My Strange Descent into the Weird World of Protein Shakes

July 2, 2026

Currently Listening to: Girls, from Princess Nokia

Currently Feeling: Vibey

In all seriousness, it's been a minute, I've been feeling the juice to write blogs again, and I can't let the gap between the last piece and the next piece stop me! So I'm back here, for now, and hopefully for not too long again (I am, for real real this time, cooking on a close reading of the Haunting of Hill House, which I've been edging now for like 2 years. Hopefully that will in fact be out before the end of the year).

Now that my job requires maintaining and developing a website (among other things, but this is about 25% of it), motivating myself to do the same thing I do for work for my passion proeject is a bit harder. Nevertheless, when the juice hits, the juice hits. Who am I to resist. Other nominal updates: my fiance and I recently moved house (again, a common theme on this blog lol). Hopefully this will be for the final time for a while, if not until we decide to 'buy a house' (wild to me that that is now a consideration for my life, but that's life baybeeee). They recently also landed a full-time career position, which I am so, so grateful was able to happen (especially given the job market in general, and job market for scientists at the current moment). I remember the first job I landed that brought me to the DC metro area, I was bopping around looking for friends and went to a podcast meet-up. I was the youngest one there by a significant margin (I think the next-oldest person was 6 years older than myself). But the sort of instigator of the meetup, a lovely woman, had recently turned 34, a topic of discussion for the table. I asked her, wow, you're more than a decade older than I am. What's that like? And she told me that she thought being in her 30's was worlds better than being in her 20's. And now that I approach that point of my life...I loved my 20's, don't get me wrong. Even despite the massive global pandemic that brought my early 20's to a grinding halt. But I gotta say...I'm rounding the corner of my final year of them, and I am really, really excited for what's ahead.

A brief interlude on doing your own research...

So anyway, protein shakes! The real culmination of my interested climaxed in the consumer trends 2025 analysis of USAmerican grocery habits, which was linked to my by my lovely mutual Elle of Ellexamines. Protein shakes actually hits on two of the major trends measured by the surveys: 1) The US is obsessed with protein right now and 2) Gen Z is obsessed with beverages. Two birds, one stone.

Now, someone who has eaten pescatarian since they were 9, I am personally deeply, deeply skeptical of RFKJr's new Inverted Food Pyramid (more on this below), which is now placing protein and dairy at the top of the diagram, along with some mild sources of fiber (when will fiber have her moment??). This has spawned from MAHA, 'Make America Healthy Again', the current diet/lifestyle/health trend from our delightfully awful government. Don't we think it's a little odd that the government is pushing beef so heavily (both beef and beef tallow) when cattle farmers receive subsidies from the government, and also represent one of the least sustainable farming industries in the US?

Before I go any further, I do want to clarify. I don't agree with a lot of things MAHA promotes (eg, raw milk, antivax, deprioritization of infectious disease, general eroding of trust in scientific experitise), but also I would be remiss to deny that our current medical system has...a lot of flaws, including worrying about health insurance (at all, why do we have it, it's a total scam, fucking get rid of it, nobody should be denied health care because of a lack of money and YES THIS INCLUDES TRANS CARE), the systematic overworking and understaffing of medical doctors and surgeons, the general paywalling and access to understanding clinical research, and the HOST of human rights violations that have been made to people of color over the years in the name of 'research'. So we have sort of perfectly laid the groundwork for a mass dissillusionment in a system, and then perfectly timed it with the popularization of disinformation machines (I'm talking about using LLMs for research here).

So while I do support doing your own research, let's be real, as a career scientist and someone who has spent over a decade professionally conducting research (including how hormonal fluctuations affect the likelihood of behaviors occuring), I can tell you a few things:

Reading reddit threads or querying ChatGPT is not research. Doing research with LLMs at all is certainly not research. Reading reddit threads and wikipedia articles can be a start, but the gold standard remains peer-reviwed published research. Yeah, these are hard to read. No, running them through LLMs will not help. Understanding and critiquing these takes years of practice. But, like anything, the more time you spend doing it, the better you get at it. Your local library, archive.ph and sci-hub.se are your friends. As is just emailing the lead author of a paywalled journal article and asking them to send you the PDF. 95% of the time this works. Scientists are eager to share their work.
Okay, I've got this article that I think is interested in the same thing I am -- alright, now we're in it. I would recommend scouring the methods section. This is going to alert you to whether or not this paper is even worth your time of day. Because unfortunately, though peer-review is the gold standard, not all journals are the same. As my beautiful fiance brought up, some journals are predatory, and are just looking to publish crap science. The next place you're going to want to look is going to be, actually, the citations. Red flag number one is an article that cites the authors a bunch of time. Red flag number two, and unfortunately this takes a while to discern, is the body of work the article cites. If it cites a bunch of circular articles that are all citing each other, this is also a bit of a flag. But, at the same time, a lot of niche research tends to be done by a group of people (who generally all know each other). So discerning these two features takes a bit of practice. Generally, you want to look for work that both cites the specific, niche topical papers, and also situates its work within the broader context of things. Double checking the discussion section for a self-critique can also help bloster the credibility of a paper.
'Storm, I've been searching google scholar for like an hour now and I can't find the answer to this weird niche question I have' -- This is, unfortuantely, a very likely place you may end up. Research is limited, and the more niche and complex your questions get, the more likely you are to discover something that we just don't know (though, maybe you could do a PhD on it and try and answer the question--at least, if science was being funded right now...). Now, especially when it comes to health, this is where anecdotal evidence (like reddit threads) can help, but be wary of longitude. Has the topic been brought up within the past two years? Or have we at least been talking about it for five or so (like Covid-19)? The more removed from an initial trend something is, the better we can understand the actual longer-term effects of an action or occurance in health.

This isn't a perfect list of research, but thus armed, I began to delve into the weird world of protein supplements.

What is the point of protein?

Like all macronutrients, protein serves a specific purpose: the building block structure of that which makes up your muscles. Without protein, muscles won't grow. Therefore, you need protein to upkeep the muscles in your body. However, this requirement can vary considerably in your activity level. I actually think the wikipedia article for protein as a nutrient has a pretty good overview of the variations this can take.

Crucially, protein requirements can vary based on your activity level. As someone who got into weight lifting in 2025, my protein requirements went up. Any time you're seeking to build muscle, your protein requirements increase. Though I have some qualms with the book, Casey Johnston's A Physical Education does a really nice overview of the dietary requirements going into lifting. Crucially, you don't just need protein. You kinda...need more of everything: calories in general, carbohydrates for quick energy, fats for longer-term energy reserves, and fiber, to help keep things moving through your body. Protein makes up one component of that.

Now, back to the Dietary Guidlines for Americans guidance. You don't have to listen to these (I certainly rarely pay attention to them), but these guidelines have huge implications: they're used to guide food available for SNAP and WIC, and they're used to guide public school lunches. So unfortunately, they are a pretty big deal.

Personally, I am very skeptical of this update. The most dramatic change was updating protein requirements from "0.36 grams per pound of body weight to between 0.54 and 0.73 grams per pound of body weight" (another breakdown here). So, let's do the math. I used a protein chart from CSPI to help me calculate. For me, who weighs around 150 lbs (last I checked), this would be an increase from 54g of protein a day (the equivalent of just under 3 servings of chicken, 4 servings of greek yoghurt, or 5 servings of salmon) to (at most) 109g. That's a pretty big difference -- basically twice the ammount. It is common advice in lifting that if you're looking to build muscle, aim to eat 1g/1lb of body weight. Even I think that is maybe overkill, and it seems like research is pointing towards 0.7g. So basically, our government is telling us we now need to eat as much protein as we were if we were weight lifting. I simply don't believe that is necessary.

Sure, we could argue that Americans are plagued by obesity. Americans are plagued by heart disease. Blah blah blah. But I simply don't believe there is a one-size-fits-all approach to finding a healthy lifestyle. There are a lot of different ways to do it. I do think getting enough excersize (and you should be aiming to try and get one or two boughts of truely sweating excersize, like lifting, rock climbing, or intense dance, coupled with some more low-key forms such as long walks, hatha yoga, or biking to work) is key. I think eating healthy, and eating a variety of foods is key. I think avoiding foods linked to cancer, and limiting foods associated with high levels of toxins (like my beloved tuna, which tends to have higher levels of mercury) is key. I think eating a lot of vegetables is simply always key. But each of these things is going to look different for each person. And crucially, you should never be aiming to 'lose weight' or 'look a certain way' in excersizing. The goal should be to be more fit, and live a healthier lifestyle. As discussed in Casey's book, often times when beginning a new excersize program, you're not even going to lose that much weight -- your body will be reconstituting. Fat will be transformed into muscle. This happened to me when I began lifting--in total sum, I went from about 150 down to 145, but my body was very different on the inside. These are the types of things, at least in my experience, you're looking to expect. And to be quite honest, the heroin-chique of the 90's was never that appealing to me anyway.

No shakes -- how much protein am I actually getting?

Right, so the main point of this blog. I found that drinking a protein shake post workout, at least for me, slightly reduces muscle soreness, staves of intense hunger pangs immediately post workout, and helps me keep a slightly higher level of protein reserves in my system. To give an example, these are typically the types of things I eat without protein shakes (and keep in mind, I eat pescatarian, with an emphasis on veg):

Breakfast: greek yoghurt + granola, with some nuts and berries sprinkled in (~30g protein)
Breakfast: 2 eggs + cheese in a breakfast wrap (~22g protein)
Lunch: Salad wrap with hummus, chick peas, pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds, or tofu (some combo of these usually works out to ~10g protein)
Lunch: Classic chili with black beans and cheese on top (~12g protein)
Lunch: Canned tuna and cucumber onigiri (~18g protein)
Dinner: Broiled salmon or seared tuna steak with potatos and brussels sprouts (~11-15g protein)
Dinner: Red curry with chick peas and tofu (~16g protein)
Dinner: Black bean burritos with avocado, cheese and pico de gallo (~13g protein)

Right so, on a 'minimum protein' day, even with sneaking in a protein bar with my lunch, I'm getting around 50g of protein a day. Which I'd say is still pretty good. On an average day, I'm getting closer to aboug 60g. On a high protein day, even without supplementing with a shake, I'm getting 75g a day, which is just under approximately the ammount I'm aiming for if I'm looking to build muscle. Thus, the protein shake. Pretty much every single shake will net you 30g protein, bringing me up to (on a high protein day, which I eat if I lift that day) 105g. Perfect.

My actual protein shake recommendations

True blue weight lifters generally tend to make their own protein blends (which I think in the long run is the cheaper method, plus you can really be honed in on your macronutrients blah blah blah I don't care), however I am ~ LaZy ~, so I was looking for the best bang for my buck in terms of ready-made protein shakes you can pick up in the 'nutrition isle' (typically where the first aid supplies and over the counter meds are). Initially, I was actually drinking Ensure Max Protein shakes, which are not actually protein shakes, but nutrition shakes. This is an important distinction, because the FDA regulates them differently. Some people may be familiar with Ensure--they're given to people struggling to meet nutrition minimums, such as the elderly, people in hospitals and psych wards, people struggling with EDs, etc. My mom bought them for my grandmother for similar reasons, and my mom liked to keep a few in the fridge for days she didn't quite have enough time to have lunch or breakfast. Anyway, these are fine. They taste ok, and they pack 30g of protein in for 1g of sugar. However, I was immediately ground to a halt when Consumer Reports published an article about lead in protein shakes. Uh oh.

If you check out the article, Ensure is on the list under 'ok to eat occasionally', but the plant-based version rather than the dairy version. And, most of this article is plant-based protein. This is because plants grow in the soil, and if the soil has high levels of heavy metals, the plants can absorb these heavy metals as they grow. And...well, let's just say most of these manufacturers aren't exactly using sustainable methods to grow their stuff. Though, there are tradeoffs with dairy based protein vs plant based protein. I don't really care which I eat, as long as I'm a) meeting my nutrient goals and b) the shake is of high quality.

Plus, I wanted to move away from Ensure anyway. Their shakes contain sucralose, which is theoretically not linked to cancer, but I've always been skeptical of artificial sweeteners (ie, some conflicting evidence). They also contain ~ sEeD oILs ~, which are currently being demonized by MAHA (which I am also skeptical of). Anyway, I started digging into some common alternatives and found a few that kept cropping up:

Fairlife shakes: seems promising, but the company has been accused multiple times of animal abuse, and these claims are backed up by (CW: animal abuse) significant evidence. Hell no.
Premiere Protein: you can find these at pretty much every store. I haven't heard company negatives, but the ingredients list also has the same issues as Ensure. No.
Muscle milk: appears on the CR's lead list. No.
Pioneer Pastures: Ugh, I hate that I found this when looking through a MAHA instagram (@maha.girls, credit where credit is due--but practice skepticism here going in), but I will not lie, I investigated their website and found the shake to be pretty much what I was looking for. No raw milk (which is always a danger with MAHA), no abuse alegations, and a good ingredients list. Plus this whole 'A2 vs A1' milk protein sort of deal, which is a theoretically easier-to-digest milk protein. The only con is, you pay for what you get--a 4 pack at target of these babys cost me $13.
OWYN: This popped up on a lot of 'best shake' lists, and also cleared the CR lead list as 'better choices for daily consumption'. Even better, a 4 pack at target cost me $8.

Now, for the actual reviews:

Pioneer Pastures: Their website definitely has kind of weird vibes, but I picked up a pack for $13 at target and taste-tested the shake. Drank post-workout refrigerated, chocolate flavor. Generally, it tastes like a standard protein shake. Definitely didn't have a super 'artificial' front taste, but the aftertaste lingered a little bit bitter (not quite the sucralose taste of Ensure, but not unlike it). No chalky texture you sometimes get with shakes. Generally decent, but the aftertaste definitely surprised me. 30g protein, 2g sugar, 160 calories (a pretty standard shake lineup). 8/10.

OWYN: Definitely more my ally. I won't lie, there was an appeal of a vegan shake over a dairy shake for me personally, and the cheaper price point of $8 for a pack at target was definitely nice. Drank post-workout refrigerated, chocolate flavor. You can definitely tell this is a plant-based shake rather than a dairy shake, and I would say the mouthfeel is ever so slightly worse than Pioneer, but still quite good. No chalk, and crucially, though there is an aftertaste, it wasn't that weird bitter aftertaste of Pioneer. 32g protein, 0g sugar, 200 cal (so, slightly more protein and less sugar, but more calories, which to me is a pretty insigificant trade-off). 9/10.

Moving forward I plan to be rocking OWYN shakes. I drink 2 of these a week on my heavy lifting days, but back when I was working out 4 times a week I was literally drinking 4 shakes a week. I don't think it's a bad idea to introduce variety even here, so I might trade off OWYN with Pioneer every so often so I don't get too tired of it. But I kind of like having two good shakes at my disposal, one dairy and one vegan. Feels like a good variety.

Thanks for tuning in! I wrote this initially because despite my lengthy internet searches for a decent shake, I kept getting the same protein shake brands over and over again, so I hope this deep dive into protein and shakes and nutrition is useful to someone, cause I've certainly been thinking about it a lot. I'm hopefully gonna get at least one more blog in before the end of the year, if not a few more. Stay tuned.

Peace and love, XOXO Storm