Flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Berry, Unflavored, Vanilla Chai
I’m generally a fan of most Vega protein products, but this one…
…was not my favorite.
I’ve reviewed some pretty bad vegan protein powders before, but this one has the lowest overall score by a significant margin. I’d highly recommend looking at my favorite plant based protein powders for alternative protein powders to try.
I’d highly looking at Vega Sport if you’re most interested in protein content, or Vega Protein and Greens if you want both protein and vitamins.
I’ll explain why it got the scores it did in each of the 4 sections, one at a time, and you can decide for yourself if you’d still like to give the Vega One All-in-one Nutritional shake a try.
Table of Contents
Protein Content of Vega’s All in One Shake
All the scores are based on formulas from my testing methodology.
Keep in mind that these formulas are designed for vegan protein powders.
The Vega One Nutritional shake isn’t a protein powder. It’s more like a nutritional shake with a good bit of protein (20 grams per serving).
So it’s expected that it performs a bit worse in most categories.
With that established, here’s the formula I use to calculate a nutrition score for protein powders:
It takes the calories from protein, and the total calories, and gives you a number out of 25.
If it’s close to 25, that means it has more protein than almost all other protein powders.
If it’s close to 0, that means it has less protein than almost all other protein powders.
We can get the data we need from the nutrition label:
The all-in-one shake has 20 grams of protein, but 170 calories.
This gives us a nutrition score of 13, which is quite low.
It’s fine if you’re just looking for a bit extra protein, but if you’re any kind of an athlete, you’ll do better with a designated vegan protein powder.
Ingredients
Here’s the main ingredients list:
- Pea Protein, Whole Flaxseed (Micro-Milled), Cocoa Powder, Organic Acacia Gum (Naturally Occurring Fiber), Saviseed (Sacha inchi) Protein, Organic Gelatinized Maca Root, Organic Broccoli, Organic Spirulina, Organic Kale, Organic Marine Algae Calcium, Fruit.
The ingredients all seem to be high quality, but it takes away from the overall protein content.
Cost of Vega One Protein Powder
While it might be a little unfair to compare this shake when it comes to protein content, it seems reasonable to expect that it would have a similar price.
It comes in 1 size: 722 g / 1.59 lb.
To compare the prices of protein powders, I use the price per 100 grams of the size closest to 1 kg (2.2 lb), and plug it into this formula:
Again, it gives us a number out of 25, where 25 means that it’s cheaper than most other protein powders, and 0 means the opposite.
According to this, Vega One Nutritional All-in-one shake has a price score of 5.1.
Basically, almost all vegan protein powders are cheaper.
As an interesting side note, I think this is the first protein powder that I’ve reviewed that is cheaper in Canada than in the U.S.
Mixability of Vega One
No one likes a shake with a bunch of clumps in it.
The mixability score gives you a good idea of how well a powder mixes in a realistic situation.
Here’s what the procedure looks like:
- Add 450 mL of almond milk to shaker bottle
- Add 35 grams of protein powder
- Shake for 45 seconds
- Filter out the remnants (i.e. “clumps”) with a strainer and weigh them.
The weight of those remnants goes into this formula:
As with the other formulas, a score of 25 is optimal, which indicates perfect mixing here.
A score of 0 means that it mixes very poorly.
This nutritional powder mixed incredibly poorly, as you can see from the strainer picture below:
There were 6 grams of remnants, which leads to a mixability score of 6.25.
If you’re always going to be using a blender, it probably won’t be a big issue, but if you plan on using a shaker bottle, expect a lot of clumps.
How Does Vega’s All-in-One Shake Taste?
Up last is taste, the only really subjective part of each review.
I assign taste scores based on the table below:
| Taste Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 25 | Amazing, would drink for enjoyment alone. |
| 20 | Very good. |
| 15 | Drinkable, not really good or bad. |
| 10 | A bit of a struggle to get down |
| 5 | Quite bad |
This was one of the few shakes I’ve come across that I couldn’t finish because the taste was so bad.
It had quite a grainy texture, and the flavor itself is just not good. There’s a strong aftertaste that was very unpleasant for me.
Based on the table above I was initially stuck between a 5 and 10 rating. But considering I just couldn’t finish it, I’m comfortable giving it a taste rating of 5.
Overall Review of Vega All-in-One Protein Powder
Even if you overlook the protein content being on the low side, there aren’t any redeeming qualities in the Vega One All-In-One Shake besides the vitamins.
If the vitamins are that important to you, I’d highly recommend buying any other actual protein powder, and then just blending in a few handfuls of spinach.
It’ll taste better, have better nutrition, and be cheaper as well.
If you like Vega as a company, I highly recommend taking a look at their actual protein powders, which I enjoyed a lot more.
