We make the flavored protein powder we'd want to drink: NØRSE CØDE, in chocolate and vanilla, sweetened with allulose and monk fruit. This page reads nine powders off the label first, since that is what you can check before you buy, and then takes up what a label cannot tell you: how a shake sits an hour later, whether it mixes without a blender, and whether you want a second glass.
We built both flavors around the last of those, whether you want a second glass, with the tub that gets pushed behind the oats by week three in mind. The other eight below are real alternatives with real strengths, and each entry says what it does differently from ours.
Pick up the tub in your cupboard and find two things on the ingredient line: the word flavor, and whatever sweetens it. Together they are the whole flavor. The flavor line gives a powder its chocolate or vanilla identity. The sweetener decides what the last third of the glass tastes like, which is the part you remember.
Powders also differ on whether they are flavored at all. Two of the nine here, Sprout Living and NOW Sports, are sold with no flavor, and we kept them in on purpose to cover the best-to-flavor-yourself end of the question, for anyone who would rather choose the flavor than have it chosen. The Flavor column in the table marks which is which.
Figures come from each brand's own product page, linked in each entry. Momentous, Nuzest, Ora, Ritual, Sprout Living and Vega were read on 24 August. NOW Sports's line in the table stands on a read from 21 August, three days earlier than the rest. Part of the Orgain line in the table stands on 21 August too: its ingredient panel is now served as an image we could not read as text.
| Powder | Flavor | Protein | Sweetener | Xanthan or guar gum | Added sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NØRSE CØDE | Chocolate, vanilla | 20g | Allulose, monk fruit | None | 0g, both flavors |
| Momentous 100% Plant Protein | Flavored | 20g | Organic cane sugar, stevia, monk fruit | None; page states no gums | 2g in the chocolate |
| Nuzest Clean Lean Protein | Flavored | 18g to 21g by flavor | Thaumatin | None; page states no gums | 0g |
| Ora Organic So Lean & So Clean | Flavored | 23g | Monk fruit extract | None; page states no gums | Page states 0g sugar |
| Orgain Organic Protein | Flavored | 21g | Organic erythritol, organic stevia | Guar gum, xanthan gum | Page states no sugar added |
| Ritual Essential Protein Daily Shake 18+ | Flavored | 20g | Rebaudioside-M, monk fruit | Xanthan gum | 0g |
| Sprout Living Epic Protein Original | Unflavored | 26g | None | None; page states no gums | 0g |
| NOW Sports Pea Protein | Unflavored | 24g | None | None on the label | None |
| Vega Sport Premium Protein | Flavored | 30g | Stevia leaf extract | Xanthan gum | Page states No Added Sugar |
Protein runs from 18g to 30g, so grams are a floor every powder here clears and something else has to separate them. Three of the nine list xanthan or guar.
Our flavors came out of one decision about sweetener. Allulose and monk fruit do all of it, both flavors land at 0g total sugar, and no sugar alcohol is standing in.
Sitting well and mixing came with it. The label is nine natural ingredients with no gums and no fillers, and three of them are the proteins: pea, rice and barley. Prebiotic acacia fiber helps the shake feel like food instead of powder, which is how we got body in the glass without a thickener. We call the mixing SmoothBlend. It dissolves in a glass of cold milk or a mug of hot coffee, and a fork does the work. Use a blender if you like one. One customer, writing about the chocolate:
"Love the chocolate flavor! Anxious to try the Vanilla. Really like the clean ingredients, mixes well with milk, yogurt, fruit, etc. I use it right after working out at the gym and with my morning yogurt/berries/granola."
It took over a thousand iterations over two years, mostly on texture and sweetness. We make it ourselves in our own facility in Petaluma, California, and we third-party test every input for heavy metals.
A bag is 14 servings: $2.54 a serving on the eight-bag subscription, $3.57 as a single bag.
Two things to know before you order. It contains coconut, from the MCT oil. Barley protein is in the blend, so it is not gluten-free, and anyone with celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity should pick something else.
The whole ingredient list is three items long: pea protein isolate, natural flavors and thaumatin, and the page states no gums, thickeners or emulsifiers. Thaumatin is a sweet-tasting protein. Every other sweetener in the table is a sugar, a sugar alcohol or a plant extract, which makes this the only entry where a protein does the sweetening. The protein figure shifts with the flavor you pick, from 18g to 21g.
USDA Organic certifies farming. It says nothing about taste. Our gum cells for this one come from a text read of the panel on 21 August, three days older than the rest of its line in the table, because the page has since moved the panel into an image. A serving is two scoops, and the page suggests twelve to sixteen ounces of liquid to get through it. With erythritol and gums on the same label as the organic seal, is that glass worth it to you?
You supply both the flavor and the sweetness here. Blend it into a smoothie with its own fruit, a banana or a handful of berries, and the fruit does the sweetening. Plain, it is 26g per 38g serving with 0g added sugar, so any sweetness in the glass is whatever you put there.
Try It Yourself
NSF Certified for Sport is the credential to look at on this one, and the page describes independent testing for purity, potency and label accuracy, which is what someone who gets drug-tested for a living needs to see. PURIS pea protein and organic brown rice carry the 20g. A container holds 22 servings.
Unflavored pea isolate, and the ingredient list stops there. That is 24g from a single ingredient, with every flavor decision left to whatever you pour it into, whether coffee, fruit or milk.
Ritual sells this in age-banded versions, which is a real position on whether a body at fifty wants something different from a body at twenty-five. Organic pea protein is the base, and coconut MCT oil and sunflower lecithin sit further down the list.
Eighteen organic superfood sources ride along with the pea and rice protein, from acai to kale, plus a five-enzyme blend. The list reads a bit like a smoothie bar menu, and the page states no gums, fillers or thickeners alongside all of it. Organic monk fruit extract is the sweetener.
Cocoa powder and natural flavors make up the chocolate, with stevia leaf extract sweetening it and xanthan gum on the line, and it holds NSF Certified for Sport. The page now titles it Protein + Recovery and still shows the former name, which matches a powder positioned for the hour after training. It carries 30g and 1g of sugar.
We put three powders in front of tasters who did not know which one was ours: NØRSE CØDE, Orgain and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder. In that blind taste test, more people chose NØRSE CØDE than the other two combined. Sweetness preference varies from person to person, so read the result as what that group chose.
A customer who bought on a flier and waited a year to try it:
"I really like this protein powder. I received a flier at a spartan race my family and I did last year. I have been holding on to this flier for all this time and finally decided I needed to give it a try, and I am so glad I did. It's smooth, clean, and tastes great. Thank you Norse Code for making this morning ritual for me and my family."
Buy the smallest size of whatever you are curious about and drink it the way you actually drink protein, in the liquid you actually use. If that is coffee, test it in coffee. If it is a smoothie, test it in the smoothie. A flavor that works in water at the counter can behave differently once it meets oat milk or a banana.
Then give it two or three weeks of most mornings. If a shake leaves you heavy, look at the gum column first. If the second half of the glass tastes worse than the first, check the sweetener column. The Momentous and Vega comparisons go deeper if certification for sport is on your list.
If you try ours in chocolate or vanilla, every bag carries a 60-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked, which covers the full two or three weeks of testing with room to spare.
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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