Product Review - Four Sigmatic Protein Powder

As a follow-up to my review on a popular MLM shake, I want to give you what I would recommend for a protein shake if you’re concerned about getting enough every day.

Four Sigmatic is one of my favorite brands overall for their quality assurance and choice of ingredients but let’s take a deeper dive in this episode on just their plant-based protein and why I love this combo so much.

Use this link to save yourself $20 off your first order! http://usfoursigmatic.refr.cc/kaceykane

Check out Four Sigmatic’s quality standards and testing here: https://us.foursigmatic.com/quality

Don't forget to share this episode if learned something today and tag me on Instagram at @simplyhealthykacey!

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Transcript

Kacey K: Welcome to the Simply Helping You podcast, your place for overcoming overwhelmed with your health to reach your fullest potential. I'm your host, Casey Cain and I am so pumped to have you here. I'm a recovering, burnt out high achiever who was diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid condition by my early thirty s. I.

Kacey K: Didn'T realize that running myself ragged in.

Kacey K: The name of being superwoman and determined to achieve all the things in life was killing my body. I created this podcast that you don't have to continue to struggle like I did for over a decade. I sat down, studied the data, and simplified what it means to prioritize your own health needs so that you can be the best for all the things on your to do.

Kacey K: List.

Kacey K: Everything you hear on this podcast I have tested and implemented in my own super Pac life with my family to bring you the tips, tools, and strategies that will keep your life simply healthy.

Kacey K: Hey there. Before we dive into today's episode, I just had to take a minute to share a couple of quick wins with you from Simply Healthy Academy clients. They have been rocking it this round and they really do every single round, but there's been a few wins lately and I don't come on here enough to celebrate them and they deserve some celebration for the hard work that they're doing. Two in particular. Two stories I want to share with you today about women who are experiencing anxiety prior to coming into this program. One of the women, she has had a lot of dental issues over her lifetime, something that she's definitely predisposed to in her family. And early on in her life, there was a lot of anxiety correlated to these appointments. So much so, where she actually had to have a prescription to take prior to going to these appointments. This is what she had to say the other day in our group chat space for Simply Healthy Academy. My anxiety has decreased minus this weekend with property management plumbers and city workers coming to inspect the water main break in my garage. But I noticed my anxiety attack overall, this was the mildest I have ever had and it didn't last all day like before. I didn't even need my medication. How fucking amazing is that? I mean, she had a water main break in her garage which would cause anybody a normal level of anxiety and she didn't even have to take her meds to deal with it because she's been feeling so much more balanced since implementing everything in Simply Healthy Economy. And this happened just a little over the halfway point and there was still so much that she had done at that point to really start to relieve this anxiety for her. The other one is this a mom of two, about six months postpartum halfway through the program and this is what she had to say. The three habits that I've been working on in the beginning felt very daunting, but now they just come naturally to me and something I no longer have to think about. All of the things have made me physically feel better because I have less inflammation, but they've also helped my anxiety and mental state because I know I'm doing everything I can for my body and my overall health, which has cleared my mind a bit to start focusing on more positive things. This is definitely still a work in progress, but I'm chipping away at it every day. Imagine being able to alleviate some of your anxiety and focus on more of the positive things in life because you have built these systems and habits that have become second nature to you and fuel you for better health. That's what we do inside of simply healthy Academy. Enrollment is coming up soon. Reach out to me on Instagram. Simply Healthy. Casey. K-A-C-E-Y. Thanks for celebrating my clients with me in this little spotlight and I hope you enjoyed the episode. Hello friend. 

Welcome to another episode of the simply healthy you podcast. I hope this isn't your first episode listening because apparently I'm just going to be super silly at the beginning of this. I am so grateful to be infiltrating your brain with today's topic in a product review. Another product review. I should come up with some songs. Do I have some theme songs that I can post? I don't know anyone that does like music editing stuff and I'll be honest, the software that I use for podcasting is very simple. I love them. The company is called ALOTO. If you ever are thinking about podcasting, let me know. I will send you my referral link so you can save some money. They are super affordable anyway, but their software is so easy to use for editing. It is literally the only reason why I can successfully have a podcast because I ain't got no time for learning how to use crazy editing software. So maybe I should figure out some music theme songs. Anyway, totally digressing here at the beginning of this episode and I'm not going to edit this out. I'm going to leave this in here. So in the last episode I talked about Beach Bodies Shake Allergy, a very popular supplement, protein shake, whatever you want to call it. If you didn't catch that episode yet, go give it a listen so you can hear why it's not on my top list of products I would consume daily, even though for many years it was something that I used. But as I said in that episode and with all of the product reviews, I don't want to just leave you hanging if that is a product you are using already or something you are considering using and now don't know what might be better to have in its place. I still will plan on reviewing other protein powders but for today this is my top choice, my current top choice, the protein that I love the most. If I am going to be consuming protein, I'll be honest, we don't have it every day. We do have a pretty adequate protein intake in our house, but that's because we have been on this plant based journey for a few years now, and so we've gotten really good at making sure that we are rounding out our protein sources and getting enough protein every single day. So today we are talking about our favorite and my favorite in this house from Four Sigmatic. And I will also put a referral link in the show notes to save you $20 off of your first order with Four Sigmatic because I love them that much and I want you to love them too. Four Sigmatic is one of my favorite brands overall for their quality assurance and their choice of ingredients. Their transparency is also very refreshing as they have all of their manufacturing practices and testing results listed right on their website. Yes, I will include that link as well in the show notes so you can go and see exactly what I love and expect to see from companies who truly do care about their customers. Everything they make is USDA certified organic, which also just means less toxins right off the bat, not toxin free. We know that organic means that there are certain chemicals that they are not allowed to use, but they are still allowed to use certain things to control pests and things like that. Anyway, but all of this is right on their website. They are USDA certified organic. And so I love all of that right from the get. I talked in a recent episode about COAS and why they're so important and how great it would be if companies just all did it and posted their results. So it's amazing to see when a company actually does that and really shows, like I said, that they care about their customers and standing behind their products. So that's one thing. Like gold star right off the bat. I talked about red flags last time with the shakeology. This is a gold star for Four Sigmatic right here. Maybe this will become my measuring system. Red flags or gold stars? Gold Star for Four Sigmatic. Looking at the quality assurance and transparency that they want to provide to their customers. And I know that they didn't always have this on their website. I've been using their products for a long time, and I know that they have gotten a lot of questions now that we are learning more, especially when it comes to their coffees and things, which I'll talk about in another episode. I know they've got a lot of questions about some of the common toxins, some of the common mold issues and things like that that we see in coffees and protein powders. And so I think that they took this additional measure to be able to better answer customer questions instead of individually having to reach out. And I'm sure it was very time consuming for their customer service to be answering repeatedly. They posted it all on their website, so it's complete transparency. Here is where we stand, here is what our testing shows and all of that. So let's take a deeper dive on just their plant based protein for this episode, because I talked about the shakeology in the last episode and want you to have a replacement if that's what you are looking for and why I love this product so much. So I mentioned on the last episode with the shakeology that a big issue with plantbased proteins in particular is heavy metals. Pea protein and rice protein are some of the common ingredients in a lot of plantbased proteins. And depending on the sourcing and processing, they can be very high in lead and arsenic in particular, as well as some other heavy metals. You really need to know that a company is testing their plantbased proteins for heavy metals and what those results are, especially if you are going to be consuming this product on a daily basis. We do not need to be consuming heavy metals like that on a daily basis in any amount, really. Unfortunately, it is very hard to avoid in parts of our food system because of the soil and the quality of the soil and forever chemicals and a lot of fucking bullshit that we've kind of ruined our ecosystem a bit. But anyway, I digress. So you do want to know what that looks like. You want to know what those results are? Not only does Four Sigmatics show you their heavy metal testing results, they stay well below the limits, which, let's be honest, like I said, we don't need more of those metals in our body. But the FDA sets really crappy fucking standards for allowing this shit in our product. So Four Sigmatic stays well below their limits, which is great, but they also use a blend of plant proteins, which is part of why they can create a safer product. They are not just relying on any one particular plant source for protein. They have a really cool blend. Their blend is pea, hemp, chia, pumpkin and coconut, which is awesome for so many reasons. Also, beyond the heavy metals, by choosing a blend, you get a wide range of other nutrients, especially high in minerals like iron and potassium. This protein powder is really high in iron. That's one of the main reasons why I love it, because it is sometimes harder to get iron, especially as women, in adequate amounts, because when we have our period every month, we are losing vital minerals, especially iron, that are often in higher amounts in our blood, right? So it's especially important we see iron deficiency anemia a lot in women. And so I really love that the iron count is higher on this because of the different sources because of the seeds that they're adding into this. In addition to the P, protein really rounds out the nutrients. Well, there's a lot of potassium, you've got some calcium, you've got zinc that are also vital for everyday health and exercise recovery. If you are using this in addition to a workout routine and trying to keep your protein up, but all of these other nutrients are going to be so beneficial as well. To have included in this protein shake, you get 18 grams of protein per serving, which is totally adequate to supplement what you are eating throughout your day. The biggest argument is you can't get a lot of protein from plants. And while animal products will always have higher grams of protein per serving, you can get adequate amounts of protein from plants. It's just a matter of focusing on that diversity. And so, again, I think their blend really lends to a great combination and being able to get 18 grams of protein per serving of this protein powder. And as I said, to supplement what you are eating throughout your day. Right. The way that I view any of these powders, no matter what they're for, is a supplement to what you are eating throughout your day. Not a replacement for getting protein from other sources, but more of, hey, I'm not quite hitting my goal for where I want my protein to be. I'm going to use this as a supplement. I do think supplements are beneficial in that respect of being able to fill some gaps that we might have or giving ourselves a little extra coverage where we might need it to make sure that we're meeting our nutritional needs. You also get a small dose of healthy fats because they are using seeds in here for some of the protein sources. So that's great for some. Omega threes there. Now, almost every protein powder also has other ingredients, and we always want to think about what purpose those are serving and whether we want to be consuming them regularly if this is going to be an everyday product for you. So as I went through ingredient by ingredient on the shakeology and why either I was for or against some of those ingredients being in the final product, we need to do the same thing here. I'm going to go through the ingredient list. Four sigmatic became what they became or created what they created because of adaptogens. That's like their stick, right? That's what they are most passionate about, and primarily through mushrooms. So people call it mushroom coffee. No, it doesn't taste like mushrooms. None of this stuff tastes like mushrooms. None of it tastes like dirt. And I've seen people say, oh, it's not going to taste terrible. No, it tastes like protein powder. It tastes like coffee. Anyway, so they're all about the adaptogens, and that's why I first started using their products to begin with, was more for getting the adaptogens in products that I was already using. And once I looked at their quality and all of that, I was really happy about what I was buying. In their protein powders they include mushrooms like chaga, lions, mane, rishi cordyceps and turkey tail, which are all great for everything from calming energy to muscle recovery to increase mental focus and immune support. They really put a beautiful blend of adaptogens in here for you. And if you're not sure what the term adaptogen actually means, it's basically these miracle little plants that have the ability to adapt to whatever it is that your body needs at that time. So if you are someone who. Let's say. Like errs on the side of anxiety. Overactive have overstimulation type of thing. Or if you are someone who has an autoimmune condition. An overactive overstimulated type of energy in your system and adaptogen is going to help bring you down. It's going to help bring you to a more manageable level. It's going to help bring your inflammation down. It's going to help bring your anxiety down. But if you are someone who is on the opposite of extreme, let's say you are someone who tends to get into more depressive states or someone who tends to get sick a lot, has an underactive immune system just for some examples, adaptogens will also bring you up. The main thing with an adaptogen is that take part of the word, it helps your body adapt to wherever it needs to be. So no matter whether you are overstimulated, under stimulated, oversupported, undersupported, adaptogens help your body find homeostasis. It's a fucking crazy miracle plant. I absolutely love adaptogens and use them in my everyday life in some capacity. And this Four Sigmatic protein is a great way for you to get adaptogens in your life. Now I will say adaptogens are not like a bandaid. We don't put it on and everything heals and like we're all good. They are something that you see the most benefits from with daily consumption. So again, this is why I really loved Four Sigmatics products, especially the protein, because if you are going to be consuming it more regularly, well, now you're getting adaptogens into your body every single day and really maximizing the benefits that you can get from that. They also include herbal adaptogens in their protein powder like Ashwagandha, which is an ancient ayurvedic herb which does so many things but is particularly helpful in stress recovery. So I think that's why they included it in their protein powder. Knowing that some people are going to reach for this protein powder when it comes to exercise routines and recovery really helps in stress recovery. But if you aren't doing exercise, I mean, who isn't fucking experiencing stress in some way? And you have to remember, no matter what the stress is on your body, it still can cause oxidative damage. And so that's really helpful. Ashwagandha is a great one for that. Among many other things. And E Luthero. I'm terrible at pronouncing that one, which is a route that's been used for hundreds of years in the eastern world. We are kind of behind on the western world and really being able to maximize what we can get from the herbal medicine route or the herbal benefits of so many plants on our planet. And so in the eastern world, they've been using illusion for hundreds of years and primarily to help support stamina and endurance. So again, if you're using this protein powder in conjunction with an exercise routine, that's really going to be beneficial there. These herbal adaptogens are both great. If you're using, like I said, in conjunction with a workout routine, which we all should be doing a few times a week, I'm going to should you on that one. We all should be doing some kind of movement that puts a little bit of strain and stress on our body a few times a week because that is how we are going to prevent osteoporosis and muscle issues and joint pain and everything else as we age. Like we need to move in order to keep our body moving, one begets the other. I think this is something that all of us can benefit from. The ingredients in this protein powder, whether you are doing a formal workout program or not. But it's also just good for every good for everyday life. Like I said, most of us are experiencing some kind of stress. Most of us have some kind of temporary anxieties and things like that, that might happen. You may very well be hearing the weather radio testing. I should have paid attention to what time it is. It is Wednesday around 11:00. We have a weather radio out here because we get tornadoes. And in our old town, because it was more populated, there were sirens that they would test. But here we don't have sirens because we're much more rural. And so we bought one of those weather radios that alerts you when there is a weather emergency in your area. And I forgot that it's Wednesday around 11:00. And that might have just been the testing in the background. So sorry for the interruption. I'm probably not going to edit that whole thing out. That would take me a bit to edit out. So anyway, back to the four Sigmatic protein. So I love the ashwagandha. I love it for autoimmune thyroid issues, for example. Again, because of the adaptogen effect and that stress recovery, ashwagandha is particularly good. But both of these are great to have in your everyday life. So now let's talk about the flavors. Where are we getting our flavors from? We talked about the adaptogens. When you look at the ingredient label, we've talked about the adaptogens that are in there talking about the protein sources. Let's talk about the flavors that they have because this is going to be a huge part of the ingredient list. So they have a few different flavors. They've got a sweet vanilla, a peanut butter, a creamy cacao unflavoured, and most recently they came out with a cafe mocha. We have tried every single one of these flavors. They are all tasty, but I think depending on what you're using it for, you might gravitate towards a certain flavor. You might not know this, but vanilla flavoring, let's talk about the vanilla first. Can come from beaver anus. Yes, you heard me right. Beaver anus, beaver butt, whatever you want to call it. I'm trying to sound professional saying that, but I don't really think there's a professional way to say beaver. But Google item. I know every once in a while I tell you to Google something. This is one of those things like it's really easy to go find this information that there is a Goo that is secreted from beavers that has a vanilla like scent that they use in artificial flavoring, right? Oh my God. One of the most disgusting things I've learned as I have gone through this journey of understanding ingredients and what is actually in products. Just another wonderful example of what has been approved by the FDA because it's more cost effective for manufacturers. Like fucking gross. So you do not want artificial vanilla flavoring in products you are consuming? Well, maybe you do. If you don't mind eating beaver butt Goo, then there is no need to look further into your vanilla flavored products, I guess. But if you would like to avoid that, then you need to know where companies are sourcing their vanilla from and that it's. Real vanilla. Which, yes, these things are costly. But how did we get to the point in this world where we really are just considering cost over everything else? Like who was the person who said, hey, this beaver butt goo kind of smells like vanilla and we could get it for a lot cheaper. I also cannot imagine how brutal it must be for them to continue to source this beaver. But Goo, I'm sure there are some beaver damage that's happening there and animal cruelty that's happening there, as with many of the things that us humans decide to do for our food system. I digress. But like real vanilla exists. This isn't something that we needed to create because something didn't exist like it fucking exists. It's just a little bit expensive and maybe we don't need to be using it for everything so that we can sustainably source these things. I don't know. Going on a unplanned rant here. So For Sigma does not use beaver goo for their vanilla. Real vanilla, like I said, is very expensive and some of it is terribly sourced, leading to environmental issues because of the high demand for it. This may not be something that is in the forefront of your brain, but I am always looking for ways that I can make holistic wellrounded choices. So when I consider buying something, I also kind of take into account whether or not that's the case with it. So buying ethically sourced vanilla products is important to me, where I can do is it like, again at the forefront? No, probably not. But I like to see that a company is also doing that. So you get that here in Four Sigmatics vanilla protein. The unflavored one is, well, fairly unflavored. It does include a little bit of cinnamon in addition to some other ingredients for like a little bit of sweetening, which I'll talk about all of those in a minute because they tend to be the same across all the proteins. But it's fairly unflavoured and works really well in a number of different things depending on how you're planning on using it. We like to drink the protein as a standalone a lot of the time with maybe like a banana or something mixed into it. We don't really do a lot with it, so we like the flavors for that. The creamy Cacao includes unrefined cacao powder. That's the one main difference of ingredient across the protein flavors when we're looking at the creamy cacao. So cacao is touted as a healthy food, but you also need to be mindful of heavy metals here, like lead and cadmium. And this is why I hate, tremendously hate, when anything is labeled as superfood or whatever people try to say about them, because there's no such thing. Even though cacao is very beneficial for a lot of different reasons, everything has cautions and or is missing some nutrients that you would need to get from other foods. It is always about balance. Nothing is a fucking superfood. It doesn't exist. There is literally nothing on the planet that we have yet discovered that has all the nutrients that you would need that you can literally just survive off of that every day. There are foods that are more nutrient dense, but I think that is a much better way of describing the food than to call it a fucking superboot anyway. So you do have to you do have to be mindful of the lead in the cadmium that comes along with cacao. And again, you want to look at a brand testing for that. So we already know that Four Sigmatic shows all of their testing for all of their products. So you could guess at this point. They test their cacao and they make sure it stays well below the limits for heavy metals. And unrefined, they use unrefined cacao. Powder means that you get more of the beneficial minerals that come with high quality cacao. So that's a great added bonus there in the peanut butter flavor, instead of using any kind of flavoring, they use literal peanut flour, which is dehydrated and ground up peanuts. So that's fantastic, not worrying about any sort of chemicals or things in there. And their newest flavor that we have recently tried ourselves is the Cafe Mocha, and it includes some of the unrefined cacao powder that they were already using with some instant coffee that they have already created. There is a small amount of caffeine in this one, about 85 milligrams per serving. So you want to be mindful of that depending on where you are drinking it. In your day, you might not want that added caffeine in there, but it is delicious, I will say that. So, finally, the other ingredients in all of the protein flavors, these tend to be the same across all of them are coconut milk powder. They add this for creaminess, I imagine. And I find that these proteins are not chalky at all like some brands, especially some of the plant proteins, they can be really chalky. I love these. I do add a banana typically when I make it, but I do find that they are creamy even on their own. When I don't do that, there's a little bit of pink Himalayan salt in there, salt kind of just added for a balance of flavor. And then they have a combination of sweeteners in the different flavors. It seems as though they use different sweeteners depending on the flavor that they are trying to get in the final product. And some of them, it's maple syrup. When they want more of that, like caramel lighter kind of flavor to it, it seems. There's monk fruit, there's coconut, palm sugar, yukon juice powder, and lucuma in all of them as the different sweeteners in there. And a combination of them, depending against what I imagine, this is all speculation. They don't have it written anywhere. But what I imagine is that they use them to try to get the desired flavor that they want in each one of the products. All of these sweeteners are more whole food based and ones that, if you are consuming regularly, haven't been shown to disrupt the gut like stevia I talked about in psychology, or cause high blood sugar spikes in such small doses. If you look at how much added sugar is actually in their protein powder, this is one of the other main reasons why I decided to buy their product to begin with was both for the adaptogens, but also the very low amount of added sugar. The added sugar per serving is about 2 grams. So looking at that, you're getting 18 grams of protein plus a whole bunch of other nutrients in there, it's really not going to have much of an impact on your system as a supplement in a whole foods based diet. If we are really focusing on using this properly while consuming tons of other foods that don't have any added sugar. So if you are looking for a protein powder to supplement your daily whole foods intake and or assist in recovery from your workouts, four Sigmatic Plantbased protein is my number one recommendation for the many benefits that you get outside of just the protein. I am always looking at how we can have. Our products do more for us. So consuming something that is literally just a protein powder and you're getting nothing else with it, they're expensive. I consider that a waste of money if I'm going to spend this kind of money. And I will say that their price point is very affordable when it comes to the range of what I have seen proteins for, certainly not the cheapest, but for what you are getting in these containers, I think that they are a very affordable, moderate price point, I should say. I know affordable is sort of subjective, it means something different to everyone. But I do think that they are at a moderate price point. They are certainly not the most expensive protein powder out there, but you do get so much in their protein. I don't really even consider it just a protein powder because of everything that you can get from it. We love the creamy cacao the most in our house. It's my favorite flavor. The kids love it. I do give it to them on occasion, not very often, but like when they're being really picky with snacks, this is typically something I can blend up some protein and they absolutely love it. We have tried all the flavors, like I said, and they're all tasty. I think it just depends on how you plan to blend it in. My husband used the unflavoured for a while because he was blending it into his daily harvest smoothies in order to get it all in, because he didn't want to be having like a million beverages a day and he's working on increasing his calorie consumption. Most of the time I'll make the creamy cow, like I said, with a banana. I'll put some nettle leaf in there. I'll put some maca powder in there. For hormone support, I use fortified soy milk and a bunch of ice because I like it really thick and frosty and I will split that up between all of us. I don't usually have an entire serving of the protein, even myself. I'll usually share it with everyone again, because we have been doing this plant based thing for a while now and have really done a pretty decent job of making sure that I should say I have. I've done a pretty good job of making sure that I am offering my family adequate amounts of protein throughout the day and the meals and snacks that they are getting. So our protein tends to be pretty good, so we don't really use it every day. And I don't necessarily consume a full serving myself, but you certainly could, depending on where you are in your journey and what it is that you're doing. When I am able to get back into strength training more, I will probably prioritize having the full serving myself or making an extra. I've done double batches before to share with the entire family so that I can make sure that my muscles are recovering properly and things like that. I have included a link in the show notes to save $20 off your first order. Like I said before, with Four Sigmatic that works for any of their products, I will definitely be talking more about some of their other products in the future, especially coffee, because that's a daily big one for a lot of us. We drink that like every single day. And I'm sure you may have seen some of the information coming out about mycotoxins and molds that is found in a lot of coffees. It's just one of those crops that's really prone to that and making sure, again, that your company that you are consuming it from are holding their products to a higher standard and that you're not being exposed to those toxins, that's important. So I'll definitely be talking about their coffee. If you have more questions about Four Sigmatic Dysprotein, anything like that, as always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Simply L-C-K-A-C-E-Y or if you want me to review your protein powder. Now that I've done Beach Body Shakeology and I've done Four Sigmatic Protein, if you want me to review your protein powder and see what I would say about it, I am more than happy to do that for you in a future episode. So I hope you found this helpful. As always, thanks for listening and I will catch you next time.

Kacey K: Thank you so much for listening to the Simply Healthy You podcast. If these episodes are resonating with you, go ahead and click that subscribe button and leave a review with all the great nuggets that you're taking away from today's episode, I promise you I read every single one of them as your feedback is really valuable to me in creating future episodes. As your host, I look forward to having you join me for the next episode. But in the meantime, remember, keep it simple and eat more plants.