A protein powder adds one thing to your day, protein, and everything else in the tub came along with it: sweeteners, flavors, thickeners. These seven questions cover the parts a label can answer and the parts it cannot. We make a plant protein powder ourselves, so we have read a great many of them.
For most healthy adults, a protein powder is a convenient way to add protein to a day that already has meals in it. Whether it is a good choice depends on what else is in the tub and on the rest of your eating. If you have a medical condition, ask your clinician before adding one.
Go and get the tub that is in your cupboard right now and read the ingredient list from the top. The first item is the main ingredient, and everything after it is something the maker chose to add. A short ingredient list is easier to vet than a long one. Count the lines and mark any name you cannot place, because those are the ones to look up.
The US Recommended Dietary Allowance is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. That is 46 grams for a reference adult woman and 56 grams for a reference adult man. Your meals already supply a large share of it.
To work out your own figure, take your weight in pounds and divide by 2.2 to get kilograms, then multiply by 0.8. For a 154 pound adult that comes to 56 grams.
A scoop of ours carries 20 grams, so it covers roughly a third of that day, and an egg breakfast and a chicken dinner cover the rest. For ranges above the RDA, see our page on how much protein you need each day.
Some do. Consumer Reports tested 23 protein powders and shakes and published the results on October 14, 2025: more than two-thirds had more lead in a single serving than its experts say is safe to have in a day. Ask any brand whether it tests and who does the testing.
Lead and other heavy metals can come in with the soil a crop grew in, which is why it is worth asking who tests. Open the brand's website in another tab and look for a plain sentence about who tests the product and how often. We third-party test every input for heavy metals. The full Consumer Reports investigation lists its product-by-product numbers, and you can run the same arithmetic on any bag: lead per serving, times servings per day.
Four lines: protein per serving, the sweetener, the added sugar, and any gums or fillers. The protein figure tells you what the scoop does for your day. The other three tell you what else you are drinking with it.
Put two tubs side by side on the counter and read those four lines on each. Check the serving size next to the protein figure, because a bigger scoop can make a lower-protein powder look equal on paper. Whatever tub you land on, the same four lines take about a minute to compare.
Try It Yourself
It can. Long ingredient lists with gums, fillers and sugar alcohols give your stomach more to deal with than a short one does, and so does a serving larger than you are used to. Start with one scoop for a few days and see how you feel.
If a powder has bothered you before, find the sugar alcohol or gum on that tub's label and look for it on the next one. One of our customers wrote: "This is the first plant protein powder I've tried that doesn't make me gassy or bloated. The chocolate tastes great and I drink it almost every day and still love it." That is one customer's experience, and your own few days with a single scoop will tell you more than any review.
Many people do. A scoop counts toward your daily total and your meals carry the rest. If you plan to drink it daily, pick one you expect to still like on day ten.
Daily use is where the label matters most, because you take in the same sweetener and the same gums every day instead of once in a while. Decide where in your day the scoop goes before you buy: stirred into morning coffee, folded into yogurt, or shaken with milk after a workout. Any of those fits around a routine you already have.
Drink it most mornings for two weeks. The label narrows the field, and only your own kitchen shows whether you like the taste, whether it mixes the way you want and how it sits afterwards. Buy a size you can finish, or one with a money-back guarantee.
A label cannot tell you how a powder tastes. A bag of ours is 14 servings, which is two weeks of daily scoops. Whichever brand you try, mark the day you opened the bag on the pouch, so the two-week mark does not slip past.
If the bag fails the two weeks, write down which of the three it failed on: taste, stomach or mixing. Send it back where there is a guarantee, and choose the next powder to fix that specific line.
Ready to try it?
Backed by a 60-day money-back guarantee. If it is not the smoothest protein you have had, send it back.
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