Nesquik Protein Plus Ingredients?

BootsDBA
BootsDBA Posts: 11 Member
edited February 2018 in Food and Nutrition
I saw this at the gas station today and bought it instead of my usual 'forgot my breakfast' grab. It was GOOD. I was really surprised, since things like Muscle Milk and similar items usually taste really awful to me. When I looked it up to double check MFP's calorie input, there was a website decrying the 'harmful' ingredients.

Of course they didn't have any sources, so I wanted to see if anyone here had seen anything reliable? The ingredients were sodium hexametaphosphate, gellan gum, and carrageenan.

As a vegetarian I'm always glad to see alternatives to gelatin being used, and I'm surprised to see them on the list. Are they actually, verifiably harmful? Or is it just a case of "oh no, I can't pronounce it so it must be bad"? I'm going to do my own research after work if I decide to keep buying it, so I'm not asking you to Google it for me or anything, but I thought I'd ask here as well. I don't really mind the sugar or calorie content, since they're not super high, relatively, and I can easily make it work in my log.

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Not familiar with sodium hexametaphosphate and gellan gum, but carrageenan is a seaweed-based ingredient that you'll often see in plant milks. Some people claim that it gives them digestive discomfort so you'll sometimes see it on lists of harmful ingredients.

    But it doesn't cause digestive issues for me, so I don't personally consider it to be harmful.
  • changed1
    changed1 Posts: 2 Member
    I have a friend who had esophageal cancer and was told to avoid carrageenan.
    https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/food-safety/is-carrageenan-safe/
  • xLyric
    xLyric Posts: 840 Member
    edited February 2018
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12389870

    This article seems to state that the studies linking carrageenan to inflamation were either using amounts that far exceed what we actually would ever consume, or that they were using a variation not actually used in food.