Trec Nutrition Booster Isolate - Cheesecake 🧀🍰
Cheesecake in a shaker - that is the dream.
I was beyond excited to stumble upon Trec’s cheesecake flavoured isolate which boasts 25g of protein at only 103 calories - but did the product live up to expectations? Read on to find out…
The Product Summary
📋 Product: Trec Nutrition Booster Isolate
🥛 Type: Whey Isolate
👄 Flavour: Cheesecake
💰 Price: £24.99
⚖️ Weight: 700g
🥄 Servings: ~23 scoops
The TLDR
Really good macro profile and formula, however the protein was very foamy and thick when mixed, which made it very difficult to drink. Moreover, the taste was a little plain and underwhelming. Not a bad product, but I think there are better around the same price point.
The Macros
🔥 103 Calories
💪 24.6g Protein
🍬 0.8g Carbs (0.8g sugar)
🛢️ 0.1g Fat (0.1g saturated)
The Brand
Trec are a Polish brand that have been around since 2001, and have a number of different business divisions. Trec obviously sell supplements (you know this is a supplement blog right?…), and also have a clothing line, as well as nutrition / clothing tailored to functional sports, martial arts, and endurance athletes. Importantly, Trec also own Vitamin-Shop, a network of 200+ supplement stores in Europe and Asia, and I purchased my tub of Booster Isolate from a local Vitamin-Shop.
Trec’s branding is actually fairly low-key by supplement standards, but what made the product stand out was the incredible nutritional profile.
The Formula
I usually include the full ingredients list at the bottom of this section, but this one was such a big sell of the product that I’m going to move it up - I promise to keep it short:
1) CFM whey protein isolate (from milk) (92,7%);
2) flavourings;
3) thickner – sodium carboxy methyl cellulose;
4)sweetener – sucralose.
And that is it - 4 ingredients!
Starting with the protein - while this isn’t explicitly stated on the English language label or the website, I believe “CFM” whey protein isolate refers to whey isolates that have undergone “Cross Flow Microfiltration”. Cross Flow Filtration (also known as Tangential Flow Filtration) is a chemical engineering technique, and differs from traditional filtering. Instead of pushing a mixture through a “mesh” as you would in traditional filtering, cross flow filtration will push the mixture along the mesh. As for microfiltration, this along with nano and ultra filtration, essentially refer to the size of particle that can pass through the filtration “mesh”.
So other than allowing me to flex my (v. limited) engineering prowess, what does this have to do with protein? Well, the short answer is, I’m not sure?….
The primary benefit of CF filtration is to prolong the life of the filter. It was not immediate clear to me why this is important in a protein supplement. Perhaps the emphasis should be on the Microfiltration bit, rather than Cross Flow. But if purity is the selling point here, surely it makes more sense to emphasise that each serving contains 25g whey isolates at only 103 calories? This is actually quite impressive, as 1g of protein = 4 calories, and therefore Trec Booster Isolate is actually almost pure protein, with only 3 calories per serving from non-protein sources.
I was so intrigued by the significance of CFM that I tried searching for other protein powders that mention this - and only a handful of niche protein powders advertise this (such as this one, by Weider). If anybody understands the significance of CFM, please do get in touch!
Not a whole lot to say on the other ingredients - cellulose gum is a very common thickener, and if you’re avoiding fake sugars then do note that this protein is sweetened with sucralose.
The Mixability
This is where Trec’s isolate is a bit of a let down. Given the purity of whey isolates, I typically do not expect to have any mixability issues at all. However, this particular product just didn’t mix very well. I found the powder to be very clumpy in water, and produced quite a lot of foam. The shake was also very thick, even with double the reccomended volume of water. As you can see from the picture below, the mixture is very foamy, and thickness aside, this has a noticable impact on the overall flavour.
I suspect some of these issues can be solved if Trec added a bit of lecithin to their powder. Given how clean the protein is, I would expect a little bit of lecithin to drastically improve the mixability, while still maintaining the impressive macro profile.
The other minor complaint I have is with the scoop. Trec’s serving size is 30g, which is equivalent to 1.5 scoops. Now I don’t know about you, but I find it pretty much impossible to “eye-ball” 1.5 scoops, a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that Trec’s scoop is wider at the top than it is at the bottom. This is minor issue for me as I always weigh my protein - but I expect most don’t, and this can be quite an annoying problem to have.
The Taste
Macros aside, the other reason I was excited to try this is the cheesecake flavour. I LOVE cheesecake, and while I really wanted to like this product, the flavour was a little underwhelming.
Truth be told, the flavour isn’t bad - I actually quite enjoyed my first shake. But, the flavour is very mild, and I didn’t really get the tanginess or the richness of cheesecake from this product. Had this been sold to me as a tub of vanilla protein, I probably would have said that the flavour is above average.
I do think that the thickness and foaminess of the powder had a very big impact on the taste. The mild cheesecake flavour was not helped by the significant amount of water needed to create a pleasant consistency.
Overall, while the flavour was not bad, I would say this tasted more like vanilla than cheesecake. The more important consideration for me was the below average texture.
The Flavour Longevity
As above, while I didn’t really mind the mild, milky flavour. What really made this non-viable as a long term option for me is the mixability. I was actually quite glad to finish the tub, and be able to move on to a different product.
The Versatility
As with most of my protein powders, I tried blending this with fruit, and also adding it to oats.
I would not reccomend blending this. The thickness and foaminess of the powder is magnified by the incorporation of air through blending, and the resulting consistency is almost undrinkable. I’d describe the texture as somewhere in between whipped cream and a milk shake - thick and quite heavy, but with a lot of air incorporated into the mix.
Adding to oats is a viable option, but the mild flavour does get a little boring.
The Pricing
£25 for 23 servings equates to just over £1 per serving of pure whey isolate, and while this issensible, it isn’t exactly cheap.
Dymatize’s Iso 100 product is very comparable (110 vs. 103 calories per serving, both providing 25g of whey isolates), and I was able to find a few reputable stores selling 30 serving tubs for around £27. This is clearly cheaper than Trec’s Booster Isolate on a per serving basis. Similarly, Optimum Nutrition’s 31-serving Gold Standard 100% Isolate sells at £30 on Amazon, again marginally cheaper than Trec.
While I am very impressed by Trec’s Isolate on paper, there isn’t enough in it to reccomend this product over some of the more popular ones on the market, particularly given the (admittedly subjective) taste and mixability issues.
I will admit that buying in a physical supplement store is often times more expensive than shopping online, so you may well find this product at a slightly lower price than the price I paid.
The Verdict
From my experience with the cheesecake flavour, I can not reccomend Trec’s Booster Isolate. While the product boasts very impressive macros on paper, the taste, mixability and other practical issues (like the serving size) make this protein less viable as a staple. Given it is priced similarly to other popular products, I suspect most would be better served sticking with a more popular isolate product.