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I thought to myself: why not compare nutritional shakes in a post for you? Am I the only one who feels like it’s January again? Not because of the weather, but because of the number of diet programs advertised on TV lately. This makes me think too many people are packing on the pounds during this time, and who can blame them? It’s stressful out there, or in here, or wherever you happen to be spending the majority of your time.
Relationships are being challenged in a big way. Divorce rates are skyrocketing, alcohol consumption is up, and I’m sure the potato chip industry is doing well also.
So, let’s compare nutritional shakes; one sold by Nutrisystem and a shake made with an organic hemp protein that I can tell you is really good as I have used it in my own shakes for several years.
Which is a Better Investment? Nutrisystem or Real Food? Let’s look at the cash investment before we look at the virtue (or not) of the ingredients.
Nutrisystem Vanilla Turbo Shakes – approximately $44.90 for 20 shakes or approximately $2.25/serving
Nutiva Organic Hemp Protein – $12.99/16 ounces or $. 87/serving for the protein. To this you could add anything – I like to add some frozen spinach, frozen kale, frozen banana, a small cucumber. I “guesstimated” the cost of the ingredients and came up with pretty much the same cost per shake. Less than $2.50 per shake, and that is for a healthy shake that is actually good for you!
You can just add water and/or ice to each of these, so I did not factor water into the mix as a cost.
Let’s put cost aside and address the healthy virtues of the products. This is where it becomes really, really hard for me to control myself and hold back on the derision I have for diet programs and diet foods in general. Sure, you tear open a pouch and add water, but what’s in that pouch?
I got a bit ahead of myself. The shake made with the Nutiva Hemp Protein contains the aforementioned banana and vegetables and the hemp protein powder which is made up of… wait for it…Organic Hemp Protein. Nothing else!
I had a heck of a time tracking down a list of ingredients for the Nutrisystem Turbo Vanilla Shake. You’d think they don’t want you to know what they put in those things. In fact, I challenge you to find a list of the ingredients. I finally found one and it listed one ingredient: vanilla. Doubting that was a true list of ingredients, I continued “doing the google” and finally Ebay came through for me. I’ll just give you the most troubling ingredients here, but I invite you to email me, and I’ll send you the screen shot of the ingredients if you can’t find them online either.
First of all, it shouldn’t be that hard to find out what’s really in something you may decide to ingest especially if it’s sold under the guise of helping you to lose weight and be healthier. The advertising proudly proclaims, “no artificial sweeteners,” but let’s see exactly what is in there.
The second ingredient listed is fructose which is another term for sugar. There is also maltodextrin (sugar), monk fruit extract (sugar) and stevia leaf extract (sugar). So, no artificial sweeteners, but four different versions of sugar. There are also a couple of ingredients that are derived from corn. As it isn’t indicated they are from non-GMO corn, I’ll make a sizeable wager with you those corn products are from genetically modified corn. They also use sunflower oil which is cheaper and more inflammatory than other oils like avocado or coconut oils.
I read a few of the reviews, and one poor soul wrote how the shakes had helped her with her sugar cravings. Of course they did; the shakes are loaded with sugar!
I hope you’ll try the organic hemp protein. It doesn’t have any flavoring, so I just add a little vanilla or almond to the shake if I want that flavor. I’m serious about you emailing me if you want the list of ingredients. I will send them to you. Cheryl at Thin Strong Healthy dot com is where you can reach me.
I hope it was helpful to compare nutritional shakes.
This article was originally posted on https://thinstronghealthy.com/compare-nutritional-shakes/
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Helping You Achieve Major Wellness!
Cheryl A Major, CNWC
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