I bought the TrueNutrition.com 38 Flavor sample pack and ran through all 38 flavors. My experience with each is documented across 38 individual postings, made after I tried each flavor.

Overall I was impressed. The flavors are of course going to be artificial in nature, some lending towards being reminiscent of kid cereal or candy. That’s not a bad thing, just a question of your palate. For me, that made a lot of the flavors not to my liking. The kid in me wanted to like them, and I could see perhaps having one or two drinks of them, but buying 10# of whey isolate in bulk and having to go through 90 servings well… it needs to be a flavor I can handle. But that said, given the structure of TrueNutrition’s business, I see no reason why I can’t buy 10# of a staple flavor and a few 1#’s of fun flavors for some variety. In fact, I plan on doing just that.

I reckon many are flavored with artificial sweeteners, due to 1. the aftertaste in my mouth, 2. given this is sold for “health reasons” a lot of those folks aren’t going to want the calories a natural sweetener would bring. I should note these are 100% of the flavors offered by TrueNutrition, because when you look at say the whey protein isolate and hit the menu for flavors, there’s a lot more than 38. Some of those are specifically listed as unsweetened, and I might be curious to try some of those because I honestly do not like artificial sweeteners and would prefer to avoid them. I’d be curious if the unsweetened mixed in milk would be alright, because the milk might be sweet enough. Or if not, adding a pinch of raw sugar is just fine with me. Besides, adding any flavors adds to the price, and I reckon a pinch of sugar is going to be a LOT cheaper.

Ah, I knew they had this on their website somewhere. From their FAQ section:

What are the ingredients in your Premium Flavor systems?

The Premium Flavor line will contain the following list of ingredients:

Ingredients: Natural and artificial coloring and flavoring, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose, Modified Food Starch, Silicon Dioxide, Maltodextrin.

These flavor systems will not contain any lactose, soy, wheat gluten, or animal byproducts whatsoever.

What are the ingredients in your Natural Premium flavor systems?

The Natural Premium Flavor line will contain the following list of ingredients:

Ingredients: Natural coloring and flavoring, Stevia natural herbal sweetener, Maltodextrin.

These flavor systems will not contain any lactose, soy, wheat gluten, or animal byproducts whatsoever.

What are the ingredients in your standard Unsweetened flavoring options?

The standard Unsweetened flavoring options will be left completely unsweetened unless you select a sweetener in the Sweeteners drop down menu that appears below the Flavoring drop down menu. The ingredients for the Unsweetened flavors are:

Natural and Artificial flavoring, Modified Food Starch, Silicon Dioxide, Maltodextrin.

So there you go. I’ve never tried Stevia so I might give that a shot just to experiment. I am kinda curious what the flavoring is in the unsweetened stuff….

Anyways, my current plan is to buy a few more options in 1# tubs and try the flavor over time. One taste isn’t always enough to judge, plus it will let me try the flavor in different bases like water or milk or a shake with other ingredients.

I’m going to try:

• Plain – just because. I’ve only ever been able to get flavored whey before, and it’d be nice to see what plain “non-enhanced” tastes like and how that could factor into cooking.
• Chocolate – unsweetened. Try it straight up. Try it with a little sugar. Try it with other things.
• Chocolate – natural premium sweetener, because I’d like to try this Stevia stuff.
• Dutch Chocolate Fudge – premium. This was a favorite.
• Strawberry – unsweetened. So I can have another unsweetened taste point.
• Strawberries N Cream – premium flavoring, for comparison to the unsweetened strawberry, tho it won’t be a straight-up comparison. But I recall liking this one.
• Luscious Peach – premium. I liked this too.
• Wild Berry Blast – premium, because Daughter liked it.

So that’s a bunch more for me to try, but hopefully will give me a little more depth of exploration and firmer idea of what flavor I’d ultimately like to have as a staple. If nothing else, it’s fun and takes some of the boring routine out of whey consumption. 🙂