Alright folks, time for my FIRST official Peak Health review! In this one we’ll be talking about the Peak Health Brain Shake, which sounds gross, right? Who wants a shake made out of brains? Lol. No no. I crack myself up sometimes. The Brain Shake is called Brain Shake because Peak Health claims that THIS shake can actually help you think better. Well. Doesn’t THAT sound fancy? I thought so too. So I bought both flavors of the Peak Health Brain Shake to help YOU figure out what Peak Health is all about. They have all kinds of fancy words on that website, but are the Brain Shake’s really high quality products? And what’s the best flavor? And are they really worth four bucks per serving? I’ll tell you in this rather in-depth Peak Health Brain Shake Review.
Peak Health reminds me a LITTTTLE bit of our good old friends at Soylent. Yep. That’s the one you think it is. The one ran by that crazy Silicon Valley type guy who thinks that humans will drink their meals someday. And he thinks those meals should taste gross and be full of the lowest quality protein known to mankind, which is soy.
This review is not going to be about them. But I’d be lying if I said Peak Health didn’t rub me that same way- you know- the whole ‘drink our four dollar shake instead of eating real food’, thing. I don’t like that thing. Peak Health layers in a whole song and dance about ‘nutrient loading’ too. Whatever that is. I guess eating a ridiculous amount of vitamins and minerals, via supplementation. Which. I mean. I think as a culture we all do that anyways. BUT. Let’s actually talk about the Peak Health Brain Shake now.
What are the Ingredients in Peak Health Brain Shake?
This is a product that is very much like a standard dairy-based shake, with a few added ingredients that I would actually put in the ‘nootropic’ softcore category. Such of them include Phosphatidylserine, N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine, Choline Bitartrate, ALCAR, Tyrosine, Quercetin, Tryptophan, ALA, CoQ10, and a ton of basic vitamins.
Having all those sort of ‘nootropics’ in the Brain Shake definitely gives it the ability to elevate mood and cognition. In fact, alot of those ingredients are borrowed from the pre workout category, with which I am VERY familiar, as you well know.
In terms of actual meat in this Brain Shake, the backbone is a very basic milk protein. Yep. Just straight up milk. They add some whey as well, but they stuck with plain milk for most of it, which I kind of dig. Milk after all has a very natural combination of whey and casein. The big man upstairs designed it himself, so how bad could it be? Lol.
The Brain Shake, in addition to it’s nootropic and protein ingredients, also contains, to be frank, some rather ugly sources of fat, namely Palm Kernel oil, and canola oil. Peak Health calls these ‘healthy sources of fatty acids’, but what they are in reality is cheap, not particularly healthy, but easy to flavor sources of fat. That is my least favorite part of Peak Health’s Brain Shakes, along with the fact that …
It’s artificially sweetened. Yep. You’d never know it by looking at the label but Peak Health, despite their boasting about ‘not loaded with artificial’ on their website, does use acesulfame potassium, one of the most popular artificial sweeteners on the market. So classic. The other thing to keep in mind is that in terms of macros, these Brain Shakes are VERY caloric, with almost double the calories of a more traditional protein shake. They also have seven grams of sugar which is seven more than we’re used to seeing in regular protein shakes.
Brain Shake has a mineral blend including calcium, magnesium, and various other standard minerals to round out the formulation. Overall, it’s an interesting recipe. Again, I don’t like the cheap fats or artificial sweeteners they use, but overall it’s sort of a creative formula. But now we should get down to the most important part, which is… Drumroll please…
Do Peak Health Brain Shakes Taste Good?
There are two flavors of Peak Health’s Brain Shakes. I bet you can guess what they are too. Yep. Gold star for you! Chocolate and Coffee. But which is the best flavor of Brain Shake? I’ll describe each and the answer will become VERY evident.
The Chocolate flavor of the Peak Health Brain Shakes is really predictable. What I mean by that, is that it is a little bit less strong-tasting than the chocolate. What you end up with is something that does taste nice, but also fails to really hold up through the entire sip. So it starts out nice and smooth and ‘chocolate-y’, but then sort of tails off, allowing some less desirable flavors like the canola taste to come through, and also just a hint of metallic-ness from all those vitamins & minerals that Peak Health put in here.
The Coffee Flavor of Peak Health, in my opinion, is much better than the vanilla. The cocoa powder is able to stay on the palette longer than the softer, smoother vanilla flavors were able to. I like how the coffee flavor is more bold in the front of the mouth, and even has more of a strong smell to get you excited for each sip. In comparing the Brain Shake to some of my favorite protein powders in regard to taste, unfortunately it would not crack my top ten. Reason being, these Peak Health Brain Shakes have such a more complicated ingredient list, whereas most of my favorite proteins are just standard protein shakes without all the bells and whistles. So I’ll give them a standard ‘B’ on flavoring. Let’s finish up with packaging, shall we?
Peak Health Brain Shakes Are Packaged Nicely
I think Peak Health has done several things right. In fact very right. I can see this company being around for a good while yet, with still a ton of growth ahead of them. One of the reasons being is that they have a leg up on the competition with their packaging. I think Peak Health might just be one of the most handsome protein powders I’ve reviewed this year in 2017. It walks the fine line between art and science perfectly, which can be a delicate one to balance for many supplement companies. They actually remind me alot of HUM Nutrition as well in their branding and packaging. In fact I’m anticipating a little bit of a brand war between Peak and HUM in the very near future so that should be interesting to watch. I like the colors, fonts, and layout of Peak Health Brain Shakes very much. I give them an A in fact. Let’s wrap this all up now.
Peak Health Brain Shake Review Summary
- Formula: B
- Flavor: B-
- Packaging: A
- Value: B-
- Final Score: B-
So here’s the thing. Peak Health has a solid product. It is very drinkable, and the formula is almost as good as it can be for a meal replacement product. BUT. For the price, which is $4 a glass, it’s just a really hard sell. And to be honest that’s part of the problem with these meal replacement shakes is that they just are overly complicated and never taste THAT good to justify it. You end up paying 2 or 3 times as much for something that doesn’t taste as good, and most of the time you don’t NEED all those extra vitamins! To me it’s just not worth the value and for that reason I’ve got to pass on Peak Health’s protein brain shake.*
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