BF Review: Everlast Hyperplex Protein (Chocolate)

First, I should say that I don’t do the most scientific product reviews in the world. Sure, I try to commit to trying stuff plain and paying attention to how it his my palet, but on the overall, I kinda wing it.

Well today I REALLY winged it and now I sort of regret that.

Why? Well because I stumbled onto something really good and I have no idea how. Had I took my time and even just what I usually do, I’d be able to tell you HOW it came to be that I made this discovery.

I mean, hell, even serendipity has some rhyme and reason.

Anyhoo…Everlast Hyperplex Protein. I picked up a few samples when I was at the Vitamin Shoppe the other day. What’s interesting to me is this is a protein that seems a little more geared toward body building, but the carbs and sugar are not off the hook (as they certainly can be with body building powders).

Right from the onset I got the feeling this was a “man powder.” Look at the packaging.

That does NOT scream “chick shake” to me (conversely, I somehow imagine Click-loving men quietly buying and concealing their purchases…but that’s a whole other post).

So here’s the stats on the stuff:

Serving Size: 1 scoop (42g)
Calories: 160
Calories from fat: 25
Total Fat: 3g
Saturated Fat: 1g
Carbohydrates: 9g
Sugars: 2g
Protein: 25g

A word about this. The amount of calories seems a little on the high end to me, especially if you are a milk based shake drinker, but the fat actually came in pretty good. I was taught that for any food, you don’t want the calories from fat to be more than 50% of the total calories. For my fat dumping pouch, the threshold is even higher. Your mileage may vary.

Now the ingredients list:

A sustained release ultra-premimum protin matrix comprised of microfiltered whey protein isolate, ultrafiltered whey protein concentrate, Milk protein isolate, Parially hydrolized whey protein, Beta Caseins and Caseinates, cocoa powder, sunflower creamer (? – that’s a new one on the Nikster), Sucralose… (ellipses means they get into the litany of stuff I can neither pronounce nor describe well, but it is noteworthy that they all appeared to be vitamin content of some kind).

The thing I’m most unsure of is this whole “sustained release protein” thing. In general, patients with malabsorptive procedures want to stay away from sustained release anything. But then the ingredients list doesn’t look that different from the protein I’ve used up to this point, so I have no clue if my current protein is sustained or fast release. For their part, Everlast gave us a handy flow chart:

Yeah…I found that about as helpful as you did. But let’s be brave and forge ahead, shall we?

I opened the packet and sniffed (before I had heard of Melting Mama, I never thought to do this). No whey smell. No overwhelmingly chocolate smell either. But that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes chocolate protein powders try too hard to be chocolatey. That sort of pisses me off. I KNOW this isn’t going to be hand dipped chocolate shake, so let’s not kid ourselves, ok?

Here’s where I started to eff up the scientific process. I decided, since I just had the one sample (I tried to get another but the register lady at Vitamin Shoppe was not having it) that I wanted to make a normal shake and see how I liked it. Now, with the higher calories, I decided to pull a few tools out of my arsenal (read: fridge).

Hood Calorie Countdown chocolate milk! Have you guys ever had this? OMG. So good! And about the same calories as your skim milk, with less calories and carbs than your skim milk and here’s the kicker…it actually TASTES like chocolate milk. S’anyway…I decided to use this, the protein, and the last bit of my Cafe Bustelo decaffeinated instant espresso to make a Decaf Mochaccino.

So I blend. It came out sort of like any other shake. It was creamier and thicker, with less froth (although it did bubble considerably).

Threw in my ice and blended again (as per the Triple X method) and tasted it and…

I kid you not, I am picking up brownie batter. Seriously. And I don’t know if it is the Hood milk or this protein powder or what and that fact is driving me a bit batty. For the record, I use the Hood milk quite often and none of my other drinks read as brownie batter so…I don’t know. All I know is that in general I’m not a batter lickin’ gal EXCEPT for brownie batter. In my former life I could go to town on some brownie batter.

So anyhoo…this shake was good. I just finished it. With a dollop of fat free whippage on top, of course (OF COURSE).

The essential question is though…would I buy a whole container? Sure. If I had some extra money in my protein budget I certainly would. Right now I’m still working on the 80 cabillion containers of powder you guys sent me after last summer’s “po po incident” so it’ll be a while before I need more.

But for what it’s worth this stuff is very pleasant and God bless them for the smell of it. AND, as an added bonus, it’s something that, when I meet my future husband who is willing to go to the store for my protein, he will not be ashamed to carry home with pride!

Verdict: Diva says Divine!