Transparent Labs Mass Gainer Review: What's So "Natural"?
Transparent Labs is a Utah-based supplement company with a, well, transparent approach to nutrition that's resulted in some serious growth. But can their all-natural mass gainer result in serious growth as well? We tried out the chocolate flavor to see how it holds up.
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TRANSPARENT LABS MASS GAINER NUTRITION
One serving is about 200 grams and delivers 740 calories: 109 grams of carbs (8g fiber, 15g sugar), 53 grams of protein, and 12 grams of fat. There’s no added sugar at all.
READ THE FULL REVIEW: Google BarBend + Transparent Labs Mass Gainer for our full take and even more detail!
A serving has 37 percent of your daily cholesterol, but not that many micronutrients: 15 percent of your daily calcium and 24 percent of your sodium.
TRANSPARENT LABS MASS GAINER INGREDIENTS
The first ingredient is tapioca maltodextrin which makes up more than half of the product. Then there’s grass-fed whey concentrate, coconut milk powder, natural chocolate flavor, cocoa, medium chain triglycerides, a blend of prebiotic soluble fibers called VitaFiber®, 3 grams of creatine monohydrate, sodium chloride, oat flour, sweet potato powder, stevia, and monk fruit.
The precise dosages are available in our full review.
TRANSPARENT LABS MASS GAINER BENEFITS
A few things are important to note, here. With 15 grams in 740 calories this is pretty low in sugar and there’s a solid amount of fiber as well. (The 8 grams is 30 percent of the recommended daily intake.)
Depending on your goals, the 37 percent of your daily cholesterol may be an issue, but then again a lot of folks who are trying to build muscle deliberately try to increase their cholesterol, so it depends on your individual goals.
There are no artificial ingredients here at all and the whey comes from grass-fed cows, which may have a better fatty acid composition than regular whey. (Though the difference is pretty small, it’s still there.) There’s also no soy or added sugar, so the product could be useful for a lot of people with dietary restrictions.
That said, it’s made on equipment that also processes eggs, soybeans, wheat, shellfish, fish oil, and peanut oil, so if you have very sensitive allergies this may not be for you.
There aren’t many vitamins either (many mass gainers add them in to move their product closer to a meal replacement shake) and the creatine could be a pro or a con depending on your diet. (If you’re trying to minimize bloat as much as humanly possible, it may be an issue for you.)
TRANSPARENT LABS MASS GAINER TASTE
This is a pretty mild, cocoa-y flavor that was much less earthy and bitter than I was expecting, given it’s an “all-natural” chocolate (which usually involves a lot of cocoa and not much else).
VERDICT
There’s nothing artificial, the whey is grass-fed, there’s a decent amount of fiber and very little sugar. This will probably satisfy a lot of athletes out there. The main downsides are the price and the lack of vitamins but if that’s OK with you, this is a perfectly fine source of calories.