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Show HN: A website for comparing protein powder prices
diskprices.com, but for Protein Powder!
Buying protein powder is a mess, and comparing different products is frustrating, since all brands choose their own serving sizes. By collecting nutrition facts, and normalizing the serving to contain 25 grams of protein, we can properly compare price/nutrients per serving.
Inspired by diskprices.com, the idea is to provide an equally functional interface to compare products. The prices are collected once a day, currently from iHerb US. Aiming to improve the coverage soon.
Any tips / suggestions / other feedback more than welcome :)
...and if you rather want to contact me directly, feel free to reach me at elina@nutritionprices.com
- amelius 2y agoHow do you check how much protein your body actually needs? I bet many folks would have the same results with 2x less protein intake.
- adrian_b 2y agoThere are signs that you can notice when you eat too little protein. An obvious sign is the reduction in muscular mass, e.g. if your arms and thighs become thinner. A less well known sign is the swelling of both feet (bilateral feet edema), when you might begin to feel that your shoes are too small, which is caused by a too low albumin concentration in the blood. (However there are also other possible causes for feet swelling, like diabetes, so a blood test is necessary to confirm the cause.) The low albumin concentration in the blood can be detected by a blood test before causing noticeable effects, like the swelling of the feet. Normal daily protein intakes are between 1 g and 1.5 g of protein per kg of body weight. For those who do intense physical activities more than that is required. There have been some earlier recommendations of lower protein intakes, like 0.8 g per kg, but later studies have discredited those recommendations as being too low, especially for old people, who need to eat enough proteins to avoid the loss of muscular mass.
- amelius 2y agoInteresting theory, but how do you explain that most prisoners don't end up as stick figures with swollen feet? Because I suspect they don't have a diet with protein powder.
- adrian_b 2y agoBread can easily provide enough proteins at a very low cost, if its quantity is large enough (e.g. 500 g of wheat flour per day) and if it is supplemented with a small quantity of another food that can provide enough lysine, e.g. beans or meat or dairy. The problem of getting proteins mostly from bread is that you also need to do enough physical activity to avoid gaining weight. This is a serious difficulty for a computer programmer, but it is unlikely to be a problem for a prisoner or for a manual worker. It is likely that at least in a country like USA, the ratios for prisoners have an adequate protein content, even if they may be not tasty. In countries where prisoners were treated less well, for instance in the Eastern Europe countries occupied by the Russians after WWII, where the political adversaries of the communists have been either killed or jailed, the prisoners who have survived their prison term were really stick figures at the return from prison, so your images about prisoners must be biased by the US prisons. In the Hollywood movies, many prisoners look like boxing competitors, but in many countries you will never see such well-fed prisoners.
- voisin 2y agoI think pricing differs by retailer too. Could you do the same thing for different countries (Canada, UK, etc)?
- parmigiano 2y agoYes, on the roadmap to add more countries and retailers e.g. Amazon, and other large protein retailers. Any particular countries/retailers you'd like to see first?
- cgh 2y agoCanada: supplementsource.ca
- voisin 2y agoIt would be great if standard form for sites like this would be for people to give their email address in order to be updated as new features are added. I would love to know when Canada is added but am afraid that without signing up for updates, this will slip from my memory before the day is done. I shudder to think how many sites this has happened to me already - where features have since been added that would make the site applicable to me but I’ll never know because I couldn’t sign up for updates!
- computerphage 2y agoA less efficient way to implement this under your own power would be to set a reminder to check it again in, say, a year. I use Google keep for such things all the time
- parmigiano 2y agoYes, that would be nice to add. Meanwhile, if you want, feel free to shoot me an email at elina@nutritionprices.com and I'll send you an update once we add Canada support
- xnx 2y agoI'm surprised to see some difference in the result for "Plant based" and "vegan"
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- parmigiano 2y agoI guess there could be cases where a product is plant based, but still contains some animal products. But I'll double check the matching to see if anything looks weird. Also, feel free to provide an example here or to elina@nutritionprices.com of a badly categorised product and I'll investigate
- spondylosaurus 2y agoThat's probably why. I like plant-based proteins because whey makes me feel gross, but the ones that aren't explicitly vegan might still have trace amounts of casein or gelatin or whatnot.
- xnx 2y agoNice. I hadn't heard of iHerb before. Would be great to include myprotein (tricky with "discount" codes) or one of the expired protein powder sources (e.g. supplementhunt).
- Flick5007 2y agoWhen choosing a product, are there other parameters to consider than protein per dollar? Are there any interesting metrics for "quality"? I'd assume it's not just "protein is protein". Would be interesting to see other metrics deployed, and the ability to find my own "sweet spot".
- parmigiano 2y ago100%, we have collect some nutrition data that we don't expose yet e.g. cholesterol, added sugar, trans fat etc. Sort of optimised for not having the table _extremely_ wide. But might be an option adding in some extra, as well as adding filter options for that to allow you to tweak it and find your sweet spot. Optimally we'd have even more information re: amino acids etc, but that information is _hard_ to parse out
- inerte 2y agoA feature request: Protein per calorie? I try to balance cost with calories, some food have 30g of protein but in 200 calories, and others in 500 calories (because of extra fat/carbs). Would be nice to have this as a filter too!
- nvahalik 2y agoLooking over this list it seems like this is mainly for bulking protein (sold in larger volumes). Taste is a big factor, as well as how it makes you feel. Some brands "go down" better than others. How the protein is made/filtered/etc can also have an impact on the quality of what you get. Then of course there is flavorings etc. In general, I've heard it said that if "lifestyle" protein is what you are looking for, you're gonna shop for quality not for quantity. If you are bulking and you need 250g+ protein per day... then you buy what fits your budget and you can hold down. ;)
- clumsysmurf 2y agoPurity, obviously. Proteins can be contaminated with heavy metals, plastics, etc. Other things to avoid would be artificial sweeteners. I would not start my search this way. Instead I would find a list of lab-tested products that meet purity and potency.
- flotzam 2y agoOr skip the middlemen and buy whey protein isolate directly from a dairy/creamery, in bulk: https://old.reddit.com/r/Supplements/comments/16r3xjt/psa_i_completed_my_frugal_quest_for_sourcing_bulk/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Supplements/comments/16r3xjt/psa_i_... I wonder if there are similar upstream sources for soy, pea, or rice protein isolate?
- xnx 2y agoSome good deals here if you can make use of 1000 kg: https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/price-soy-protein-isolates.html https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/price-soy-protein-isolates....
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- flotzam 2y agoThat seems like the right direction, but even for 20 kg bags I don't know how to evaluate Chinese suppliers of bulk foodstuffs Are there companies who take care of the sourcing + importing + QA for retail veggie protein brands? Some actor in the supply chain just before flavoring is mixed in
- BadHumans 2y agoDo any of these brands submit to third party testing?
- brlcad 2y agoNow this is awesome. Hope iHerb appreciates this as it should will lead to more sales through them. Scraping is always tricky. Love that you’ve included other nutritional facts. Would be cool to also incorporate review scores and/or taste somehow, however subjective. Really nice work.
- moduspol 2y agoI've read that some forms of protein (such as from animal sources) are more "bio available" than others, and thus result in a higher net result of protein absorbed. I see I can filter out specific sources, but it'd be cool if as part of the normalization, that it took this into account in some way.
- inerte 2y agoI've read that too, but you can counter that by having a more diverse plant based protein sources.
- hyperG 2y agoProtein powder is 90% marketing that is a distortion of reality and research for marketing purposes. None of this matters unless you are only getting your protein from one source. If you are eating north of .5-7 grams per lb of bodyweight throughout the day you are not going to be short of amino acids when needed even if lifting really hard. I like a protein shake because it taste good and different but there is absolutely nothing special about any of this. Protein powder has the absolute most bullshit around the product of anything I can even think of.
- square_usual 2y agoDoesn't seem to include Costco Isopure, which is $60 for 3.5lbs, sometimes found on sale for $50. It's my goto because it has nothing except protein.
- asdev 2y agoit would be nice to see all the ingredients and see which ones have poor/toxic additives
- iamacyborg 2y agoI would be pretty surprised if any have known toxic additives.
- snapcaster 2y agoPrepare to be surprised then. It's pretty messed up actually how poor quality so many of them are https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-hidden-dangers-of-protein-powders https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-hidden-da...
- hnuser435 2y agoYeah I need a filter down to the individual ingredients.
- j1mmie 2y agoDoesn't include Form protein (https://formnutrition.com/ https://formnutrition.com/), which has the added benefit of not coming in a plastic container.
- jpmattia 2y agoMaybe just me, but I'd like a column (and checkbox on the left) about packaging. I don't know why protein powders require plastic cannisters, and it would seem to me that they are well-suited to something more environmentally friendly, but for some reason so many of them want to use plastic. Otherwise: A nice website!
- thinkling 2y agoSeconding this. Variables I care about are packaging, sweetener additives, and country of manufacture/origin.
- colordrops 2y agoMost important IMO is third-party testing along with published results. Concentrating nutrients also concentrates contaminants like lead and PFAS, and many powders have cocoa, which is also notorious for lead contamination.
- doctorhandshake 2y agoI second this – it’s a much bigger project but this is the criteria that I care about most.
- thinkling 2y agoGood point. FWIW, the "It's just" product claims to be tested for heavy metals, microbiotics, and "purity". (Not associated with the brand or with any vendors, it's just the brand I've been buying.)
- adrian_b 2y agoWhether contaminants are also concentrated depends on the concentration method that is used. For example, the protein concentrates from whey or milk are obtained by just two filtrations through filters with different pore sizes, the first coarse filter retains any larger particles, including bacteria, while the second fine filter retains the protein particles and passes the water with lactose and fat and also with any contaminants that are soluble in fat or in water. Thus the protein concentrates from whey or milk normally have less contaminants than in the whey or milk used for their production.
- adamgordonbell 2y agoInclude clear whey, ( aka 'protein water'). There seems to only be a couple brands.
- YesBox 2y agoVery nice! Some suggestions: - Display and filter by number of ingredients. My trainer said to avoid the powders filled with "crap". The more pure, the better (e.g. he was referring to unnecessary additives, sweeteners, etc.) - You're using a single source website.. why not show the review star rating? - Separate brand and product name into two separate fields.
- mushufasa 2y ago1. this is really cool, i was looking for something like this last fall when i was choosing a recurring subscription for powder 2. I ended up buying a brand that was highly rated and includes some flavoring and vitamins. I love it! It actually tastes great (to me) too! 3. If I were to have found this site back then, I probably would not have chosen (2), because it is not the cheapest per protein molecule. But if I found a poor tasting or lethargy-inducing solution, I may have given up my journey. So: cool, though caution that price per powder isn't everything!
- arrobbiato 2y agoThis is great, thanks for creating this. I hope it brings you success, I certainly plan on using it. One important aspect of choosing a protein powder is the amino balance - especially for vegan proteins. Unfortunately many brands don’t provide this info, and you have to infer it from the ingredients.
- brandonmenc 2y agoAdd True Nutrition. https://truenutrition.com/ https://truenutrition.com/
- algo_trader 2y agoPlease add a filter for "established brands" or similar This after all is food and i dont want to buy some home mixed brew which is 1c/serving cheaper
- Jarwain 2y agoIn this vein, things like - is it third party lab tested? - do they publish lab reports? - vegan/vegetarian/lactose free/gluten free/other dietary concerns
- dotBen 2y agoCan you add BCAAs or at least make a distinction between sports protein vs other uses (high greens, etc). This is great though, thanks!
- 2dvisio 2y agoGreat idea. Whish this was also expanded to the UK, have exactly the same exact problem here. I keep looking at prices on Amazon and have managed to snatch a few great deals in the past, but having something like this would make it an effortless shopping
- alphakappa 2y agoThis is great. You are missing True Nutrition. Also if you could add a simple way to reset the filters, that would be great.
- dr_kiszonka 2y agoI would use it regularly if you added an option to filter by the amount of carbs.
- arepb 2y agoWho doesn't love a table
- traeregan 2y agoI don't see WithinYou's Steak Shake. It's my goto. Good idea and nice execution btw. There's a lot of solid feedback in the comments that will make this even better.
- ebiester 2y agoWhey protein concentrate and isolate need to be separated out. If you don't have digestion problems with milk, whey concentrate is cheaper and tastes better. I need isolate or I fart something silly.
- adrian_b 2y agoTrue. Fortunately, I do not have milk digestion problems, so I can use whey protein concentrate, from which (by mixing with a vegetable oil) I make something that has the aspect and taste of melted cheese, which I use instead of real cheese. While whey protein concentrate has a little lactose, it has much less lactose than almost all other dairy products. Where I live, in Europe, whey protein concentrate is $0.575 per 25 g of pure protein, including taxes (i.e. VAT) and shipping, so it is a little cheaper than the cheapest protein source on this list. While this list includes enough items with a reasonable price, any of those with a price over $1 per 25 g of pure protein is likely to be an attempt to exploit naive buyers of fitness-related products, by including excessive profit margins.
- pencildiver 2y agoWhey to go!
- pushedx 2y agoThe cheapest per serving is currently a rice protein with no amino acid profile listed. This likely means that it doesn't provide all essential amino acids. Cheap protein isn't what you want if you want a robust ability to build muscle. That being said I love the idea and this trend of simple and useful comparison apps.
- adrian_b 2y agoI see that among the cheap products there are enough that contain whey protein concentrate or whey protein isolate, which have optimal amino acid profiles. The only problem is that many of the cheapest mix various useless additives with the proteins, e.g. flavors or sweeteners. I prefer to use only pure protein powders, so I can choose to add to them only what I want. If you really want to have a sweet cream or drink based on the protein powder, adding sugar and vanilla extract and/or cocoa or some other flavor takes only a few seconds, less than the time needed to mix the powder with water and with whatever other ingredients are used.
- Jarwain 2y agoHeh I was recently searching and comparing protein powders and other supplements and it reminded me of something I read Back in the Yahoo days (which was just before my time) my understanding was that a lot of the internet and links and such were based around a categorization scheme. Google came through and disrupted that whole business by building Really Effective Search But now, search is Harder. There's so much junk in terms of content and products that it's hard to really find what you're looking for, and do reasonable comparisons in an effective way. You see new search engines popping up that focus hard on link provenance Or the spreadsheets various subreddits build out to compare products (/r/ebikes is an example that comes to mind), disk check or even this site itself is another example Kinda results in me feeling like a move back towards curated lists collaboratively contributed to alongside some contributor reputation scheme to mitigate bots might be Useful Or at least some shift back towards directories in some sense. At least, a site that aggregates all these lists would be quite nice
- e40 2y agoCostco has a 5.64lb bag of https://www.iherb.com/pr/optimum-nutrition-gold-standard-100-whey-extreme-milk-chocolate-5-01-lb-2-27-kg/27510 https://www.iherb.com/pr/optimum-nutrition-gold-standard-100... for 1/3 the cost of the 5lb container. One thing about protein powder, quality is important and taste is very important. The above tastes really good.
- clusterhacks 2y agoI only care about the ability to search/filter by "Informed Sport" or "Informed Choice" testing. After that, I prefer zero artificial sweeteners. https://sport.wetestyoutrust.com/news/informed-sport-informed-choice-what-difference https://sport.wetestyoutrust.com/news/informed-sport-informe...
- kak3a 2y agoCan the columns be sticky when page scrolls down?
- amelius 2y agoI'd like to filter on country-of-origin of ingredients.
- xhrpost 2y agoI'm sure you have a ton of suggestions but having an option to filter by sweetener type would be great. I'm trying not to buy anything with sucralose.
- sharadov 2y agoOver the years tried a bunch of brands, but I like Naked https://www.amazon.com/Less-Naked-Whey-Vanilla-Protein/dp/B01DMU8YDY?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/Less-Naked-Whey-Vanilla-Protein/dp/B0... No sugar, non-GMO and grass-fed. Tastes great.
- LMSolar 2y agoHi Elina - how about adding Garden of Life Fit and other products? (No affiliation with them, just a happy user). Link: https://www.gardenoflife.com/raw-organic-fit-protein-chocolate-powder https://www.gardenoflife.com/raw-organic-fit-protein-chocola...
- farseer 2y agoWhat tech stack did you use?