Originally published July 1 2008
Review: SunWarrior Protein Wins Editor's Choice Award for Raw, Vegan, Brown Rice Protein Concentrate
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) If you're into a plant-based diet and all the health and performance benefits that come from eating plants, it's difficult to find a high-quality source of supplemental protein. Until now, traditional sources have been soy protein, yellow pea protein, hemp seed protein, brown rice protein and mesquite flour. But each of these has problems. Isolated soy protein, for example, is a cheap, low-end protein "filler" protein that's often extracted with chemical solvents (and can even be made from genetically-modified soybeans!). This is why it's the No. 1 protein used in all those cheap, low-end protein bars found at the grocery store.
Hemp protein, on the other hand, is nutritionally very rich, but it often has an annoyingly high "grit" factor, and the taste is not very pleasing to many consumers (I still eat lots of hemp protein, though, due to its outstanding nutritional profile). Brown rice protein also seems to have a high grit factor, and it never seemed to offer sufficient assimilation to provide all the protein I needed in my diet. That's why, until now, I had never found a source of brown rice protein that I really liked.
All that changed when I received a phone call from Brent Hauver at SunWarrior (www.SunWarrior.com). He had gotten my phone number from David Wolfe at Sunfood Nutrition (www.SunFood.com), who was convinced that I needed to know about this new "silky smooth" brown rice protein that was about to be launched. He said it was both raw and vegan, and that it trounced every other plant-based protein product on the market today in terms of assimilation and performance. Strong claims, yes. But could they be true?
In this article, you'll hear my full review of this breakthrough SunWarrior brown rice protein concentrate. I'll reveal why I've come to the conclusion almost everyone can benefit from this supplemental protein (including women, children and senior citizens), and how it helped me break through a strength plateau in my own training at the gym. Better yet, you'll also learn about an exclusive, time-limited discount offered only to NaturalNews readers. Feel free to just skip right to the discount code, below, if you're ready to try SunWarrior protein for yourself. (Note: I earn nothing from the sales of this product. This is a 100% independent, non-commercial product review.)
You can watch my video review of SunWarrior Protein here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtk3pNfQddU
You can also listen to my audio interview with Brent Hauver here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.ht...
My introduction to SunWarrior Protein
When Brent enthusiastically described SunWarrior protein to me, I was naturally skeptical. I've got a lot of products showing up at my door every day, and some are described with some fairly outrageous claims, but knowing the integrity of David Wolfe and Sunfood, I decided to go visit Brent Hauver in person and find out for myself if this protein product lived up to its claims.
I got that chance at the Expo West gathering in Anaheim, California, where over 3,000 natural living product vendors get together to show off their latest products to buyers like Whole Foods, Vitacost, and individual health food chains from around the world.
On the first morning, just after the exposition doors opened, I darted over to the SunWarrior booth and introduced myself to Brent Hauver, the founder of SunWarrior. Brent is really tall, with a wide smile and a level of enthusiasm for natural living that's ridiculously contagious. Within minutes we were talking about global transformation through the pursuit of a plant-based diet, and why animal-based protein products are being increasingly replaced with plant-based protein supplements by discerning consumers.
Brent tells me his new SunWarrior protein product is raw, GMO-free, vegan, fermented brown rice protein, and that what's in the canister is 85% pure protein! He also says it's silky smooth, without any of the grit usually associated with brown rice protein products. This is accomplished, Brent explains, through a high-tech microfiltration process conducted at very low temperatures (room temperature, essentially), which keeps the product raw. No chemical solvents whatsoever are used in the processing of this brown rice protein concentrate.
I interrupted Brent to remind him that I still hadn't tasted the product to see for myself what it was like. He chuckled, reached under the booth table, pulled out a 2.2 lb. container of SunWarrior "Natural" Protein, and with a magician's flourish, whipped back a curtain, revealing a Vita-Mix blender. (Score! A Vita-Mix on the road is worth its weight in gold, I've discovered...)
I scooped up three or four heaping spoons of SunWarrior protein, chucked it into the Vita-Mix, then poured in a container of unsweetened hemp milk I'd scored the night before. After a 15-second blend, I poured the resulting brown rice protein milk into a cup and chugged it.
Wow... Brent was right. No grit! This stuff was not only exquisitely delicious, it was also silky smooth. As smooth as the best whey protein powders, yet it was made from brown rice! This made it easy to swallow, and the taste was phenomenal: Just a hint of natural sweetness, with absolutely none of the sharp taste overtones you might find in hemp protein or soy protein. I instantly knew I could blend this into any smoothie -- fruit, chocolate, tropical, whatever! -- and the taste would fit right in.
On top of that, this product had no chemical sweeteners, no refined sugars, no dairy, no soy, no genetically-modified ingredients... this looked like the plant-based protein product I was searching for!
Why a professional bodybuilder switched to SunWarrior Protein
I won't go into all the rest of the technical details of what Brent described to me: How the product is fermented, for example, to make the amino acids far more bioavailable, and why this greatly enhances absorption, making it superior to any other plant-based protein source he'd ever seen. I agreed this was a big benefit, because as a person who works out at the gym quite a bit, I'm usually disappointed with plant-based protein products. They usually don't provide the absorption I'm looking for, and they leave me feeling hungry and under-nourished.
That's when superstar bodybuilder Wade McNutt stopped by the booth. He's a champion bodybuilder with a freakishly ripped physique. I slapped a microphone on Wade and pressed record on my portable audio recorder as he talked about why whey protein caused him bloating and gas, but after finding SunWarrior protein, his waist slimmed down, all the bloating went away, and he was getting some crazy-good results at the gym... all from SunWarrior brown rice protein! (You can check out Wade McNutt's "natural bodybuilding" site, if you're curious, at: www.WadeBodySystems.com )
Listen to my full interview with Wade McNutt and Brent Hauver here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.ht...
With all this enthusiasm about the SunWarrior product, I told Brent I would give it the Health Ranger test: I would take it home, work out with it for 2-3 months as my primary protein source and find out what it did for me personally. So I bought several large canisters from Brent, stacked them into the back of my van, and drove back to Tucson after the show, ready to start the test.
You can get your own SunWarrior protein right now, by the way, with an exclusive discount for NaturalNews readers, at: http://store.sunwarrior.com/SearchResults.as...
Use coupon code natnews to get the 10% discount (good only through July 10th). After July 10th, it's the regular price, which is still a really fantastic price, by the way, as I've seen competing products sell for $60 - $70 for similar quantities. (Don't compare SunWarrior Protein to cheap soy-based protein products. There's simply no comparison...)
You can also order by phone at: 800-205-2350 (U.S. only)
Who Needs Supplemental Protein
You don't have to be working out in the gym, of course, to benefit from supplemental protein. A lot of natural health consumers are eating and drinking so many plants that they don't get the level of protein they would need for optimum performance. This is even true of women; especially those who are pregnant.
High-quality protein, I've discovered, is absolutely crucial for maintaining a healthy heart and healthy digestive system. Often, people suffering from Crohn's disease or irritable bowel syndrome see their symptoms completely disappear when they shift to a high-assimilation plant-based protein product. I've even heard of asthma and arthritis vanishing! (Because animal products cause inflammation, of course...)
Getting off of animal products and onto a plant-based diet, in fact, is likely the single most beneficial decision you can make in your own diet. And usually, when people do that, they're concerned about getting enough protein because they aren't eating meat anymore. Well guess what? SunWarrior Protein solves that. (Plus, you can eat quinoa, kale juice, spinach juice, nuts, seeds and lots of other plant-based protein sources.) Also, as Dr. Gabriel Cousens points out, cooking food destroys about half its protein, so eating RAW plants will also boost your protein intake substantially!
Children especially need high-quality plant-based proteins, and this SunWarrior product is the perfect way to deliver that in a tasty, sweet superfood smoothie that has absolutely no grit and no chemical additives. If you've got children and you want to feed them right, I encourage you to experiment with adding SunWarrior protein to their smoothies. Just blend it up with lots of fruits and superfoods, then sweeten with stevia, agave nectar or even raw honey! It's delicious!! (I also recommend Sunfood's raw cacao powder in those smoothies to turn them into raw chocolate powerhouse smoothies! You can find that at www.Sunfood.com )
For anyone who exercises -- even just walking a few times a week -- I can't say enough about this: SunWarrior Protein could very well be the product that helps you break through that performance plateau and get to the next level of strength, endurance, fitness or just pure cosmetic beauty in your own life.
People who look fit, lean and athletic are sexy! But it's only truly sexy from the inside out if they're doing it naturally, without chemicals, additives or junk protein products. That's why SunWarrior makes so much sense: It helps build an athletic physique while staying 100% natural, raw and plant-based!
By the way, I do want to interject here and say that becoming athletic also requires lots of exercise. You cannot eat your way to an athletic body. Food is crucial, but exercise is still required, no matter what. Lots of it. Fortunately, SunWarrior is exactly the kind of product that gives you the strength, endurance and adaptability that helps you pursue and enjoy far more exercise than what you might have done in the past; and that's what will give you the results you're looking for! (Weight loss, slim waist, radiant skin, better posture, ripped abs, whatever...)
How to get SunWarrior Protein: Go to:
http://store.sunwarrior.com/SearchResults.as...
Use coupon code natnews to get the 10% discount (good only through July 10th) on as many bottles as you want. The discount is also good on SunWarrior's Activated Barley product, which is also outstanding!
You can also order by phone at 800-205-2350 (then choose option #1). (U.S. only)
How SunWarrior performs in the gym
Everybody who has seen my fitness pictures knows I'm not a super bulky muscle guy (www.HealthRanger.org/stats.html). At over six feet tall, I just don't have the proportions to look like a Wade McNutt, but I do pack a lot of strength and endurance into my much smaller muscles. In fact, I've steadily built strength over the last eight years to the point where I'm much stronger at age 38 than I was at age 30, and I'm doing things now with Capoeira, Pilates and martial arts that I could never do in my 20's (because I was eating a junk food diet then, of course).
But the big question was now: Would SunWarrior protein support significant strength and endurance gains in my own training routine?
To conduct this test, I stopped eating fish. As NaturalNews readers know, I used to eat fish from time to time as a last resort animal-based protein source. I always felt I needed the fish protein to avoid feeling hungry all the time, and even though I disliked sacrificing any living creature to feed myself, I reasoned that fish were the simplest life forms providing such protein, and thus any bad karma would be minimized. (Funny how we rationalize things like that, huh?)
Well, I'm happy to announce that SunWarrior protein worked to keep me off all animal products, period! After a few days, it became obvious to me that SunWarrior protein was providing the same high-density protein assimilation as fish meat, and I no longer needed to eat fish at all.
From that day, I have been on a 100% vegan diet! It's exciting, because as an "O" blood type, and someone who used to be prediabetic, I had always felt the need to consume a lot of protein, but suddenly, something truly magical was happening with SunWarrior Protein that completely shifted my biology and got me off fish protein for life!
But how about the training in the gym? Would SunWarrior make me weak and thin, or strong and functional?
Getting fit, lean and trim with SunWarrior Protein
It's not difficult to notice that a lot of raw foodists don't have much muscle mass. Although I completely respect the Ghandi approach to minimizing calories (and extending life), I personally do not choose to live my life in a state of hunger. I like to eat a lot of food, and I enjoy the physical freedom and athletic expression that comes from being able to do handstands, poi spinning, weight lifting and other similar functions that require significant muscle strength.
So I enjoy being strong, lean and muscular, regardless of whether it's a bit of a diversion from the usual raw foodie physique. Because I'm so serious about strength gains, I track the results of all my workouts. I know exactly how much weight I can push for how many reps, for each muscle group. Since I've kept logs for the past three years, this gave me an ideal way to test the effectiveness of SunWarrior Protein.
After blending SunWarrior Protein into my smoothies twice each day (for a week or so), I hit the gym and began the workouts. The first workout was really just a way to wake up the muscles and get them to adapt with more strength over time, so I wasn't really concerned about the strength performance on the first workout. Rather, I was more interested in how my muscles would adapt to the workout when I was on the SunWarrior Protein product!
It didn't take long for that answer to become clear. After two weeks, nearly every one of my strength exercises was UP by anywhere from 5% - 10%. One leg exercise went up by 20%! (Leg press.)
If these gains seems small, consider that I'm not some newbie to the gym. I've been working out for years, and sometimes I'll go six months with no gains whatsoever for a particular muscle group. To see a 10% strength gain in two weeks is phenomenal for a person who's already training on a regular basis.
After a few more weeks of tracking the results of over 25 exercises, the results were clear: I was gaining significant strength on this raw, vegan protein, even without the fish protein in my diet. SunWarrior was working!
And yet, it didn't make me bloated or gassy. It didn't make my muscles look bulky, either; it just help me keep them looking lean and functional -- even while I was getting stronger!
Team Warrior
This made me an instant convert to the SunWarrior brown rice protein. I was astonished at the performance gains on this product, and knowing that it was 100% GMO-free, chemical free, sweetener free and made entirely from raw plants drove this point home even further: SunWarrior is the best plant-based protein concentrate product available today, anywhere in the world!
David Wolfe feels the same way about it. He provided this quote for this article:
"For years I have been looking for a pure, natural, superfood, protein source that tastes great, is easy to assimilate, burns fat and tones muscle. That's when I discovered Sun Warrior. At 85% protein, this is the best meal replacement strategy ever. When used with nutrient dense superfoods like my Maca Extreme, Goji Berries, Cacao Powder and Yacon Syrup you can pack more nutrition into a single smoothie than many people get in a month. From moms on the go to extreme athletes, Sun Warrior provides a quick and delicious way to get the energy and nutrition your body needs to make every day the best day ever!" - David Wolfe, founder www.sunfood.com, author of The Sunfood Diet Success System, Eating For Beauty, Amazing Grace, Naked Chocolate
So now, David Wolfe, Wade McNutt and myself have all joined "Team SunWarrior," which is a group of natural living warriors who are using this product to fuel our muscles as we pursue our work in the world. You can read more about Team Warrior at: http://store.sunwarrior.com/Articles.asp?ID=...
Be part of Team SunWarrior yourself by getting SunWarrior Protein at: www.SunWarrior.com
Use coupon code natnews to get the 10% discount (good only through July 10th) on any SunWarrior product.
SunWarrior Protein powers elite athletes who are embracing a plant-based diet
It also turns out that Brent Hauver, the founder of SunWarrior, is turning on all kinds of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) athletes to this product, and in doing so, he's getting an increasing number of those guys off the animal products and onto plant-based diets that are fine-tuned for athletic performance! Is that exciting, or what?!
I love the fact that elite athletes are now starting to ditch the animal products and discover the seemingly superhuman performance attributes of eating superfoods, raw foods, and plant-based protein concentrates. This could really change the tide for mainstream America and show all those kids who look up to MMA athletes that eating McDonald's hamburgers and drinking Pepsi is NOT going to make you fit and healthy!
Brent Hauver at SunWarrior is leading the charge to introduce this plant-based protein to the very top athletes in the MMA industry. I personally believe, without a doubt, that the top athletes who switch to superfoods, raw foods and plant-based diets will greatly out-perform those who don't.
I think that a plant-based diet may turn out to be the single most important factor in determining an athlete's strength, endurance, adaptability and resiliency. In fact, be sure to read my $10,000 athletic challenge, where I've personally challenged Big Pharma to produce a single person on their prescription drugs who can beat me in a physical contest. You can read that $10,000 challenge here: http://www.naturalnews.com/023476.html
What can SunWarrior protein do for you?
Regardless of what SunWarrior protein does for anybody else, the real question is: What can it do for you?
Based on my considerable research and experience in this area, here are the main benefits of SunWarrior brown rice protein:
• Builds functional strength without unnecessary bulk caused by the hormones found in meat products.
• Helps create a lean, athletic body with a thin waist (no gas, no bloating, no putrified meat products sitting in your gut...)
• Accelerates strength gains due to the outstanding assimilation of amino acids (probably due to the fermentation process).
• Tastes truly fantastic: Can be used in ANY smoothie!
• Does not contain ANY garbage additives: No chemical sweeteners, no chemical solvents, no refined sugars, no dairy, no soy, no animal byproducts, nothing artificial!
• Seems to be remarkably alkaline for a protein product. Animal-based proteins are highly acidic and have a huge insulin load over time, but this SunWarrior Protein has never made me acidic, even when consumed in large quantities!
• Allows you to follow more of a high-protein diet without turning to animal products. Please remember to also drink lots of fresh vegetable juices, eat fruits, superfoods, nuts and seeds, too.
• Is available at an almost ridiculously low price, considering the quality of what's in it (and the time-limited coupon code, see below).
How to get SunWarrior for yourself
I'm happy to announce that I've prearranged with the SunWarrior company to not only provide a healthy discount to NaturalNews readers, but I've also made sure they have 10,000 bottles on hand so that they don't run out of inventory (as has happened a lot in the past when I reviewed a great product like this!).
So here's the deal: For 10 days only, you can save 10% on the already-low price of SunWarrior, which is normally $48.95 for a huge, 2.2-lb. canister.
1. Go to http://store.sunwarrior.com/SearchResults.as...
2. Add SunWarrior protein and Activated Barley products to your shopping cart. (There is no quantity limit on this offer. I recommending stocking up a bit, because this introductory discount will NOT be repeated. You will never be able to get this product at this low price again...)
3. In the shopping cart, enter natnews as the discount code. You will see an instant 10% discount reflected in your total.
4. Click the yellow "Proceed to Checkout" button at the bottom of the shopping cart page, and finish the checkout process.
You're done! Enjoy the SunWarrior protein!
How to order by phone
If you want to order by phone, just call Sunfood at: 800-205-2350 (then press option #1). Be sure to ask for the 10% discount from NaturalNews.
This introductory discount expires July 10th, and it's good on:
• SunWarrior Chocolate Protein
• SunWarrior Vanilla Protein
• SunWarrior Natural Flavor Protein
• SunWarrior Activated Barley (both sizes)
SunWarrior receives Editor's Choice Award
Because of the extremely impressive nutritional profile of this product -- and the remarkable leadership and enthusiasm of its founder Brent Hauver -- I've given SunWarrior protein our Editor's Choice Award for Best New Protein Product. You'll see this award on the label of each bottle.
Financial disclaimer: Please note that I have absolutely NO financial relationship with the SunWarrior company or Brent. I earn nothing on product sales, and I have never received even a single dime of compensation for writing about this product. As always, I offer a truly independent, objective and trusted review of products that are the very best in the world, then I negotiate the best discounts for my readers. NaturalNews does not sell these products, nor do we earn anything from their sale.
Other notable protein products
Since we're talking about high-quality protein products here, I also wanted to mention three others that are also receiving my Editor's Choice awards. They are:
Living Protein from www.LivingFuel.com (a plant-based protein with added enzymes, probiotics, and some natural sweeteners).
Raw Hemp Protein Powder with E3 Live and Maca from Ruth's Hemp Foods (www.RuthsHempFoods.com) This is an outstanding hemp protein product, from the best of the best in the world of hemp. Ruth rocks. And the E3 Live addition to this recipe just blows my mind...
In the world of animal-based protein products, I still strongly advocate Jay Robb's whey protein powders (www.JayRobb.com) as the most natural and most ethical in the industry. Another good whey protein source is Natural Factors (www.NaturalFactors.com). But I'm personally using plant-based proteins for the foreseeable future.
Nutritional profile of SunWarrior Protein
Serving size: 21g
Total Fat: 1g
Total Carbohydrate: 3g
Dietary Fiber: 1g
Protein 16g
Watch my video review of SunWarrior Protein here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtk3pNfQddU
Listen to my audio interview with Brent Hauver here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.ht...
Enjoy!
- Mike
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