USANA MySmartShake is a lineup of nutritional supplements available through multilevel marketing company USANA. Find out if these high-priced shakes are worth it today in our review.
What is USANA MySmartShake?
USANA recently began paying Dr. Oz to say good things about the company’s products on his show – so it was only a matter of time before Dr. Oz did an in-depth feature on USANA’s MySmart Shakes.
Starting in August 2016, Dr. Oz began to heavily promote the MySmartShake lineup of supplements. Dr. Oz launched a contest on his website where you could enter for a chance to win a small supplement kit containing a base container of MySmartShake along with a flavor optimization kit.
USANA, for those who don’t know, is a Utah-based multilevel marketing company known for its high-priced nutritional supplements. In January 2015, USANA paid Dr. Oz to start featuring USANA products on his TV show.
Later in 2015, Dr. Oz faced a controversy when he heavily promoted USANA’s Hepasil DTX on his show as a way to treat liver problems – despite the fact that there was no scientific basis for the supplement.
Obviously, that hasn’t stopped Dr. Oz from promoting USANA products, as he recently featured MySmartShake. With that in mind, let’s take a look at MySmartShake.
How Does MySmartShake Work?
The five letters in “SMART” actually mean something in this supplement:
-S: Simple and Pure
-M: Macronutrient Balance
-A: Advanced Fats
-R: Research Validated
-T: Totally Personalized
All of these things sound good. We like to see strong doses, customized to your unique needs, and validated by research.
MySmartShake actually works in a unique way from other protein powders. Instead of giving you prepackaged flavored powders, USANA gives you a whey protein base along with “flavor optimizers”. The protein base has a vanilla flavor, so you can take it on its own. But you can also customize the flavor further according to whether you like dark chocolate or banana.
You buy the vanilla whey base (around $36 USD) and then buy the flavor optimizers in flavors like dark chocolate or banana ($7 to $10).
MySmartShake Ingredients
The whey base for MySmartShake includes 18 grams of whey protein. We assume USANA is using the lowest-quality version of whey protein, which is whey protein concentrate, as they don’t give us any information about the type of protein used (which usually means we can assume they’ve used the cheapest possible option).
Note: Once you actually see the MySmartShake packaging, you’ll see “whey protein concentrate” listed on the side of the packaging. Whey protein concentrate is the mostly-unfiltered version of protein that delivers about 80% protein content (with the rest being filler). It’s the stuff you typically see in cheaper protein powders.
Other key factors about the ingredients in MySmartShake include 150 calories, MCTs from coconut oil, no added sugar, and “real ingredients you can actually recognize and pronounce.”
The ingredients are all gluten-free. In any case, here’s what’s included in MySmartShake:
Serving Size: 2 Scoops (39 Grams / 14 Servings Per Container)
-Calories: 150
-Total Fat: 6 g (4.5 g saturated fat / 23% recommended daily value)
-45mg Cholesterol
-210mg Sodium
-340mg Potassium
-13g Carbohydrates (8g dietary fiber / 4g of soluble fiber / 3g of insoluble fiber)
-18g of Protein
-Ingredients: Whey protein concentrate, gluten-free oat bran, organic agave inulin, cane fiber, coconut oil, medium chain triglycerides, gum Arabic, potassium phosphate, guar gum, xanthan gum, natural vanilla flavor, sea salt, stevia (contains milk and tree nut).
39 grams is a huge amount of powder to take. Typically, when you’re taking 39 grams of protein powder, you expect to get more than just 18 grams of whey protein concentrate. You’re also going to have to mix that powder with a lot of liquid – otherwise, you’ll be drinking a sludge and not a liquid.
What Are the Flavor Optimizers?
One of the key words in the “SMART” acronym is “T” for “Totally Personalized”. That total personalization isn’t as cool as you might expect: it just means you can choose from one of two different “flavor optimizers”. You don’t need these flavor optimizers to enjoy MySmartShake. The base protein powder comes with a vanilla flavor. However, you can use the flavor optimizers to add banana or dark chocolate flavor to your protein shake.
What’s actually inside these flavor enhancers? Well, each package comes with 7 stick servings. Oddly enough, USANA doesn’t tell us the ingredients in these flavor optimizers. They simply list that it contains 65mg of potassium per stick along with 0 calories and 10g of carbs.
It’s unclear how USANA creates the banana or chocolate flavoring, as ingredients are not listed on either the dark chocolate or banana flavor optimizer packaging.
MySmartShake Pricing
You can get 18g of whey protein concentrate from cheap protein powders sold online. So we expect MySmartShake’s pricing to be relatively low. Unfortunately, MySmartShake is one of the more expensive protein powders on the market, priced at the following rate:
-1 Package (14 Servings): $35.95
-1 Package (14 Servings) Autoship): $32.35 (10% off)
-MySmartShake Base + Dark Chocolate Flavor Optimizer: $42.90
-MySmartShake Base + Banana Flavor Optimizer: $42.90
Other MySmartShake Products
The core MySmartShake formula consists of the vanilla whey protein base along with the two flavor optimizers. However, USANA has a number of other products under the MySmartShake brand, including:
-MySmartShake Soy Shake Base ($39.55): Instead of using whey protein concentrate (which comes from dairy products), this shake formula contains 18 grams of protein from a soy source.
-MySmartShake Plant Shake Base ($41.75): Instead of using soy or dairy sources for its protein, this shake includes 18 grams of protein from pea and potato sources.
-MySmartShake Protein Plus Booster ($21.15): Lets you add an additional 10 grams of whey protein concentrate to your shake. There are 28 servings in each container. There are only two ingredients: whey protein concentrate and sunflower lecithin.
-MySmartShake Fibergy Plus ($34.05): Flavorless fiber blend that lets you add fiber to your shake or to any beverage. There are 28 servings in each container.
Other similar products offered by USANA include a lineup of protein bars under the “MySmartBar” brand.
About USANA
USANA is a multilevel marketing company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The company has a big presence in the nutritional supplement and personal care industries.
Although the company calls itself USANA Health Sciences, many of its supplements have come under fire for being backed by little no scientific evidence despite coming with high price tags. The company rarely performs any clinical trials on its products (or at least, the results of those clinical trials are never posted online). Instead, it references scientific studies performed by other organizations (many of which used different dosages).
You can contact USANA using the information found at this page [USANA.com/dotCom/contactUs] (offices and contact information vary worldwide, as USANA has presences in numerous countries across Asia, Oceania, North America, and South America).
Should You Take USANA MySmartShake?
USANA’s MySmartShake lineup of protein powders aren’t necessarily bad supplements. But at this price range, you expect a lot more for your money. Just like with most multilevel marketing companies, the price you pay today isn’t going towards the product itself: it’s going mostly towards compensation that moves all the way up the pyramid.
When you’re paying $36 for 14 servings of a protein powder, you expect to get more than the most basic type of whey, which is whey protein concentrate. That’s whey protein before it’s gone through any filtering process to remove unwanted compounds. Typically, this only delivers about 80% protein to your body.
Fortunately, there are soy and pea/potato-based MySmartShake blends available, although these are higher-priced than the whey concentrate blend.
Ultimately, based on this information, USANA’s MySmartShake isn’t worth the high price, as you can get identical supplements for half the price from any retailer – no matter what their paid spokesperson Dr. Oz wants you to believe.
