Sometimes marketing crosses all boundaries of stupidities. There is absolutely no issue in marketing and promoting your brand, and adding some exaggerated terms is also acceptable. Just like we add little salt in the dough. But, problem arises, when you start adding dough to the salt.

This is for the companies who think customers are stupid and aim should be to fool them rather than educate them. Can all these companies selling Whey Protein please tell me, what the hell do you mean by these terms:

• Lean whey protein
• Women whey protein
• Anabolic whey protein
• Keto whey protein

I can understand different forms of whey like concentrate, isolate, hydrolysate; or other forms of protein like plant protein sources from soy, pea etc. but I really do not understand that what science and research in nutrition has coined the above mentioned terms.

What does a normal person thinks when he listens about such terms:

• Lean Whey protein – may be some kind of a special whey protein for fat loss. So either it will help in fat loss, or during weight/fat loss, this is a better choice than others.
• Women whey protein – this is a whey for only women. Men cannot take it. It’s a protein by some NGO fighting for women equality rights. This is made for women only.
• Anabolic whey protein – normal whey is not for bodybuilders. They need special whey made for bodybuilders. Which will build some extra special muscles.
• Keto whey protein – well, what does one think of this. I am on keto diet, so I will use everything which is keto. Why not keto whey.

But I think there is a space of one more type of whey protein in the market. It should be called “Brain Whey protein”. I hope by eating that, people would get enough brains to use basic common sense and not get into these marketing traps.

When I made the biggest series on whey, casein and soy protein in India on my channel WE R STUPID (https://www.youtube.com/user/sprinter005), and many more videos on proteins in general, along with the three extremely extensive ebooks on whey, casein & soy; I thought that I have cleared most of the doubts about this subject. But eventually I realized that myths can generate from various sources, sometimes extremely stupid ones, like the one we are discussing.

• Women, generally a high paying and more vulnerable target. So, let’s create a separate protein for women. How do you do that? By adding some extra herbs and spices and some vitamins minerals

• Weight loss. The biggest buzzword in the fitness market and everyone’s weakness. So let’s create a weight loss protein. How do you do that? By adding some famous ingredients used in fat burners, which as such don’t work, but what’s the harm in adding them. Who knows even if we add cheap caffeine as a filler in whey. Let’s name it ‘lean whey’, ‘slim shake’ etc.

• Bodybuilding. There are already so many whey proteins targeting this market. So what to do. Let’s create a whey with added glutamine, BCAA, creatine etc or lean whey protein.

• Keto is the latest in thing. So, why not make a keto whey protein. But how do you do that? Simple. Search for stupid things which are commonly used in keto diets. Coconut oil and butter? No that’s too simple to name. Let’s use the term MCT oil.

If you listen to the video series and the books I wrote on basis of lot of research studies, I repeatedly said one thing. The same statement was repeated in a lot of live sessions on my channel, i.e. “If there is anything in whey protein, except whey protein, then it’s a filler”. Read the statement again.

Its self-explanatory. When you pay for a whey protein, you pay for whey protein only, not the additives, colors, preservatives, sweeteners, thickeners, and other minor amount of micronutrients in it. If a company is adding any of such things in a box of whey, then they are doing it by replacing whey. Or, in simple terms, they have to reduce the quantity of whey protein to do so. Which means you are getting less amount of the real thing you are paying for.

It’s like adding water in pure milk. More water there is, lower is the quantity and quality of milk. But why do people add water to milk? To maximize profits.

Similarly, adding cheap fillers in your whey, is to maximize profits, because pure high quality whey is costlier than all additives and fillers added into it.

There is another reason, i.e. to fool people, by making things look more attractive and different from others. When there are hundreds of supplement companies making whey protein, then how can the companies be different and grow their sales? By trying such gimmicks, and trying to capture a segment of the market which is more vulnerable.

But there is no difference in proteins. Whey proteins are whey proteins, be it for man, women, kid, older individual, pregnant women, competitive athletes, medical cases or any other type of human species on earth. No athlete/influencer/company launching its brand, can give you anything special in whey protein except more attractive packaging and fancy names like lean whey protein. But that’s all false marketing. Because you just need purest and highest quality of whey, when you go to buy whey protein. Nothing more, nothing less.

Some companies try to justify these gimmicks by saying that they are adding women specific herbs, like shatavari or guduchi (though it’s not just for women), or adding some vitamins and minerals women may need like folic acid, iron etc. Are you buying a whey protein or a multivitamin? Are you paying for multivitamin or whey protein? Everything has a special place and need. You cannot add everything in one supplement and say it’s a complete women whey protein and sell it at a much higher price.

So, there is no women whey, lean/slimming whey, anabolic whey or stupid keto whey. A female cow is not producing special milk for women, or a muscular cow is giving special milk for athletes. Neither a slim cow is giving special milk for weight loss. Whey is whey, rest everything is the highway.