I haven't started the 6 week cure yet but I've been doing shakes for quite a few weeks now, in the morning.

I have plain whey/egg protein, no flavors added.

I really liked the cocoa + caramel syrup.

I was also making one with Cocoa + hazelnut or Almond syrup + instant coffee granules, reminiscent of Arby's Jamocha shake, but I'll have to give that up for the first couple of weeks.

I just ran out of Da Vinci's peanut butter syrup.

I just made one with banana extract and Da Vinci's pineapple syrup -- tastes like a pina colada.

Sometimes I put frozen strawberries in with vanilla or strawberry syrup. Very nice.

You could probably use instant decaf flakes and make something similar.

I've been pretty boring with my shakes, mostly all chocolate. Sometimes I add DaVinci B52 syrup, have also tried almond extract. I made one with plain protein powder that I added some vanilla too as well as DaVinci cinnamon syrup and a dash of cinnamon. I have DaVinci eggnog syrup too and keep meaning to try that one. I have a bunch of blackberries from my garden that are in my freezer, and keep thinking I'll toss 3-4 of those into a shake with maybe some orange extract. I did buy some diet black cherry soda (sweetened with sucralose) and mixed it with a chocolate shake to try to Black Forest Cake recipe in the book, but it was too sickeningly sweet for me.

So that was a revelation. I have not had diet soda in about 6-7 months, and I was suprised at how my taste buds had changed. Just the plain soda alone almost made me gag.

I found more SF peanut butter syrup! Yay! New flavors coming up will be chocolate+peanut butter.

Heck, I bought chocolate-peanut butter protein powder. Have not tried it yet so who knows, it may be awful.

I tried lemon-lime today, added a splash of key lime juice and some lemon extract plus some sweetener. Not bad at all, and a nice change from the chocolate.

I did the "diet-rite orange soda" shake -- added egg (I use the egg in mine) as well as a splash of vanilla. Very good.

I'm going to try orange + vanilla soon.

I screwed up today, I was going to do Orange vanilla but ended up forgetting what I was creating and also added cocoa powder.

I was just thinking that maple + banana might be good.

Hey, orange and chocolate is a *yummy* combo!

Oh, you're one of *those* people. I've never liked chocolate covered fruit of any kind. Our parents used to buy my sister and I little sweets for Christmas and Easter every year that were chocolate covered cherries, or embedded with raspberries, etc. And they *knew* we hated them. Hmmmm - they could have just bought them for themselves in the first place cause they're the ones ended up eating them.

BTW, where are you all getting these great sugarfree Davinci flavors? Ordering online? Or do you have a local source?

I found my Albertson's has like 5 or 6 flavors. And I was all set to try that Pina Colada shake, but couldn't find any pineapple flavoring.

Sarah

Okay, I just broke down and ordered 6 new bottles of DaVinci from netrition.com - some "old faithful" flavors that I know I like, and some that I have never tried before. The ones I ordered were:

Old Faithfuls:
Coconut
Banana
Amaretto

New Flavors:
Peanut Butter
Orange
Peppermint Patty

Anyone else have favorite flavors? I almost ordered the Dulce de Leche, but then thought it might be too similar to English Toffee, which I already have and have not even opened yet. Other flavors I've had and liked in the past include Kahlua, Irish Creme and German Chocolate Cake.

I'm enjoying the shakes enough that I think even when I get to my "all meat" weeks I may still have a shake occasionally, though - as the Eades suggest - I will use coconut milk then instead of the raw heavy cream. Note to self not to order any more raw heavy cream when I place my next Real Food order.

Just now reading this thread for the first time. Glad to get some opinions on flavors - I've thrown out at least ten bottles of DaVinci in the past. Their raspberry flavor was one of the worst things I've tasted in my life. Buttered popcorn was pretty bad too.

I like the three flavors of Monin syrup I've tried: caramel, vanilla, and especially blackberry. I highly recommend the Monin blackberry syrup.


Yikes! DaVinci Dulce de Leche has gluten in it Debbie, be careful! It's the only flavor that currently does though. It is very similar to the English Toffee. Between those two and caramel, I like caramel best. It's less fake tasting.

I haven't finished all my reading yet. Do they say whether decaf coffee is allowed? That might be good.

Gluten? Gosh, who'da thunk it? Not me, clearly. Well I didn't order it. I think there have been one or two DaVinci flavors I was not fond of (though now I can't remember which ones, ) but I did enjoy most of them.

I've decided to stick with this plan for a while, much more than six weeks. I hate to admit it, but I think I've been stalled by my large fat consumption and my devotion to vegetables. Vodka and red wine weren't helping either, even though I've kept my carbs very low. I've been stuck and wandering aimlessly for about a year; this plan looks more promising than switching to another lc plan. I haven't felt like cooking much lately anyway.

So I bought a lot of flavorings for all these shakes. I decided not to go with syrups, though. Extracts make more sense to me. They take less space, I can control the sweetness better, and shipping costs less.

I bought several of the Lorann Flavor Fountain extracts (all Lorann products are gluten-free). They're designed for flavoring shakes and ice cream specifically, so maybe they'll somehow taste better. The source I chose:

http://www.barryfarm.com/beverageflavors.htm (scroll down)

I also bought a lot of baking extracts and flavor powders from the same place (all Spicery Shoppe is gluten free):

http://www.barryfarm.com/flavorings.htm

This place had the best prices on egg protein powder, much lower than their competitors:

http://www.supplementwarehouse.com/

They also have a low price on leutine.

I'll let you know how these things turn out.

Using soft drinks must be the very most expensive way to flavor these things. You also end up with double sweetness unless you start with unsweetened protein powder. Or triple sweetness if you use d-ribose.

I'm thinking that I'll try using up some of the old herbal teas in the cupboard. I just need to remember to steep one in advance. I don't know whether that'll taste good or not.

I think I'll probably be with it for more than 6 weeks too. It's a fairly easy plan, and while I enjoy cooking I don't want to cook all the time, so sometimes a shake just hits the spot. I did buy some DaVinci syrups. I've bought flavor extracts in the past and was less than satisfied with them. I have unsweetened protein powder that I can add the DaVinci to and it is still not overly sweet.

Suddenly I'm down 2 pounds in the last 2 days - though I hate to even say so for fear of jinxing myself. My weight fluctuates so I can easily be back up the 2 pounds tomorrow morning. I had an orange-vanilla shake earlier and it was really quite tasty. I had a black decaf.

Today was my son's birthday and I went out to lunch with him and his wife, and my new grandson, and his wife's parents. I had a pastrami reuben without the bread and a dill pickle. Then I had to sit and watch while everyone else had double chocolate fudge cake, carrot cake, apple strudel, and lemon cake.

Depending on where you live you can find them in stores. Super Wal*Marts have them, I've heard TJ Max carries them. I find Torani at Smart & Final and Cost Plus.

I just couldn't taste the orange in my shake today. I still haven't worked out exactly how much syrup to add into my unsweetened whey/egg protein.