2015|Soylent, Preparation, Ketogenic, Keto Chow|3 Comments
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New ketogenic soylent recipe in development, it’s moar betterer

This entry is part 23 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Several weeks ago /u/kennufs posted his current Ketogenic soylent recipe. I ordered some of the ingredients and gave it a try recently. It’s so superior to KetoFood it’s kinda silly, probably because it doesn’t have chia seeds and does use a generous amount of heavy cream. I did that recipe for about a week and a half whilst changing stuff around before I ran out of the NutraBio whey protein isolate he specifies. That particular WPI is unique in that it doesn’t have any carbohydrate sources in it, like none at all, which keeps the net carbs down.

The problem with the NutraBio is where I’m living (Utah) it takes 9 business days to get a shipment of it from New Jersey. With a 2lb tub lasting approximately 10 days this makes sourcing it and keeping it on hand a logistical nightmare. It’s the same problem I have with getting Cal/Mag/D3 from supplementwarehouse.com: sometimes it takes them 2 weeks to get me stuff. I’m also working to replace the ketofood I mix on this site with a recipe along the same lines as Kennufs’ so I’ve been searching for a viable alternative to the protein and I think I finally have it.

I wanted to find something that I can buy at bodybuilding.com – they may not have the absolute lowest prices but my proximity to their central warehouse (Boise Idaho) makes for crazy fast shipping times, like 2 days at the longest with a few orders arriving the day after I ordered. Seriously, they are great; especially in the states surrounding Idaho =). Anyhow I found two possibilities: IsoPure Zero Carb and Dymatize Elite. Initially it looked like the Isopure would work but they include vitamins in their powder making it terribly difficult to get the right micronutrient mix. I had overage on some stuff and hardly anything on others (Iron, Vitamin C) that required adding an additional specific supplement.

Since I have the day off work today, obviously I woke up early and my brain switched on. So I started looking again and found the Dymatize Elite. It comes in a variety of flavors but I’m only going to mess with the ones that come in the 10lb size: Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla  and Chocolate Mint. I took the groundwork that Kennufs laid, fixed some ingredients that showed different nutritional values, updated prices, copied over a bunch of the ingredients from my People Chow and my KetoFood recipes and the end result is what I’m going to call Keto Chow 0.7. Feel free to clone it, abuse it, whatever =)

In a few days (or hours, who knows?) I’ll add it as an orderable product on the site with the caveat that it’s going to be changing as it’s very much in active development. UPDATE: that was quick. At first you might even get some NutraBio WPI since I still have a bunch of that en-route. Additionally, except one flavor, I haven’t actually tasted the Dymatize WPI yet so some of the flavors might be awesome or might be completely awful. I’m also still trying to figure out what to do with the fish oil. To hit the right omega 3’s you need 5ml (1 tsp.) per day. You can get that from liquid cod liver oil in a big bottle or you can get it in gelatin capsules and take 5 a day along with the daily multivitamin. Any feedback on which you like better?

Anyhow, how’s that for a New Years update?

By |2015-11-05T13:49:38-07:00January 1st, 2015|Preparation, Keto Chow, Weight Loss, Soylent|2 Comments
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Going to try a new supplier

This entry is part 26 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

I’m out of Whey Protein and won’t be getting it until Wednesday because Amazon took 2 days to actually ship my order. Same thing happened a few weeks ago with my Potassium Citrate and my Calcium/Magnesium/D3 powder. So I’m going to give supplementwarehouse.com a try and see if they can do better. We’ll see. Their price on Cal/Mag/D3 is better but shipping almost takes away that advantage.

Update: So my supplementwarehouse.com order just shipped, so let’s talk about processing time. I ordered on July 14 and it shipped 2 days later on July 16.

When I ordered the same Whey Protein from Amazon it took 2 business days to process and ship as well, the Calcium/Magnesium/D3 took 4 business days to process and ship from Amazon though. So far supplementwarehouse is doing somewhat better (in addition to costing less).

Update again: Well, it had NOW whey protein isolate in it, was a fair price and came quickly. I’ll likely order from there again.

By |2014-07-22T15:31:52-06:00July 14th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|Comments Off on Going to try a new supplier
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“The gig is up” – increasing costs, but still cheap(ish)

This entry is part 23 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

So I just placed another order for 5 kg of Hard Rhino whey protein isolate. Some months ago, I switched from NOW wpi to the Hard Rhino and did a review of it; in that review I talked about how they had raised their prices on the bulk packages, looks like they did it again.

If you are just getting in to doing your own DIY soylent, Hard Rhino can be a good source because it sells packages all the way down to 500 g for $15. With the new pricing, the bulk saving have gotten smaller.

prices May 2014
brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g serving
NOW 10.00 4.55 115.31 25.37 11.53 1.395
NOW 5.00 2.27 64.99 28.60 13.00 1.573
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 14.99 29.98 13.63 1.649
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 27.99 27.99 12.72 1.539
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 104.99 21.00 9.54 1.155
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 199.99 20.00 9.09 1.100
prices July 2014
brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g serving
NOW 10.00 4.55 119.82 26.36 11.98 1.450
NOW 5.00 2.27 71.02 31.25 14.20 1.719
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 14.99 29.98 13.63 1.649
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 27.99 27.99 12.72 1.539
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 135.99 27.20 12.36 1.496
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 265.99 26.60 12.09 1.463

With the price changes, it’s now less expensive to buy the 10 pound box of  NOW wpi. Right as I started to write this paragraph I realized that, called Hard Rhino, and cancelled my order so I could order the NOW wpi from Amazon. Anyhow, as it stands the NOW whey protein isolate is currently the least expensive if you buy it in the 10 pound box.

Another cost increase is GNC Mega Man Sport. Ever since I started doing DIY you could get 50% off a second container if you bought 2 at the same time. Add a GNC Gold Card discount and you could get it for much less than the official $50 a container ($67.48 for two). Well the 50% off on the second container has ended. Your only option for a discount now is getting the Gold Card. Why do I stick with GNC? well to start with: it’s fun to have bright yellow pee from all the B vitamins! Seriously though there are a lot of things in the GNC that have been hinted at helping your body but don’t have a RDA. It’s also conveniently powdered and isn’t terribly expensive. Other people use vitamin pills from Kirkland to great effect, I just haven’t wanted to get into balancing out all the micro nutrients. I tried it once about 4 months ago but just came back to MaxK’s original recipe.

The end result is the cost of people chow has gone up some. It’s still cheaper than going to McDonalds every day (and far better for you) but cost increases suck. I still have some stuff I bought at the lower prices but (probably tomorrow) I’m going to raise the prices I charge people for a week of People Chow.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:33-06:00July 9th, 2014|Soylent, Ingredients|2 Comments
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Hard Rhino WPI Review

This entry is part 14 of 39 in the series DIY Soylent

So last week I had just ordered another 5 pound bottle of NOW foods Whey Protein Isolate. I started looking at the wildly variable price of the Choline bitartrate and was searching around for some that cost less when I found some by a company called Hard Rhino. It was less but wasn’t free shipping, they do a fixed shipping cost for all orders on Amazon. So I started looking at the other stuff they sold and discovered they had Whey Protein Isolate for crazy low prices. I found their web site and found larger sizes available and free shipping on orders over $100. The original prices turned out to be an error and they raised them, though they are still less than NOW and the additional smaller sizes give people who just want to try people-chow/soylent an opportunity to not spend as much money. I cancelled my 5lb NOW order and ordered 10 kg of Hard Rhino.  (more…)

By |2016-10-13T07:28:37-06:00February 28th, 2014|Ingredients, Soylent|1 Comment
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