Optimum Nutrition Isolate – Finally, 100% Pure Whey Isolate!

Well, it’s about time! ON has finally put out a pure whey isolate after Dymatize has been running the show with ISO-100 forever!

Every fitness enthusiast and protein powder connoisseur had a “starter” protein powder before graduating to the elite tasting powders made by PES, Cellucor, or Blue Star. For the vast majority of people their very first protein powder was Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey found most likely at the local sports supplement shop.

As individuals come to find out though, whey concentrates aren’t exactly handled the best by the GI system, especially if you are slightly lactose intolerant. While other supplement companies have had whey isolate products around for some time, Optimum seemed to take their time in releasing one.

Well, the day is finally at hand and Optimum has finally released it’s whey isolate powder to the masses with ON Isolate.

All we can say is that it’s about time! Before we break down the macros, check out the best deal and sign up for PricePlow alerts:

ON Isolate Ingredients

Each scoop of the new ON Isolate has 25g protein on its ingredients.

As you would expect, ON’s whey isolate is light on ingredients and heavy on protein. It doesn’t utilize a blend of various isolates as other products do, but stays home to the tried and true whey isolate.

• The “Good”

  Each scoop of ON Isolate delivers 25g of high quality 90% whey protein isolate (WPI). When searching for a top whey protein powder, it doesn’t get much better than this!

  For those who can’t quite stomach blends of concentrate and isolates, this is an ideal choice. Now you can enjoy all the muscle building benefits of a whey protein supplement without any unpleasant side effects, like bloating or gas, you may get with other products.

• The “Bad”

  None! There are no real “bad” ingredients here from our viewpoint. You won’t find any hydrogenated oils, non-diary creamers, trans fats, or any other nasties found in other brands.

• The Rest

  Rounding out the ingredient panel, we have some natural thickeners and gums to provide texture and “mouth feel,” along with Natural and Artificial flavors, Sucralose, and Ace-K as the artificial sweeteners. We’re pleased to see both of these choices as the go-to sugar free options with protein powders and really happy to see not a single trace of aspartame.

Macro Breakdown

• Calories: 120
• Protein: 25g
• Carbohydrates: 3g (1g sugar)
• Fats: 1g (0.5g saturated)

The questions / drawbacks

Miguel on Facebook wrote the following:

“73% protein per scoop? Doesn’t seem very high for an Isolate. And they don’t disclose how it’s been treated, is it micro filtered? cold filtered? If it’s been ion exchanged then it’s garbage imo. 3 grams carbs is also high for an Isolate imo. Sorry to be picky, but it doesn’t impress me and they’ll charge an arm and a leg for this.” –Miguel^[1]

These are great questions, and when isolates are typically 90% protein by weight, we often hope to get a bit more information and a bit more protein per gram of powder. Hopefully ON can fill us in on the details.

Flavors Available

ON Athlete Jackie Kastelic uses gets real in the gym and then gets serious about recovery with a whey shake afterwards to speed recovery and build muscle.

Unfortunately, ON’s Isolate doesn’t have the plethora of flavors that the 100% Whey line has. If you’re relegated to using only isolates, you’re only option is Vanilla. Maybe if the product takes off the way the blend did, we’ll see some additional flavors added to the line, but for now, you have only one choice if you’re loyal to ON.

What about “Performance Whey Isolate”?

Before this ON Isolate came out, there was a product named Performance Whey Isolate that could only be found at Costco, but sometimes leaked onto Amazon. We merged that product with the new Isolate discussed here, and you can find it in our price widgets above and below at the 4.2lb version. ON Isolate comes in 1.6lb, 3lb, and 5lb versions.

We assume Performance Whey Isolate won’t be hitting mainstream like the new ON Isolate, so it’s all going under this product name for now in PricePlow.

Note that neither of these are to be confused with Optimum Nutrition Performance Whey, which is a step below 100% Whey since it has whey concentrate first, but is often in hot deal mode on our supplement deals page due to frequent BOGO50/B2G1 offers on it.

Takeaway

Optimum Nutrition has finally caught up to the rest of the big protein suppliers on the market and finally released an isolate protein powder, and this time it’s not just at Costco. The scoop size and protein content are bigger than the rest of the competition, but where ON falls short is in the number of flavors.

Hopefully we’ll see some new ones added to the line, but if not, there are plenty of other great isolates that you can find on our Best Protein Powder guide!