the enforcer

I have used a lot of Nurtisport products as im on a budget and they are a lot cheaper to some of the big named brands. As some brands are cheaper than others does this make them of less quality?

Wee G

I won't mention any specific brands here, so no one get's their panties in a twist but here's my 2 pence worth.

Supplement quality comes down to just 2 things.

1. Is what's on the label in the tub?

2. Is whats in the tub what should be in the tub?

These are dependant upon the supps brand itself (they are responsible for telling the printer what to put on the label and for deciding what ingredients to put in the tub) and the bulk manaufacturer of the raw powders ussed in the supps (are they really supplying what they say they are?).

Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here but generally speaking the branders are the source of the problem. Food manaufacturing companies just sell ingredients - the quality (ie impurity level, bacterial level, presence of contaminants etc) is very closely monitored in food manufacturing. The problem arises when the brander choses to cut costs by deliberately using a lower grade of product.

For instance lets look at a common trick. Imagine this is your MRP supplement tub ingredients...

Jobby-Pro Eleventy-Gillion Max MRP

1. Inca-carb XLT (propreitary blend of maltodextrin, waxy maize starch and vitargo)
2. Incapro 90 (propreitary blend of sweet whey powder, whey protein concentrate, whey isolate, BCAA and glutamine peptides)
3. Testo-ultramax 10 (proreitary blend of b12, zinc, HMB)
4. ....seperate listings of mg amount sof seperate vits and mins....

Serving size = 4 scoops.
Per serving
4,000 kcals etc etc


Now, according to food labeling laws I can now use advertising statements such as....

"Now with Whey protein isolate for higher BV!"
"Amazing all in 1-tub formula - Contains BCAA, HMB and glutamine peptides"
"Huge 4,000 kcals per serving with less than 5g fat"

The reality is that because of the phrase "propreitary blend" I only have state the order of ingredient size per BLEND, not per ingredient.

Above, the carb blend comes first, so it has to be the biggest ingrdient by weight. LEts say it is actually 80% of the product weight.

So, lets have a look at what "Inca-carb XLT" really is...
99% cheap high glycemic index maltodextrin, 0.5% waxy maize starch, 0.5% vitargo.

So just short of 80% of your tub is maltodextrin.

Moving on to the protein bend - sweet whey powder is about 11% protein, 75% lactose - worst **** you can imagine. Other will use WPC as a first ingredeint, but choose very low concentrate, say 65% protein. After that they might have just a gram or so of whey isolate, and mg amounts of BCAA and glutamine peptides. But it's all legal coause it's a propreitary blend.

Same goes for the test formula at the end - its gonna be a lot of vitamin B and not much else of the other ingredeints. Certainly not an effective dose.

So, thats one thing to watch for. Read the nutrition info label - if a "blend" of proteins is high on the ingredient list but the dry portein weight per 100g of total product is low (on the nutrition info lable) then the product quality is ****.

2.

More common scam now. They just lie and substitute out ingredients.

Company will claim it's product contains an ingredient when in fact it does not. Instead it will contain something else (cheaper) to mimic the effect of that ingredient. Good example is stating that your prodcut contains Creatine Ethyl ester when in fact it contains creatine monohydrate.

Worse still example - company claims the product contains a blend of herbs etc to stimulate natural test production, when in fact it contains 5mg of methyl-1-testosterone!

3. Third and final scam. They lie about doseage.

Product claims to provide 5g creatine per serving, but in inspection actually contains 4.5g per serving. No big loss to you ou might think but to a company selling 10,000 tubs thats a lot of creatine they didnt have to buy. Do that one on all expensive ingredients are you are making a much bigger profit margin.

Check your labels, see what adds up or not. Ask for a certificate of analysis from the company from the same batch you are using now or from a random batch.

Now, as to whether "cheaper" brands = corner cutting in my experience it simply means a lower marketing spend, lower product formulation spend, and lower food technology spend - and hence the same ingredients as any other manufacturer but tastes worse, mixes worse and sells for cheaper.

Cheers,

G

imworkingonit

Excellent post G

Due to this massive uncertainty over ingredients/quality I find that the best supplements are more steak, more chicken, more eggs and more rice,bread and potatoes. All with extra fruit and veg of course.

the enforcer

Youve made some good points there G. As you say its all a marketing scam to get more money and at the end of the day thats what business is all about. I spoke to a fella in a supplements shop and i asked him the same question. his response was "the cheaper products are no different from the more expensive ones like*.....". He showed me a well known brand that advertises heavily (we all know which one) and said the money your paying goes to paying for the specially shaped tub and the advertising used to promote the products, not for the actual protein.

The fella shouldnt have told me this really as the store want customers to buy the most expensive thing on the shelf but he knew that im young and on a budget. But, he was honest which a lot of stores wont be. Yet, people still buy the expensive stuff when there is far cheaper out there!

Tinytom

Well I would much prefer to use Muscletech stuff over Nutrisport or Multipower.

Yes mUscletech is very expensive but it actually funds research into its products. GAKIC and LEUKIC may nbe very expensive products but they are actually OK to use, the price is just majorly inflated.

Whereas a Multipower shake is just a base whey with about 10 spoons of sugar in.

Some brands are more expensive because they are actually quality products.

Personally if a product works for me then I will pay the money for it. Granted this requires a testing of a lot of supplements but eventually you build up a repertoire of supps that agree with you.

Personally I get on well with

CNP - most
Dorian Yates - not the NOX
Inner Armour - Sponsor me, dont like the choc fudge flavour protein.
MuscleTech - GAKIC and LEUKIC worked well but expensive.
BSN - CellMass and NOXPlode are very good, True MAss is fcuking lush but an expensive product
Trioplex - LOVE VERY BERRY BARS
NX LAbs - VERY good products here, ANAVOL and PLASMAVOL are awesome innovative products and Methyl Ripped is one of the best fat burners I've used.
Nutrex - Lipo6X is an awesome product
Vitargo barley stach - A must have IMO for the competitive athlete
MyProtein - Activated Barley and Egg whites are very good products


Thats a selection of my favourites

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Kezz

i generally use CNP but am using strydom professionals lean muscle protein, pump power nox/ cee at the moment and find it ok but i use pro peptide every day too

Wee G

Product design is a whole other question Tom, on that one most of the cheaper brands have a smaller or non-existant product development budget and so tend to sell a copy-cat supplement for a lesser price.

Multipower are just cheap, full stop..lol. Ooops I mentioned a brand and I said I wasn't gonna!

For me, if what it says on the tin is in the tin, it's fine - just down to the consumer then to KNOW what he / she wants to put in his / her body and why!

Cheers,

G.

NeilpWest

Hi tiny tom what is the Methyl Ripped like did it cut fat of your stomache well without losing muscle and appitite? I do cardio but dont get time to do it to much aweek so wanted to try somthing like this if its any good. my bf is 16% would like to get it down to 12.
Cheers

Tinytom

I used it while dieting mate.

I noticed a definate pick up in my metaoblism but then when dieting that could be anything.

Good product

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myprotein.co.uk

Something we have always said since we started:

"Ingredients don't lie, marketing hype can..."

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Chris4Pez

bump