DAY 14: The Great Protein Powder Experiment

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  Today at Noon you will have crossed the official half-way point of the fitness challenge.  Can you believe it?  My quads sure can today.  Thank goodness tomorrow is a rest day.

Attention:  The following blog post contains 29.9 calories, 3.4g of fat, 20.7g of carbohydrates (including 3.1g of sugar), 3.8g of protein and 11.8mg of sodium.  I think.  The science may have been a bit shaky.  But I trust my math.  So I stand by these results.

Whaaaaat?

It started with the thought that maybe I should grab some protein powder.  You know, to supplement my diet and make it easier to build up all that muscle I've been - hmm, hmm - working so hard.  Did you know that protein powder it's quite expensive?  A 10lb container of the "good" stuff will set you back $65. You already know where this is going, don't you?  And you're right. . .

How hard can it be to make protein powder?  Well, the first but maybe not most obvious question is this:  where do you find the, uh, protein?  You'll never guess.  Beans.  Brown rice.  Lentils.  Oats. Other stuff, too, but these were already in my house.  And so began the great experiment.  Could we actually make protein powder which:  a) had protein in it (ha) and b) was palatable?

Left:  Here's a shot of the beans, oatmeal, brown rice and coconut in the Ninja.  It beat the stuff up pretty good, but was still fairly coarse.  So, we got out the sieve to strain the big bits out for "reprocessing."

Right:  a shot of the counter after we got out the sieve, a smoothie blender, a nut grinder and finally the coffee mill.  By this time, there was a fair bit of powder and bits of beans on the counter.  But that's okay - it was an experiment, right?  Well, here's what we learned.  Smoothie Blender - don't bother.  RPMs too low. Nut Grinder - not bad, but not great.  Ninja Blender - Dramatic!  It was loud and stuff flew around in there like a snowstorm.  It knocked everything down to tiny, hard chunks. But not powder.  Coffee Mill - now THIS was the ticket!  This created POWDER, and since it contained protein, we are confident that we created our very own Protein Powder.

Left:  our Protein Powder.  It looks coarse here, but that was just some minor clumping of the powder.  Interestingly, it smelled like. . . beans, and tasted sort of like garden peas.

Right:  We mixed it up in the now properly utilized smoothie blender with some yogurt, milk and a banana.  And awaited the moment of truth:  would it be palatable?

Surprisingly enough, the smoothie tasted more like banana than anything else. There was no overpowering bean flavor at all. It tasted pretty fair.



And, at the end of the day, you can compare the data. Hey - I didn't say we were making diet powder. We were pretty close on the protein and it tastes pretty mild. So. . . proof of concept, I'd say. We'll keep playing around with the ingredients and let you know if we get anything lower-carb.

BTW, here's what we used: 1/2 cup 9 bean soup mix, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup quick rolled oats, 3 Tbsp of shredded coconut.

Disclaimer:  This blog post describes a homemade experiment conducted under less than precise conditions.  It does not purport to convey ANY medical or nutritional advice.  We are fairly confident that none of the above ingredients are toxic under normal conditions.  Rinse the beans and rice off first, and let them dry before grinding them.  If you choose to attempt this at home, you do so at your own risk.  It's been six and a half hours since I drank the smoothie, and I'm still here, typing this blog. Just sayin'.