the contemporary shopping lifestyle

Ever since I started playing football back in high school I’ve been infatuated with health and fitness. Not only has working out been a part of my daily routine for the past ten years, but I’ve also constantly been soaking up as much knowledge about health and fitness as I could get my hands on. Of course - as anyone who becomes serious about lifting realizes - exercise is only a small portion of a successful workout: what you eat and when you eat plays at least as important of a factor in your results.

As I began to take my diet more seriously in college, I started supplementing it with whey protein powder. To get the protein your muscle needs, it’s nice to have options other than chicken, turkey, fish, and beef. For those who don’t know: whey protein is a by-product of milk and in many cases is vegan approved because it is manufactured without animals using a derivative enzyme*. I am mildly lactose intolerant and I’ve never once had an issue with protein digesting any differently than a glass of skim milk.

In my five years or so of taking whey protein I’ve primarily used two brands: EAS and All the Whey (ATW). I’ve settled in now on using ATW Whey Protein Isolate (I prefer to pay a little extra for a refined isolate), but for many years bounced back and forth between EAS 100% Whey Protein and ATW Whey Protein Blend.

I was first turned on to All the Whey brand several years ago by George - one of my partners here at Tastefully Driven. When we launched the site we decided to exclusively carry ATW products because they are by far the best of anything either of us has ever used. For the purposes of this comparison, I’m going to break down a 5lb. EAS 100% Whey Protein vs. a 5 lb. ATW Whey Protein Blend. In both instances I chose chocolate because 99% of the time I’ve purchased protein it has been chocolate flavored.

First the objective facts:

**Cost: EAS: $53.99 vs. ATW: $51.78

Servings/package: EAS: 75 vs. ATW: 80

Serving size: EAS: 30 g vs. ATW: 28.4 g

Calories/serving: EAS: 120 vs. ATW: 108

Total Carbohydrates: EAS: 3 g vs. ATW: 1 g

Cholesterol: EAS: 65 mg vs. ATW: 22 mg

Protein: EAS: 23 g vs. ATW: 22 g

It’s certainly close, and you can’t go wrong either way, but I prefer All the Whey. Smaller serving sizes (more servings per container), less calories, a lot less cholesterol, a little less carbs, and only 1 g fewer protein. Obviously if the serving size was the same, a lot of this would even out - with the exception of the cholesterol. If you have 2 scoops a day of the EAS you’re consuming almost 50% of the recommended daily value of cholesterol! That alone breaks the tie for me.

The one subjective element in selecting a protein powder is taste. Let’s be honest: no matter how beneficial something is you aren’t going to mix it into your milk, yogurt, shakes, etc if it tastes like crap. Taste is where hands down I give ATW the edge. EAS doesn’t taste bad, but you can still taste the protein. All the Whey has a much richer chocolate flavor…almost like the difference between hot chocolate made with powder and hot chocolate made by melting a Hershey’s bar. If you mix a shake of each with just milk and protein and look at it, ATW will be noticeably darker.

If you’re reading this there’s a good chance that you’ve been using EAS Whey Protein or were thinking about picking some up. If you’re a regular EAS user, give All the Whey a shot and let us know what you think: I’m guessing you won’t be disappointed. If you’re a newbie and are unsure of what brand to buy, give both a try to see which one you personally prefer.

*Taken from the All the Whey Manufacturing process

**prices taken from Drugstore.com for EAS product. All the Whey product is listed at MSRP. Many times on our site and on other sites, you can find each of these products cheaper than this, but this is a good baseline to work from.