Ok, so what are the differences?
Well, when you're choosing which protein supplement to buy, the first thing you should do is check that it is in fact whey protein that you are purchasing. This is because whey protein is quite simple the best quality protein that your money can buy. All food has a value called the Biological Value (BV). The BV is a measure of the absorbed protein from a food that can become incorporated with the proteins in your body. Put simply, it's the amount of usable protein that is contained within a food. Here is a quick list of the BV of a few foods compaired to each other:
Foods Biological Value (BV)
Isolated Whey Protein: 100
Whole bean: 96
Whole Soy Bean: 96
Human milk: 95
Chicken egg: 94
Soybean milk: 91
Cow milk: 90
Cheese: 84
Defatted soy flour: 81
Fish: 76
Beef: 74.3
As you can see, even when compaired to foods that are excelent sources of protein such as eggs, milk and beef, Whey Protein has the highest usable protein in it. Other types of protein powder can include casein, this is derived from dairy products, and is the same protein that you find in milk and cheese. Although this protein is still good for you, it is of inferior quality to Whey. In head to head tests Whey improved performance more, and helped lose fat more than the casein. French research shows that whey proteincan lead to a massive 119% greater increase in muscle growth than the milk protein (casein) found in a lot of protein powders. On top of that, some European researchers found that whey protein slows the muscle wasting hormone cortisol. In short, whey protein quickly is absorbed faster in to the bloodstream, and once it is in there it does a better job.
Which Whey Protein, Concentrate, or Isolate?
If you want to make sure that you are getting the absolute best when you pick which whey protein to have, you should go for Whey Protein Isolate rather than Whey Protein Concentrate. When you campaire the two to each other, you find that Whey Protein Isolate is usually more expensive than the Whey protein isolate. It is also a slightly higher quality, and has less fat per serving than the Whey Protein Concentrate. The question is, is the higher price worth it? In most cases I would say no, as the concentrate is still exceptionally good quality. There is also quite often a mix of the two in a supplement, which could be a good compromise.
Cost, and amounts of Whey Protein
After finding a supplement with the correct type of protein, the next thing you need to know is the percentage of whey protein in each serving. This is usually measured in grams, and generally the more the better! Keep in mind however that the number of servings, and overall price varies from product to product, and this also needs to be taken in to consideration. You should be able to do a quick calculation as to which are the more expensive, and which are the better value protein supplements quite easily. As a general rule, if you are training hard then you want to be taking about 1gram of protein per pound that you weigh per day. This should be no more than half supplement. For example, if you weigh 200lbs, you would want to take in around 200grams of protein a day, with at least 100grams of that being from food, and any of the rest being from suplements.
The other things that will probably be in the supplements that you are looking at are carbohydrates, and maby some fats. In general, if you are looking to lose weight, then you need to be cutting down on these two, and if you are bulking then you want to have more cards for fuel to burn, and either a little, or no fat.
And Finally!
The final thing that you need to consider when deciding which whey protein to buy is its taste! This may seem like a trivial thing to some people, but believe me, after youve been drinking the stuff for a year or more, you will want somthing that you actually like.