hey...i'm looking for info on making shakes with protein powder for breakfast and know absolutely nothing about protein powder! Can anyone give me any info...brands, where to buy, cost, ect! any help would be appreciated!!!!!

I really like the Designer Whey brand of powder. It tastes greqat and can be cooked with. It has no soy, is splenda sweetened, low carb, and is much cheaper then many of the "low carb" brands.

The Atkins shakes I hated as shakes. The only redeaming value was the chocolate one mixed with yogurt could make a decent pudding like dish.

EAS whey tastes good, but is a little higher carb then Designer and has sugars.

SuperBlue and SuperRed are soy protiens that are extreamly low carb. They are also the nastiest tasting product I have ever experienced. I tried them in cooking as well and gave up. They ended in trash.

Carbsense shakes are also blech. I have a large can in the pantry I got one time because it was cheaper then the Atkins. It had a really off taste.

ZonePerfect puts out a protien powder tha tis just plain protien. It has no flavorings, sweetners or so on. It is ment for mixing into various foods like oatmeal to make them higher protien.

I use soya isolate protein powder. I like the taste (sorry LadyBelle but we're all different!). I add water, double cream and flavouring.

There are several varieties of protein powder such as rice protein powder, soy protein powder, and whey protein powder. Any of them will do just fine for making protein shakes, but whey protein powder is a fairly common ingredient in low-carb recipes. I use the vanilla whey protein in various batter recipes for doughnuts and pancakes and have used natural (i.e. unflavored) whey as well. There are several other flavors like chocolate, strawberry, and praline, which are fine for shakes but of limited use for cooking. If you can only buy one, I'd go with the vanilla, since you can always add unsweetened cocoa and sweetener to it if you prefer a chocolate-flavored shake.

Like Ladybelle says, Designer Whey is the cheapest, lowest-carb, and most widely available brand of whey protein powder, but nutrition stores like GNC and Vitamin World carry several other brands as well. Whatever type you choose, make sure you read the labels carefully and that the protein powder you choose is flavored with "legal" sweeteners, not with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. The carb count per serving should be somewhere in the 2-5g range.

I don't like the EAS or Carbolite ready-made shakes, but I don't mind the vanilla and strawberry flavors of the Atkins canned shakes. I'd bought a can of the Atkins chocolate shake mix powder a while back, and didn't care for it. However, it was a lot more palatable when mixed with the Carb Countdown millk instead of just plain water. I'm currently working through a can of the Atkins strawberry mix, which I really like (again, mixed with milk, or half milk and half water). I think they changed the formulation at some point, because it mixes up much better, so maybe they improved the taste as well.