Optimum NutritionGold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder, Naturally Flavored Chocolate, 27 Servings (Packaging May Vary)

I gained around 3 pounds of lean muscle in the two weeks after I go this. The main reason is because its really easy to take for the following reasons:* They add sweeteners and flavor to it so that you can drink it without gagging (I got the artificial sweetened kind)* They do something to it so it mixes easily with water (they call it "instantized")* After mixing, the consistency is not thick at all, less thick than milk.These three things put together means that I can easily, with only a casual amount of willpower expenditure, ingest 150g-200g of protein of this stuff a day. That much protein = lean muscle growth.So basically what I'm saying is I have no idea if this is the "best" protein or not. But the way they've put the product together, makes it work for building muscle in the real world, for regular people, with normal amounts of will power, and normal amounts of planning ability. You just mix the stuff and drink it and it doesn't taste terrible. Its EASY.. and thats important.Before I was using unflavored "Naked Whey" - which sounds great and is a great product, but it did not work in practice for a few reasons:* Natural whey protein does not mix easily with water without creating a huge amount of foam that you then have to wait a long time to settle (like over an hour). So you have to plan ahead when you make your shakes. You cant just make them as you need them.* Natural whey protein tastes TERRIBLE, so you have to either mix it with artificial sweeteners anyway (like a Mio). Or add real sweetener to it (fattening, spikes blood sugar). Or get complicated and mix a bunch of fruit in with it. If you mix fruit with it like I did (bananas and apples), the shake is now thick and much more filling, which means that although it is still technically possible, it is no longer feasible to put down 150g-200g a day of whey protein.

one of the best protein powders that I've ever tried, previously I tried body fortress which was too sweet, and then I kept going with dymatize which was sweet as well but different/better(stevia) than body fortress (although that might have changed, I tried body fortress back in 2010). Now, you may wonder why did I not stick with dymatize. Well, the truth is I first went with this one(optimum nutrition gold standard natural chocolate), but the price kept going up and up and up, and at the same time my financial situation kept going down and down and down, so when it got somewhat stable I went with dymatize due to its price, and then my financial situation improved enough so that I decided to give it another go with optimum nutrition. I'm glad I did. It does cost extra, but the truth is in the powder. First, it mixes far better, second, it has natural sweetness, but not too much of it (which did raise questions when I first tried it, why are chocolates and other sweet stuff so full of sugar when you only need very few grams to get the desired sweetness, same with quest bars) and third, it has perfect amount of protein/carb/calories for my needs. I have been using this for a while now, it's going to be a year in a couple of months. I don't use it too much though. Sometimes I use it two times in a day, sometimes I skip a day. I didn't notice any issues with digestion. I sometimes make it with water, sometimes with skim milk, sometimes mix skim milk and a tbsp or two of nonfat greek yogurt or vanilla yogurt, and so far it's been working out great. I tried baking with it, which was a success, although if you want sweeter mug cakes and similar add some honey/stevia/whatever of healthier sugar alternatives, and it's even possible (albeit annoying) to just take a bowl, put nonfat greek yogurt in it (like 1/2 cup) and 1 scoop of this stuff, and then mix it with a spoon for a little while, and you end up with some nice protein yogurt type of stuff :)

Taste: I'd have to give it five stars for taste. It's not a strawberry smoothie from Jamba Juice, but for a protein drink, it's very tasty. My 8 and 9 year olds beg for sips in the morning. So in the field of protein powders, this one is great.Ingredients: Five stars. Read the label. Clean protein. Naturally occurring BCAA's and glutamine. Stevia, which I'm not a big fan of, is a more "natural" sweetener. Would I like to see some creatine? Sure, but it's not advertised so I'm not going to take points from them.Mix-ability: Shaker cup mixes easily. 20 seconds of shaking and no lumps. Blender, my preferred method, mixes perfectly. No lumps but it does foam up a bit. Have not tried the spoon method.Packaging: I'm going to roll a few things up in this category. The scoop is always at the bottom! Frustrating. I don't like that a "rounded" scoop is a serving. What is a "rounded" scoop? Why not give us the correct size scoop and we can all agree on a level scoop? Maybe it's my OCD. Has a huge opening for easy scooping all the way to the bottom. Thank goodness for the color coding flavor strip. The flavor is typed in small print and practically blends in with the background. The color strip makes it easy for me to grab my strawberry or chocolate flavor without having to read.Pricing: Good. Are there less expensive ones out there? Yep. Have I tried them? Yep. Are they just as good? Close. At the end of the day ON has a reputation to live up to so I can trust that they are not going to cut corners. For me, it's worth the extra few pennies per serving. Literally. A few pennies for quality, dependability and peace of mind.