So last week I had just ordered another 5 pound bottle of NOW foods Whey Protein Isolate. I started looking at the wildly variable price of the Choline bitartrate and was searching around for some that cost less when I found some by a company called Hard Rhino. It was less but wasn’t free shipping, they do a fixed shipping cost for all orders on Amazon. So I started looking at the other stuff they sold and discovered they had Whey Protein Isolate for crazy low prices. I found their web site and found larger sizes available and free shipping on orders over $100. The original prices turned out to be an error and they raised them, though they are still less than NOW and the additional smaller sizes give people who just want to try people-chow/soylent an opportunity to not spend as much money. I cancelled my 5lb NOW order and ordered 10 kg of Hard Rhino.

Here is a current cost comparison based on the prices on Feb 28, 2014:

brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g
NOW 5.00 2.27 64.99 28.60 13.00 1.573
NOW 10.00 4.55 115.31 25.37 11.53 1.395
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 14.99 29.98 13.63 1.649
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 27.99 27.99 12.72 1.539
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 104.99 21.00 9.54 1.155
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 199.99 20.00 9.09 1.100

So if you get the 5kg bag, the price per gram/pound/kg is lower than the NOW. The big question is: how does it compare to the NOW that I’ve been using since I stated soylent?

HardRhino Nutrition Information – NOW Nutrition Information

So if I take the 28g serving of NOW and normalize it up to the same 100g serving as the Hard Rhino I get:

Nutrient Hard Rhino (100g) NOW (100g)
Calories 380 392.86
Fat (g) 1.5 1.79
Cholesterol (mg) 10 17.86
Sodium (mg) 160 160.71
Carbohydrates (g) 2 2.86
Protein (g) 89 89.29
Calcium (mg) 0.465 0.54
Sulpher (Cysteine and Methionine) 4.6 4.60
Potassium (g) 0.48
Alanine 4.6 4.6
Arginine 2.1 2.1
Asparagine 0 0
Aspartic acid 9.7 9.7
Cysteine 2.6 2.6
Glutamic acid 17.1 17.1
Glutamine 0 0
Glycine 1.6 1.6
Histidine 1.5 1.5
Isoleucine 5.6 5.6
Leucine 9.7 9.7
Lysine 9.7 9.7
Methionine 2 2
Phenylalanine 2.9 2.9
Proline 5.5 5.5
Selenocysteine 0 0
Serine 3.7 3.7
Threonine 6.1 6.1
Tryptophan 1.6 1.6
Tyrosine 2.7 2.7
Valine 4.6 4.6

OK, I’m going to say: it’s the same stuff, there’s just some rounding errors on stuff like cholesterol and calcium. If you want to look at the spreadsheet with all of the data it’s HERE.

So let’s see what the Hard Rhino is like!

The Hard Rhino Box - I ordered a 10 kg package

The Hard Rhino Box – I ordered a 10 kg package

Inside the box - I added a pencil to the image for scale, does not come with a free pencil!

Inside the box – I added a pencil to the image for scale, does not come with a free pencil!

Hard Rhino bag - because this is the bulk package it's not in a foil pouch. Instead it's double bagged and zip-tied.

Hard Rhino bag – because this is the bulk package it’s not in a foil pouch. Instead it’s double bagged and zip-tied.

Close up of the Hard Rhino label

Close up of the Hard Rhino label

The Zip Ties. Be smart: don't cut them, there's a release tab that lets to easily take them off (and re-use them!)

The Zip Ties. Be smart: don’t cut them, there’s a release tab that lets to easily take them off (and re-use them!)

Hard Rhino Whey Protein Isolate

Hard Rhino Whey Protein Isolate

So here we go, Hard Rhino is on the left, NOW is on the right. NOW is a bit whiter when you put them next to each other.

So here we go, Hard Rhino is on the left, NOW is on the right. NOW is a bit whiter when you put them next to each other.

 

For a better comparison I put the NOW into the bag and pressed it flat. Yes there is a visual difference, no there is not a taste difference that I could detect.

For a better comparison I put the NOW into the bag and pressed it flat. Yes there is a visual difference, no there is not a taste difference that I could detect.

So to recap that last point: I tasted both isolates and I could not detect a difference between the two. I actually went back and forth a few times, sometimes washing out my mouth with filtered water between them, sometimes not.  I didn’t notice any difference in texture either. I also made up a batch of people chow using the new stuff and it tasted exactly the same. So now I have 180 days of Whey Protein Isolate (!).

As I said in the first paragraph, there have been 3 price revisions so far, the original prices (before the big price error was fixed):

brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g
NOW 5.00 2.27 64.99 28.60 13.00 1.573
NOW 10.00 4.55 115.31 25.37 11.53 1.395
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 15.99 31.98 14.54 1.759
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 27.99 27.99 12.72 1.539
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 54.99 11.00 5.00 0.605
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 114.99 11.50 5.23 0.632
hard rhino 33.00 15.00 219.99 14.67 6.67 0.807

The prices when I purchased:

brand pound kg price per KG per lb per 55g
NOW 5.00 2.27 64.99 28.60 13.00 1.573
NOW 10.00 4.55 115.31 25.37 11.53 1.395
hard rhino 1.10 0.50 14.99 29.98 13.63 1.649
hard rhino 2.20 1.00 24.99 24.99 11.36 1.374
hard rhino 11.00 5.00 89.99 18.00 8.18 0.990
hard rhino 22.00 10.00 164.99 16.50 7.50 0.907
hard rhino 33.00 15.00 244.99 16.33 7.42 0.898
hard rhino 44.00 20.00 324.99 16.25 7.39 0.894

And now there are the new prices that are closer in line with what the NOW costs (those are at the top of the article), though still lower. So if you’re looking at getting a large quantity of Whey Protein Isolate, or you want to get 500g (9 days worth) to try out DIY soylent without having to spend $50+ on Protein Isolate it’s a great fit. I am putting mine into my NOW bottle so that I can seal up the bag and use the more convenient container.

Tasting unflavored whey protein isolate powder reminds me a lot of powdered milk. It’s not horrible but I’m not planning on doing it again anytime soon.