|
| The Complete Guide to Protein |
|
|
|
Buying a Protein Supplement isn’t exactly rocket science; though if you don’t look further than just the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat per serve, you may purchase too much for your needs or even worse too little. Please read over the following information below carefully and you will never have to worry about making the wrong protein choice again!
You should also plan on eating some extra protein (roughly 1.0 – 1.2g/kg/day) if you’re trying to lose weight on higher-protein, lower carbohydrate diets, as some of the amino acids will be burned for fuel. These amounts include all of the protein consumed through foods, beverages, and supplements. What’s more, your daily protein allotment should be spread out over 5-6 smaller meals to enhance absorption and utilization. If you’re a big meat, fish, poultry, egg, and dairy food eater, you can probably get by with a smaller “hit” of protein from your powdered mix. Vegetarians and others who eat lots of starchy foods will benefit more from a higher-protein formula.
Because different protein supplements can benefit different parts of the day, you may wish to utilize more than one protein supplement to further fast track your nutritional performance goals. An example of this being you might use a fast-acting whey protein first thing in the morning and 30 minutes before workouts, a recovery product containing protein plus carbohydrates immediately after workouts and a slower absorbing protein at bedtime for sustained amino acid delivery throughout the night while you sleep.
Now here is where you have to be honest to yourself. Even if you can afford to purchase multiple products to service these individual delivery times, are you the type of person who is disciplined enough to follow such a regime? If you answered “no”, consider a protein blend such as SP3 or Pro-Petite formulated to be utilized anytime of day. While not being as extremely fast or slow absorbing as some of the other products, blends such as this offer many of the desirable qualities that a variety of different proteins can offer.
There are various tricks brands use to persuade consumers in purchasing lower quality products to improve their profit margins. Syn-Tec Online was designed with the purpose of teaching all about these misconceptions, while providing everyone with the highest quality formulas and ingredients to enhance their nutritional and performance needs. Whenever you purchase Protein Supplements please read your labels very carefully. By following each of the tricks detailed and explained bellow, you will never need to worry about choosing a lower grade protein again.
AMOUNT OF PROTEIN PER SERVING
The number of grams of protein per serving is probably the most important aspect of protein powders. Seems obvious but many people overlook this step assuming that either all proteins are about the same or that the most expensive and highly marketed powders contain more protein. Don’t make this mistake; check the Nutritional Facts Panel to make sure you’re getting what you paid for. Companies now are also choosing to increase their serving size, while also increasing the protein per serve this increases fats and carbohydrates per serve as well. To see the protein quality percentage of a product, look at the amount of Protein per 100 grams located on the Nutritional Facts Panel. (75 grams of protein per 100 grams = 75% Protein)
NUMBER OF SERVINGS PER CONTAINER
Pay attention to this number. Watch out for brands that cut costs with cheap “filler” ingredients. Brands may offer you savings when buying bulk products in 4, 5 & 10kg containers, though when you calculate the amount servings, you may end up getting significantly fewer servings than you would with a more reputable product at the same price. Find out how much actual Protein you are purchasing in each product rather than the size of the product by multiplying the amount of protein per serve and the amount of servings in the product.
WHEY PROTEIN PROCESSING METHODS
This is probably the most over looked way to assure that you are purchasing a quality product.
There are two main components of milk protein:
1) Casein
2) Whey Protein
Whey protein in the most part is a by product of cheese manufacturing. The casein coagulates and separates leaving raw whey uncurded on top of the casein. The casein is a very rich source of protein and natural vitamins etc as it has not been denatured in any way.
The whey however, undergoes various processing steps and it is these processing steps which determine the quality of the whey protein in the end product.
During the processing, fat and lactose (milk sugar) are filtered out to make a lower fat, lower carbohydrate and higher protein powder. The final protein content in a whey product can range from 30% to 95% depending on the filtering process used. The higher the protein content on a gram per gram basis, the more processing (filtering) is needed. When a whey protein count is greater than 85% in protein concentration, it is considered to be WPI (whey protein isolate). Less than 85% and it is considered to be WPC (whey protein concentrate).
During filtration, low molecular weight compounds such as lactose is removed. The protein becomes more concentrated. The two basic methods used to process whey protein into Whey protein isolate are:
1) Ion Exchange
2) Micro filtration / Ultra filtration
Ion Exchange / Cation Exchange
Ionic exchange processing involves separating proteins based on their electrical charge. The chemicals hydrochloric acid (battery acid) and sodium hydroxide (salt water) are used in this process. The whey protein is mixed in the solution of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide and an electrical charge is run through the solution. The protein attaches to the electrical reaction vessel and this is the result is raw WPI being collected and harvested. However, because of the chemical reagents used, pH sensitive protein fractions are damaged and some amino acids are denatured. Some protein fractions that become denatured are:
1) Glycomacropeptides (GMP’s) – biologically active proteins which have a positive effect on the digestive system, antiviral activity, improved calcium absorption and enhanced immune function.
2) Immunoglobiums – antibodies for immune boosting.
3) Lactoferrin – has anti viral and anti microbial properties, anti cancer and immune enhancing effects.
4) Alpha lactalbumin – contains large amounts of essential amino acids.
As you can see, a lot of the good stuff is lost with the ion exchange process. One benefit of ion exchange processing is that the end product has less fat and lactose (sugar) and in some instances higher in BCAA compared to ultra filtered proteins and this is a heavily marketed ploy to get consumers to buy these products, despite the disadvantages of this process which denatures many of the other protein sub fractions such as Lactalbumin, Lactoglobulin and Glycomacroptides and increases the sodium (salt count) to higher levels when compared to ultra filtrated whey protein.
Foot Note:
In some cases a supplement brand maybe using ion exchange WPI in their formula without you even knowing. The label may just list WPI or instanized WPI without the word ionised in front of it. Instanized WPI is WPI from any source which has lecithin sprayed on to it so that the protein does not stick together. This enables an easy mixing formula. An easy way to identify if your protein brand maybe using ionised WPI in stealth is to take a look at the nutritional panel and look at the sodium (salt) content. A high sodium count compared to the potassium count normally is the sign that ion exchange whey maybe present. Micro or ultra filtered WPI will have extremely low sodium counts compared to potassium.
Micro filtration / Ultra filtration
The other type of processing and filtering whey is a method called microfiltration and or ultrafiltration. Micro and ultrafiltration are very similar. The main difference between them is the average pore size of the filtration membranes. Microfiltration membranes are about one micrometer, which is very small. However, ultrafiltration membrane is about 4 times smaller than microflitation at about 250 nanometers or (0.25 micrometer). Ultra Filtration is superior providing a finer and smoother mixing powder as has been witnessed by many Syn-Tec customers who have made comment on this observation alone.
In this process the whey protein is flowed over the membranes (cross flowed is a term often used) and is forced through the membranes where natural ceramic filters are used to separate the whey protein from the raw protein solution. Undesirable components such as fat and lactose are filtered out. The particles are separated based on their molecular size and shape. This results in a micro or ultra filtrated WPI. No heat or electricity is used so no harm is done to the protein on a sub molecular level.
The key advantages to this processing method include:
1) Minimal denaturing of protein
2) Preserved protein fractions
3) Better amino acid profile
4) Contains more calcium and less sodium
5) Does not damage the many immune boosting components such as alpha lactalbumin, immunoglobulins and Glycomacropeptides.
6) Has the highest level of undenatured protein available.
So in a nut shell, it is Syn-Tec’s opinion that Micro Filtered and or Ultra filtered whey protein isolate is the best quality as it is a whole undenatured protein source. The way nature intended it to be.
Syn-Tec Nutriceuticals never sacrifices on quality and only uses micro / ultra filtered whey protein isolate where required. NO ion exchange WPI is ever used in Syn-Tec formulas for reasons now self explainable to you all. Check out any Syn-Tec protein powder nutritional label and do the sodium versed potassium test for your self. Then take a look at other leading brands for comparison.
Now, just a little bit on hydrolyzed whey protein isolate.
Hydrolyzed whey protein isolate is usually a WPI that has had some of its amino acid peptides broken enzymatically into shorter chains of amino acids. This aids in better absorption in the stomach. However, it is not popular because of its horrible taste due to the hydrolysis process making the whey taste bitter. Generally, hydrolyzed whey protein formulas will be no more than 20% hydrolyzed due to the bitter taste and increased cost to the manufacturer. The more that goes in the formula, the worse the taste and more expensive it gets. Unfortunately with many USA brands you will never know what percentage of the protein is hydrolyzed, as the manufactures will never put the actual amount on their label. It is usually just a token amount so it can be represented in the marketing of the formula. This often is the case too, with some other manufacturers WPI blends who mix ionised with micro filtered whey, but only highlight the micro filtered on their label.
Companies such as Syn-Tec and other leading New Zealand brands are now adding protein digestive enzymes such as Bromelain to many of their protein formulas which help with the digestion process and greatly increase the bioavailability of the protein source in their formulas. There is no real need for hydrolyzed whey to be used when micro filtered whey is the protein source, due to the natural protein fractions being present which aid the natural digestion process.
|
|
|
|
|
