Product Review - Premier Protein

One of the vendor tables at the WLSFA Meet & Greet last month included Premier Nutrition, and like a good vendor does, they brought samples! They were pouring up samples of their ready to drink (RTD) protein shake that come in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

Now I’ll admit off the bat, I haven’t tried that many RTDs… cause honestly, nobody wants to buy a 4-pack or 6-pack and be stuck with something they don’t like. But over the last couple years there are a few that I have tried that just … well, let’s just say they’ve left a bad taste in my mouth. Literally and figuratively. You know what I’m talking about… that just plain blechy, proteiny after-taste. I still have one left from a 4-pack I bought about 6 months ago sitting in the fridge waiting for someone to pawn it off on. So yea, I actually kind of avoided stopping at their table for most of the day.

It was after lunch when I finally did stop by and grabbed up a shot of chocolate… and was very pleasantly surprised. There was none of that protein-powder smell and no blechy after-taste. The chocolate flavor was subtle, not over powering, not too sweet. I stopped back again towards the end of the day, gave Charlene one of my FFD cards and checked out the package some more. She also gave me one of the strawberry shakes to take with me… and unfortunately I put it on ice Sunday night, planning to drink it Monday and spaced out, leaving it in my ice bucket as I checked out.

The drinks pack 30g of protein in to 11 ounces along with 2g net carbs (5 total) with just 1g coming from sugar (and no sugar alcohols!) along with 3g of fat for a total of 160 Calories. Not too shabby. They also pack about 25% of the RDI for most of your usual vitamins and they seem to be in pretty RNY friendly forms (such as Vitamin A Palmitate, Cynocobalamin for your B12) and the protein is whey based. So yea, it’s not going to replace a dose of your multi-vit, but it’s good to know that what it does give you is in a form that we can make use of. The stats seem pretty much the same no matter what flavor, and the only ingredient I’m really wondering about is the sunflower oil… not sure why that’s in there… but at just 3g of fat it can’t be that much.

They carry the chocolate at Costco, and according to their website also at Sam’s Club. Charlene said in the fall they carry the vanilla too, otherwise you can get any of them, including the strawberry direct from their website at premiernutrition.com - and no matter where you get them, they tend to run just over $1.50 per drink. Sam’s and Costco carry 12-packs or you can get 18-packs online.

Now, I did contact them after Vegas about donating to my Dash From Obesity fundraiser, and they did donate a case each of the three flavors… and she also sent me a case of the strawberry to try out as well as a box of their Titan High Protein Bar - I need to disclose they were sent to me free of charge. I also have to admit, I asked about their Titan Protein Cookies, and thought they were sending me those… I’m really curious about them cause oatmeal raisin cookies are one of my “weaknesses”. I was hoping for just one to try out to see if they’re worth ordering. I may have to break down and just order a box to try. I’ll do a write up about the bars another time though.

Anyways, back to the strawberry - like the chocolate, they have no aftertastes, it’s a light berry flavor. Oh, the consistency on these is… not watery, but they’re not a thick shake either. I suppose it’s on par with drinking a glass of skim milk, so in that regard I’m not sure that something like this would work as a meal replacement, just don’t see it as being all that filling for very long.

But, this would make a good choice for those early post-ops in the liquid stage, and later on a decent snack or good for after a work out to replenish some protein without a huge amount of calories.

Personally, I’ll plan on keeping some of these in the fridge for a something that’s ‘grab and go’ when I know I need to kick up my protein for the day or to toss in the cooler and have with when I’m out on the paintball field.

Photo Credit: Premier Nutrition (twitter - facebook)