Protein powder rankings — anyone have experience?

tane_welly said:

On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie.

That is correct as far as it goes, and here is where it stops going. The RDA is the wrong reference and it is worth understanding why. 0.8 g/kg is the intake at which nitrogen balance is not negative in healthy weight-stable adults — a floor for deficiency prevention, not an optimum, and derived in a population that is not in a deficit. In a substantial energy deficit, protein requirement rises because amino acids are being oxidised for energy and because muscle protein synthesis is blunted. The literature on preserving lean mass during weight loss lands around 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg of reference body weight, which is roughly two to two and a half times the RDA.

tane_welly said:

On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie.

I will push back on the powder-first advice. It works and it also trains people out of eating food, and when the drug stops the habits are what remain. Getting protein from meals is slower and holds up better afterwards.

Answering the narrow version, because the broad one does not have a single answer. Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing. Roughly 25 to 40g per sitting with enough leucine to trigger synthesis, three or four times a day, is more effective than the same total in one enormous evening meal — and on a suppressed appetite the enormous evening meal is the one you will not finish anyway.

NeuroNate said:

The RDA is the wrong reference and it is worth understanding why.

Same pattern here, and in the same order.