Man, I forgot how frustrating this is... Trying to get past the bloated labels and hyped claims on gainer shakes is like trying to compare mattresses between two competing retailers.
Ever try that, by the way? It's effing impossible. You can find the same Serta mattress in two hundred stores, and all two hundred will have different model names and labels, in spite of being 100% structurally identical. It's enough to make you want to smash a mattress dealer in the face.
Well picking a gainer shake is enough to make me want to smash a GNC clerk in the face.
So the jig is up guys. I'm talking to you gainer shake manufacturers out there. I'm going to take all your products and throw all your B.S. claims and inflated nutrition labels right out the window and do what no one in your industry has the balls to do: I'm going to break your swill down to calories, macronutrient ratios, and cost
per 100 grams. It's called comparing apples to apples. Objectivity. And since you can't be bothered to lift a finger to demonstrate any, we'll do it FOR you.
Anyone have any favorites they want put under this microscope? I'm building the spreadsheet starting tonight. Gainer shakes only, please.
Awww... POOPY!
I was hoping to upload the actual spreadsheet, but Marc and Kris don't allow them as attachments. Jeez. What a couple of BUZZKILLS!
Ha ha ha... just kidding guys. No, seriously Marc, that's not funny man -put down the dumbbell handle...
Anyhoo. I'm going to post what I have so far as a
tab-delimited text file. If you know how to open that in Excel, you should get all the sorting and filtering capabilities.
I only evaluated 13 products so far (cuz hey, I have a real job too, ya know
), but I think I hit some of the most popular ones we discuss. I will continue to add to this as people send me requests (time permitting).
Observations: The first thing I would recommend is that you
not consider price the most important factor when choosing a gainer (if you're going to choose one at all). One thing this exercise taught me is that you can find a deal on any of these products if you do a little reaserch online. I'm even going to withold recommendations about what my favorite online supplement provider is because although they may beat store X's price on one item, they may be charging twice as much as Store X for something else. It's just impossible to nail down a consistent performance with online retailers, so do a little comparison shopping before you plop down the plastic. Average price per serving came out to $2.25 if you don't include Optimum Nutrition and Twinlab Super Gainer's Fuel Pro in the mix, which clocked in at $3.93 and $4.67 per serving (!) respectively.
That said, if quality calories (and a lot of them) are your priority, first sort the list by calories per 100g. This value removes all the ambiguity of varied serving sizes and manufacturer shenanigans. As of this update, the top four by calories/100g are (most to least):
CytoSport Monster Mass 420 cal
BSN TrueMass 419 cal
Twinlab Mass Fuel Xtreme 415 cal
Gaspari Nutrition Real Mass 413 cal Second, have a look at the macronutrient ratios. All of these brands have a decent amount of calories (avg 25%) coming from fats, with Gaspari being the lowest at 17%. The remaining carb and protein ratios are identical across all four (again, Gaspari seem to have tilted the balance toward carbs ever so slightly to make up for the reduced fat calories -you know what they say: six of one, half dozen of the other... I'm sure the extra simple sugar that will stimulate fat storage pushes their profile back up to a de facto 25% fat calorie total.)
Third, if simple sugars are a consideration, you'll want to steer clear of BSN and Gaspari -they each pack twice as much as CytoSport and Twinlab; however, in contrast to the overall average 610 calories in a single serving, it probably shouldn't register on your priority list. In any case, it's still less than a third of what you'd find in a 12 oz can of cola, and these four are nowhere near as bad with the simple sugars as Ultimate Nutrition and Body Fortress.
Finally, go back to the labels and look at the way they list the protein blend. You have to really dig to get past all the self-important, pseudo-scientific blatherskite they plaster all over it. Most gainer protein blends start with the less exotic, less costly Whey protein
concentrate, and include -in lesser amounts though no one will ever reveal the exact ratio, obviously)- Whey protein isolate, some form of caseinate (calcium or sodium), and/or albumin (egg white). Only Optimum Nutrition seems to be heading off their protein blend with Whey isolates -something they do rather well, by the way- but you will pay handsomely for the quality.
Conclusion (So far): BSN TrueMass or CytoSport Monster Mass for sanest nutrient profile and overall value, ON Pro Complex Gainer if you want exceptional protein quality and money is no object.
[8/3 Update] Added MHP Up Your Mass. Conclusion
here. No change to top 4 so far.
<message edited by veggeep on Monday, August 03, 2009 12:17 PM>