Hello everyone, I’ve been drinking the Fairlife nutritional shakes for around the past two weeks, and as time goes by and I’ve had time to think about the drink, I have become more skeptical of the nutritional claims. Below is an email I was planning on sending to Fairlife. Am I missing something? Is there some knowledge gap I’m missing making me sound ignorant? I’m going to this length due to planning on buying this specific protein drink indefinitely, and I want to make sure I’m not getting tricked into giving my money to a product that has me believe I’m getting something I’m not because of clever marketing that is able to use some loophole to advertise the nutritional content of this drink the way that they do.
Email Draft:
Hello Fairlife, I’m reaching out to you today due to some questions I have along with the sense of some skepticism.
So beginning with the two most popular high protein milk drinks you offer; the Fairlife nutrition plan shakes with 30 g of protein and 150 calories and the Fairlife core power shakes with 26 g of protein and 170 calories. I can’t seem to understand how the Fairlife nutrition plan shakes manage to have 30 g of protein and 150 cal, and yet don’t have the unique taste present in drinks with high protein content. This confusion is further exacerbated when it appears that the core power drink, a drink that has higher calories, less protein, and a larger volume, has the unique high protein taste.
How is it that Fairlife’s nutritional plan shake, a drink with fewer calories, higher protein, less volume, and low viscosity, tastes more so like flavored milk in comparison to Fairlifes core power, a drink with less protein, higher calories, higher viscosity, and a larger volume, which tastes more akin to a traditional protein shake?
There are 4 calories in a gram of protein.
This means 120/150 calories in the Fairlife nutrition shakes are only protein leaving only an additional 30 calories to give the drink the flavorful characteristics it has.
The core power drink protein content is 104/170 calories, which gives it an additional 66 calories to help give the drink its flavorful characteristics.
Is the quality of protein in both drinks equal? Are all 9 amino acids completely present in the Fairlife nutrition plan shake?
On the Fairlife website, there’s a label that emphasizes that the core power drinks contain complete proteins and 9 essential amino acids; this label isn’t present on Fairlife’s page for the nutritional shakes. Is there any significance to that?
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I don’t know what protein shakes you drink, but the Fairlife Nutrition Plan shakes are exactly like everything I get from True Nutrition. Flavor, consistency, macro profile. I’m not sure if you have a bone to pick with Fairlife or what, but there are literally thousands of drinks (of all types) that have great flavor and zero calories. I’m not sure why you think the drinks need calories to be flavored, or why 2 totally different products need to be the same.
It is fat free which you can definitely taste. Also, artificial sweetener and flavor is usually 0 cal. And protein does not have much of a taste, it is if it is not isolated all the way. Have you ever had “clear whey”? Same thing. Hope this clears it up. But interested to see their reply.
Interesting… did a search, and cannot find a single SCIENCE based review of the Fairlife products, nothing by real nutritionists, doctors, or reputable labs. That alone would make me leary! With our current system, anybody can basically claim anything and get away with it until the FDA catches up with them. This is an old Consumer Reports article… not sure if Fairlife even existed then, but makes you wonder… https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/04/protein-drinks/index.htm