Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey: Review + Giveaway (CLOSED)

I received free products for the purpose of this post, and the giveaway prize is being provided by the sponsor. Please see my Disclosure Policy for more information. This post may contain affiliate links. 

As a health and fitness blogger, I’m frequently approached to try various health/fitness-related drinks and foods – protein shakes, energy drinks, meal replacement bars, that sort of thing.

The trouble is that I don’t like health/fitness-related food or drinks. And it has nothing to do with nutrition or efficacy (I don’t really have an opinion either way). It’s just that I don’t like the way they taste, which is probably because I have the palate of small child.

It’s hard to write a fair review of a product that I know I’m going to dislike before I even open the bottle. So now when I’m asked to try these types of things, here’s how I respond:

“Sure, I’ll be happy to try your product. But you should know up front that I probably won’t like it.”

This is often enough to send people running in the opposite direction (can’t really blame them). However, if the offer is from a brand that I’d like to work with or a product that I think you guys might like, I’ll follow up my “I won’t like it” response with an offer to have someone else try it out for me.

Usually that someone else is my husband, who happens to be a daily user of health/fitness-related foods and drinks AND a willing taste tester. I also have a couple of girlfriends who try out some of the plant-based products for me.

Anyway, that was the case when I was given the opportunity to try out Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey™. We received a full-size tub of Vanilla Ice Cream ON Gold Standard Whey and some samples of their brand new Salted Caramel whey.

My husband’s thoughts:

1. He recognized the brand name and told me that it was one of the higher quality products on the market.

2. He said that it has “good macros,” which I think is healthy people speak for “packed with healthy goodness.” (No? Okay.) Here’s a look at the nutritional info, taken directly from Optimum Nutrition’s website.

Of note: 24 grams of protein, 4+ grams of Glutamine & Glutaminc Acid, and 5+ grams of BCAAs per serving.

3. He says that it tastes great mixed with almond milk. In a pinch, he mixed it with water one time and said that even that wasn’t too bad.

So Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey gets a great review from my husband, and I was going to leave it at that. But then…I got brave. I mean, how could Salted-Caramel-Anything taste bad? So I tried one of the sample packs of Salted Caramel ON Gold Standard Whey mixed with 8 ounces of cold 1% milk…and I DIDN’T HATE IT!!!

I can usually sniff out a non-sugar sweetener from a mile away, but I could barely taste it in this product. I think it’s because the salted caramel flavor was so strong (in a good way) that it masked anything that I normally would have disliked. I drank all 8 ounces, and I didn’t have to force it down. (I know this probably isn’t the type of review Optimum Nutrition was hoping for, but trust me – the fact that I willingly took more than one sip of it counts as a VERY positive review in my book.)

Don’t take my word for it, though. You can visit www.OptimumNutrition.com to learn more about Gold Standard Whey and to browse through their variety of flavors like Extreme Milk Chocolate, French Vanilla Cream, Chocolate Mint, Rocky Road, and Key Lime Pie.

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And if you keep scrolling, you can enter to win a great prize package. One lucky reader will win one 2-pound tub of ON Gold Standard Whey (flavor = Double Rich Chocolate), plus 5 sample packs of Salted Caramel flavor Gold Standard Whey protein. Everything you need to enter is on the Rafflecopter below. Good luck!

Stuff you should know before you enter the giveaway —> * This giveaway is open to US residents only. You must be 18+ to enter. Winners will be notified via email and given 48 hours to respond. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner may be selected. Mommy Runs It is not responsible for prize fulfillment. Giveaway ends 8/27/15 at 11:59 p.m. EST.*

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