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Just came across an interesting little post over at reddit.
I'm not a scientist, so no clue how accurate it is, but some guys might find it interesting that someone actually went and tested this and posted the results.
Here's the story link if you want to read it formatted correctly with pictures and links - http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comm...can_pure_shit/
I'm not a scientist, so no clue how accurate it is, but some guys might find it interesting that someone actually went and tested this and posted the results.
Here's the story link if you want to read it formatted correctly with pictures and links - http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comm...can_pure_shit/
Hail Redditors, I come to you with news from [1] another forum. A guy named Zugzwang (cool as fuck) decided to bust science on American Pure Whey powder, after many suspicious bros wondered why it was A) so cheap and B) tasted so good. The results were interesting and as follows:
Brothers, I have just returned from my laboratory dungeon and do not have good news regarding American Pure Whey. I need to formally work up the numbers, but a qualitative eyeballing of the results tells me that either I royally fucked up these two assays (not likely, considering I did 8 independent ones for four separate APW flavors) or there is far less protein in their powder than they claim.
Here, see for yourselves. I've crudely labeled the wells on this plate for you. One of my assays basically makes the wells in this plate turn a dark color if there's protein in it, and the darker the well, the more protein there is. I tested blanks (buffer only, no protein), analytical-grade bovine serum albumin at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mg/mL, ON double rich chocolate (chosen because it's a whey product from a reputable company) at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 3.0 mg/mL, and four separate APW flavors (cinnamon bun, strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla) at 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mg/mL. Now, those APW concentrations assumed that the values on the label (26 grams protein/33 grams powder) were reliable.
tl;dr - darker = more protein, APW wells should be roughly as dark as ON wells, they aren't
[2] HARK, A PICTURE OF LITERAL BRO SCIENCE
Note: the first three wells in the "Blanks/APW" row - under the BSA wells - are blanks, then the next three - under the ON wells - are from another APW sample.
And yes, I can quantify the amount of protein in the APW samples from absorbance measurements I took from the plate. I think. Shit might be too dilute and out of range of the standard curve I'm making. We'll see.
The other assay type I ran is a standard method for protein determination: measure how much 280-nm UV light it absorbs. I tested blanks and each protein powder at 1 mg/mL, and though you can't tell just by eyeballing it here (they all look clear), I can tell you that the absorbance of the ON wells was 5-10+ times any of the APW wells, and all were at the same nominal concentration. I'm working within the dynamic range of the instrument, so absorbance correlates linearly to the amount of protein, meaning that 5x the absorbance means 5x as much protein.
I'm going to repeat the A280 assay tomorrow because it's quick, easy, and it works, but fuuuuuck. The only other explanation besides "piece of shit product" is that the bits of APW powder I grabbed were the non-protein bits, which could mean that their powder is horribly mixed - either that, or I'm a goddamned wizard of entropy, because what are the odds of me grabbing 50 milligrams of filler from four separate samples?
Also hi, if there are any other labcoats reading this and you have 10 minutes to run a quick-n-dirty A280 test on some APW powder to corroborate or contest my results, that would be super, thanks.
tl;dr: Your cheap powder is shady as fuck and you should feel bad.
Brothers, I have just returned from my laboratory dungeon and do not have good news regarding American Pure Whey. I need to formally work up the numbers, but a qualitative eyeballing of the results tells me that either I royally fucked up these two assays (not likely, considering I did 8 independent ones for four separate APW flavors) or there is far less protein in their powder than they claim.
Here, see for yourselves. I've crudely labeled the wells on this plate for you. One of my assays basically makes the wells in this plate turn a dark color if there's protein in it, and the darker the well, the more protein there is. I tested blanks (buffer only, no protein), analytical-grade bovine serum albumin at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mg/mL, ON double rich chocolate (chosen because it's a whey product from a reputable company) at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 3.0 mg/mL, and four separate APW flavors (cinnamon bun, strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla) at 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mg/mL. Now, those APW concentrations assumed that the values on the label (26 grams protein/33 grams powder) were reliable.
tl;dr - darker = more protein, APW wells should be roughly as dark as ON wells, they aren't
[2] HARK, A PICTURE OF LITERAL BRO SCIENCE
Note: the first three wells in the "Blanks/APW" row - under the BSA wells - are blanks, then the next three - under the ON wells - are from another APW sample.
And yes, I can quantify the amount of protein in the APW samples from absorbance measurements I took from the plate. I think. Shit might be too dilute and out of range of the standard curve I'm making. We'll see.
The other assay type I ran is a standard method for protein determination: measure how much 280-nm UV light it absorbs. I tested blanks and each protein powder at 1 mg/mL, and though you can't tell just by eyeballing it here (they all look clear), I can tell you that the absorbance of the ON wells was 5-10+ times any of the APW wells, and all were at the same nominal concentration. I'm working within the dynamic range of the instrument, so absorbance correlates linearly to the amount of protein, meaning that 5x the absorbance means 5x as much protein.
I'm going to repeat the A280 assay tomorrow because it's quick, easy, and it works, but fuuuuuck. The only other explanation besides "piece of shit product" is that the bits of APW powder I grabbed were the non-protein bits, which could mean that their powder is horribly mixed - either that, or I'm a goddamned wizard of entropy, because what are the odds of me grabbing 50 milligrams of filler from four separate samples?
Also hi, if there are any other labcoats reading this and you have 10 minutes to run a quick-n-dirty A280 test on some APW powder to corroborate or contest my results, that would be super, thanks.
tl;dr: Your cheap powder is shady as fuck and you should feel bad.
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