Is Whey Protein Powder Necessary?
- Sep 26, 2017
- 2 min read
The age-old question: whether or not protein powder is necessary in order to build size.
What is Whey Protein?
Protein powder are food supplements that are rich in protein. Whey protein powder is a type of protein powder, there are also vegetarian protein powder, beef isolate protein powder, egg whites protein powder, etc. Whey protein is derived from milk and it is the concentrated protein from whey.
Why Whey?
If whey or protein powder is just a condensed form of protein, why do many people consume it? Speaking for myself, it is a matter of convenience. It is recommended to consume 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. That might be hard to do or get from natural food sources. For myself, on a daily basis, I consume 180g of protein and it tends to be hard to get it from natural sources because I would be spending a lot of time eating a LOT of chicken, a lot of fish and a lot of eggs. For me, whey protein is very convenient. Not only is it convenient, protein powders in general are a high quality source of protein.
Quality
Protein is comprised of different amino acids and this isn't very important if you are consuming a lot of protein. However, it is important to note your source of protein if you are consuming maybe 50-70 grams daily. In other words, if you are vegan and your protein source is from brown rice, it is an incomplete amino acid profile compared to animal sources of protein which are more complete such as beef, chicken, eggs, etc. Whey protein powder is a 100% complete meaning it has all the essential amino acids.
Cost
If you buy it in bulk, it is actually cheaper than any other sources of protein. Whatever part of the world you are in, you just have to do a little bit of research and find a bulk wholesale supplier of protein powder and you will save a lot of money. Thus in my opinion, the reasons to consider using a whey protein powder would be convenience, cost and quality. BUT I don't want people going out there and spend their hard earned cash on whey protein powder after reading this article, thinking it is going to help them build extra or more muscle than if they didn't supplement with it. I said it before and I will say it again, all that whey protein powder is, is a condensed form of protein. If you live at home and you are already getting enough protein from your egg whites, chicken, beef, etc, you don't need protein powder. Provided that your protein intake is the same, supplementing with protein powder or not will not affect your gains. Plus, if you don't supplement with protein powder, you will probably avoid the protein powder farts, which can get pretty bad.
TL;DR: You NEED to eat whole foods and train hard. Period.
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