My Myprotein vs Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Comparison

In this Myprotein vs Optimum Nutrition article, I’ll share my in-depth comparison between Myprotein’s Impact Whey Isolate and O.N’s Gold Standard Whey.

We’ll be taking a detailed look at how they stack up against each other in terms of their ingredients, nutritional value, cost, taste, buyer’s ratings, & more.

The two flavors I bought for this article are Myprotein’s Chocolate Brownie and Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Double Rich Chocolate, though I’ve drank several flavors from each brand over the years.

Science resources included

As is my custom here on heydayDo, I will provide links to all of the relevant sports science & medical resources, clinical studies, and nutritional data used in this article.

 

Summary – So who’s better, Myprotein or O.N.?

They have things in common, but in my case Myprotein comes out ahead for several reasons:

• Myprotein’s whey isolate is usually cheaper** than O.N’s Gold Standard whey;
• Myprotein has unflavored versions for both their Impact Whey & their Impact Whey Isolate, but Optimum Nutrition doesn’t sell an unflavored Gold Standard whey product;
• Myprotein’s unflavored whey isolate powder is 90% protein by weight, while Gold Standard powders range from 73%-77%;
• Myprotein’s Impact whey isolate has higher amounts of Essential Amino Acids than Gold Standard whey;
• Gold Standard whey has 3 times as much sodium as Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate;
• Some Gold Standard flavors have quite a few artificial chemicals added to them.

** – When purchased on Myprotein’s website.

 

Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey have some similarities in terms of:

• ingredients
• protein provided per serving
• amino acids profile
• artificial sweeteners
• certain other additives

There are only slight variations in those categories, such as:

*Myprotein uses sunflower lecithin as its emulsifier, ON’s Gold Standard uses soy lecithin.

*Myprotein has the additional ingredients modified food starch, salt, & the artificial sweetener sucralose. Optimum Nutrition uses food starch & sucralose in some of their flavors, just not in this Double Rich Chocolate.

*ON’s Gold Standard has the additional enzyme formulas Aminogen® and Lactase.

 

Myprotein vs O.N. Gold Standard Comparison Categories

Here’s an outline of all the categories I’ll be covering in this comparison review.

Ingredients

• Calories
• Macronutrient quantities
• Protein
• Carbs
• Fats

Protein analysis

• Protein % per serving
• Protein type(s)
• Amino Acids profiles

What else do they put in it?

• Sugar
• Sodium
• Artificial sweeteners
• Other processed additives

Other comparisons

• Cost
• Buyer’s reviews
• Flavor choices
• Available sizes
• Taste

 

Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate vs. Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard

The Myprotein powder used in this comparison review is their Impact Whey Isolate.

My go-to Optimum Nutrition whey used in many of the protein powder comparison reviews I do here on heydayDo is their Gold Standard 100% Whey.

Let’s quickly look at how their thousands of buyers feel about these two giants of the protein powder market.

 

Myprotein vs. O.N.: buyer reviews

This category compares Myprotein & Optimum Nutrition’s whey isolate powders, using the average rating of all online buyer reviews I could track down at the time of writing this.

Both powders score well according to their customers.

But make no mistake: Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard is in another stratosphere in terms of popularity compared to any Myprotein product, since Gold Standard Whey product is the best-selling protein powder in the world.

Myprotein is the #1 selling protein powder in the UK, where the company originally began.

Part of Optimum Nutrition’s massive market presence is because their parent company (Glanbia) is a huge multi-national conglomerate with buckets of money to spend on marketing & promotion of O.N.’s products.

 

Customer ratings

Both protein powders have excellent grades from their customers, & I was one of them. I drank Gold Standard for 15-20 years before switching to unflavored powders including Impact Whey Isolate, though I settled on Muscle Feast’s Grass-Fed version.

(The % you see is the percentage of 4&5-star ratings. Ratings were curated from all the biggest online retailers of protein powder: Amazon, iHerb.com, Bodybuilding.com, etc.)

O.N. Gold Standard Whey  93% – 4.6⭐ 200,000+ reviews

Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate  92% – 4.6⭐  40,000+ reviews

 

To check today’s price or read buyer comments, click on their pics or names.

Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate

 

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard

O.N. vs Myprotein: Ingredients

The flavored versions of these two aren’t pure protein powders by any means, but they are both better than a lot of other flavored whey products currently on the market.

And when I say better, what I mean is that neither of them have a long list of processed additives like many other cheap, mass-produced protein powders do.

 

Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate ingredients

(In its Chocolate Brownie flavor.)

• Whey protein isolate
• Sunflower lecithin
• Natural & artificial flavor
• Cocoa
• Modified food starch
• Sucralose
• Acesulfame potassium
• Salt

 

O.N. Gold Standard Whey ingredients

• Protein Blend (whey isolates, whey concentrates, & whey peptides)
• Cocoa
• Soy lecithin
• Natural & artificial flavors
• Acesulfame potassium
• Aminogen®
• Lactase
• Some flavors use gums (xanthan, guar, & acacia), artificial food dyes, & blending chemicals

 

My takeaways:

For me, a slight edge to Myprotein in the Ingredients category.

This is because I like whey isolate more than whey concentrate since it has less fat, less cholesterol, & less lactose.

Also give another slight advantage goes to Myprotein for not using as many artificial ingredients as some Gold Standard flavors have in them.

 

Myprotein vs. Optimum Nutrition: calories & macronutrients

That’s Myprotein Impact Whey on the left, ON’s Gold Standard Whey on the right.

 

(per serving)

Serving size:

Myprotein: 25g

Optimum Nutrition: 30g

 

Calories

Myprotein: 90

Optimum Nutrition: 120

 

O.N. & Myprotein macronutrients

Protein:

Myprotein: 20g

Optimum Nutrition: 24g

 

Carbs:

Myprotein: 2g

Optimum Nutrition: 3g

 

Fats:

Myprotein: 0g

Optimum Nutrition: 1g

 

My takeaways:

At first glance it looks like O.N. has more of everything compared to Myprotein, including 20% more protein. But that’s not the case…their macronutrient numbers are actually about the same.

Reason: Look at their respective serving sizes, Optimum Nutrition’s is 30g, Myprotein’s is 25g.

That’s a 20% difference in serving size, and that’s the only reason O.N. looks like it has more calories, protein, etc.

Interesting thing is, their scoops are the same size, look:

(ON’s Gold Standard is the gold one, of course…)

 

The key is found in their Nutrition Facts panels.

Optimum Nutrition is basing their macro numbers on a rounded scoop, Myprotein Impact on just a scoop:

Myprotein vs. O.N. protein analysis

Revisiting the Nutrition Facts panel, we see this comparison of protein per serving:

Myprotein – 20g

Optimum Nutrition – 24g

Looks like O.N. delivers more protein, but remember they’re going with a rounded scoop.

And that is the only reason their protein quantity looks bigger/better than Myprotein’s when comparing their Nutrition Facts panels.

 

Bottom line: If you scoop the same amount of powder out of either a Myprotein’s Impact Whey Isolate or Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Whey container, you’ll get the same amount of protein.

 

So now let’s look a little closer in our comparison using another protein number that I find very useful.

 

Protein percentage per serving

What is this number?

I like figuring out a product’s Protein % per serving because it helps clearly illustrate how much other stuff you’re getting in that scoop besides the protein you’re really after.

 

You figure it out by dividing the amount of protein per serving into the entire serving size.

 

Myprotein as an example

Look at the Nutrition Facts panel and we see:

* a serving size of 25 grams

* protein delivery of 20 grams

20/25 = .8 or 80%. This means that 80% of what you’re drinking is protein, and 20% is other stuff.

 

And so comparing our two protein powders in this review, we get:

Myprotein – 80% 

Optimum Nutrition – 79%

Result: Just about even, which isn’t surprising since they’re both whey isolate-based and their “other ingredients” lists are similar.

Just remember that Myprotein Whey Isolate comes in an unflavored version that delivers an excellent 90% protein per serving. Gold Standard doesn’t come in an unflavored powder.

 

Is 80% or so a good number?

Not the best but it’s a pretty good number for sure, especially for a flavored whey powder since things like cocoa or vanilla extract need to be added for taste.

Here’s how our chocolate-flavored Myprotein Impact & ON’s Gold Standard compare to a few other very popular whey products along with a pure, unflavored whey isolate:

 

Protein % per serving:

 

Why is protein % per serving important?

Bottom line: With many mass-produced protein powders, fillers & sugars are often used. You can end up paying for a lot of unnecessary junk.

That’s important to keep in mind, considering how much the cost of whey products have increased over the past couple of years.

A lot of cheap protein products — powders and ready-to-drink shakes in particular — might show a high protein number in the Nutrition Facts panel, which seems nice.

But what if that protein is only half of what you’re drinking, and the other half is all crap?

For example, look at this Core Power Performance protein shake.

It provides 26 grams of protein per serving, which is more than both Myprotein and Optimum Nutrition (20g & 24g, respectively).

So this Core Power must be a better protein product, right?

Umm, no.

When we figure out its protein % per serving, we see that it’s actually the worst of the three protein products, look:

Core Power protein per serving: 26g

Core Power macros per serving: 58g

 

Myprotein protein %/serving: 80%

Optimum Nutrition protein %/serving: 79%

Core Power protein %/serving: 45%

 

That’s a big, big difference.

Worse still, it shows that over half of what you’re drinking in a Core Power shake isn’t protein, but something else.

“Less than half” is just wrong if you’re looking for a real for real protein product.

And in this case, that something else that’s been added is cane sugar & honey.

Protein types: Myprotein vs. Optimum Nutrition

Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate consists of just that; it’s a 100% whey isolate product.

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey is what’s known as a whey blend.

This is because it combines three types of whey:

• whey protein isolate
• whey protein concentrate
• whey peptides

So who’s better?

It depends on your individual preferences; there’s no clear winner here.

 

Whey isolate

Some people want a pure whey isolate product because almost all of the lactose found in milk products is removed during the manufacturing process. (1)

This is beneficial to people who are lactose intolerant and thus have digestive issues when consuming milk or milk products. (2)

With the lactose removed, whey isolate is well-tolerated for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to consume this high-quality protein source.

And Myprotein’s Impact powder is 100% whey isolate.

 

Whey protein concentrate

No doubt Optimum Nutrition uses whey protein concentrate in their whey powders because it’s considered the cheapest form of whey to make. (4)

It’s cheap to make because it’s a leftover byproduct that comes from making cheese.

And it just so happens that Optimum Nutrition is owned by a gigantic dairy product corporation named Glanbia.

 

Whey peptides

Whey comes from the liquid portion of milk during the separation process of cheese production.

When it’s dried, it becomes the basis for all these whey powders you see on the market.

But what are whey peptides?

A peptide is just a string of amino acids, making a peptide smaller than a protein. (6)

And amino acids are the building blocks within all of the types of protein we eat & drink, including protein powders. (7)

 

So whey peptides are the amino acid strings that are extracted from the liquid milk plasma, also a process during cheese-making. (8)

Optimum Nutrition’s use of whey peptides as a protein source is another cheap way for them to make their powders, since their parent company makes tons of cheese. (9)

 

Amino acid profile comparison: Myprotein vs. O.N.

Without even digging up the nutritional data of these two protein powders, I’m guessing that their amino acid profiles are very similar.

This is because both are 100% whey products, even though they’re not made up of the exact same type of whey.

But let’s go see…

 

Myprotein’s amino acid profile

Here’s a pic of the amino acid profile of Myprotein’s Impact Whey Isolate.

Myprotein doesn’t provide this info on the bag, nor on their product page on Amazon, or even on their website.

No warm fuzzies from me for that, since there are some of us who train hard & take our supplements seriously…

…which naturally leads us to wanting to know “how much of the good stuff” is in this product.

So I wrote them and here’s what I got:

One thing to note:

MyProtein’s formatting of this amino acid info doesn’t follow the typical industry standard.

Because of that, they’re making you do some math to try & figure out how much BCAAs & EAAs (branched-chain amino acids & essential amino acids, respectively) you’re getting per serving.

Kinda bugs me, but whatever…I’ll do the math. Then we’ll compare them to ON’s Gold Standard Whey amino acid numbers, which look like this on the packaging:

 

O.N. vs MyProtein: Branched-Chain Amino Acids

(per serving)

Myprotein Whey Isolate: 5.7g

ON Gold Standard Whey: 5.5g

 

Essential Amino Acids

Myprotein Whey Isolate: 11.9g

ON Gold Standard Whey: 11g

 

>My takeaway:

Pretty close numbers as expected when comparing two similar whey protein powders. But give the edge to Myprotein, since it has about a gram more EAAs and a teeny bit more BCAAs.

 

Myprotein vs ON: Sugar & Sodium

Here are the per serving amounts of sugar & sodium of Impact Whey Isolate & Gold Standard Whey.

Note that neither of these two protein powders add sugar to their formulas; both use artificial sweeteners instead.

Bottom line: So any sugar you see — which will be negligible — is occurring naturally.

 

Sugar

Myprotein: 2g

Optimum Nutrition: 1g

 

My takeaway:

As expected, very little sugar in either of them.

And with only a gram difference between the two protein powders, we’ll call this a tie.

 

Random Observation:

I’m a bit surprised that Myprotein has twice the sugar as ON’s Gold Standard Whey.

Granted it’s only 1 gram, which is negligible.

Still, it’s odd to me because Optimum Nutrition’s whey still has a teeny bit of lactose (milk sugar), thanks to the whey concentrate they use.

But the Myprotein Impact powder is a 100% isolate, so almost all of the lactose has been removed, yet it has 2 grams of sugar.

Again, this is a minimal amount of sugar any way you look at it, so no biggie.

 

Looking over the Impact Whey ingredients list, that 2 grams of sugar most likely comes from the Modified Food Starch, an additive made from corn or tapioca that’s used to help thicken & blend things. (10)

ON Gold Standard has several flavors using that additive as well.

 

Sodium

There’s no salt added to Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Whey.

Yet it has a lot more sodium in it than Myprotein’s whey isolate, which lists salt as an added ingredient…go figure.

Myprotein whey isolate:  40 mg

ON Gold Standard whey: 130 mg

 

That’s over 3x as much, so where does it come from?

My guess is it’s naturally-occurring in the whey protein concentrate, based on data I saw on a US government food aid site. (11)

And another food database, NutritionData, confirmed whey concentrate’s natural sodium content.

 

Myprotein vs. ON: Artificial sweeteners

Where our ‘natural’ flavors & artificial sweeteners are born…

 

As just mentioned, there’s no sugar in either of these protein powders, so they “need” to be sweetened artificially.

“Need”, meaning the manufacturers need to produce it this way in order to compete in the crowded & competitive protein supplement space.

This is because:

1) the market clearly proves that there a lot more people who prefer flavored protein products compared to those who’re good with unflavored versions;

2) most people who work out regularly via strength training or athletics, AND also supplement their daily protein intake, avoid excess sugar consumption like the Plague.

 

Bottom line: Artificial sweeteners & protein supplement products (powders, bars, shakes) go hand in hand.

 

Myprotein’s & O.N.’s artificial sweeteners

This bag of Chocolate Brownie-flavored Impact Whey Isolate I bought has both sucralose & acesulfame potassium (AKA Ace-K, or acesulfame-K) in it.

And ON’s current version of their flagship Double Rich Chocolate Gold Standard Whey is sweetened via just the acesulfame potassium, though many Gold Standard flavors have sucralose in them too.

All of the flavors from both companies have one or both of these artificial sweeteners in them, with the exception of Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate’s Unflavored version.

 

About Ace-K & Sucralose: good or bad?

Acesulfame potassium & sucralose are arguably the most controversial artificial sweeteners on the market today.

Yet acesulfame potassium & sucralose are also arguably the most-used artificial sweeteners in the protein supplement industry.

That’s just my guess, but I’ve see one or both of them on dozens (hundreds?) of protein products’ ingredients lists, far more than any other synthetic sweeteners out there.

 

About sucralose

* People who think sucralose is bad have blamed it for causing

“everything from cancer to DNA damage.” (12)

 

* But according to medical authorities like the Mayo Clinic,

“there’s no sound scientific evidence that any of the artificial sweeteners approved for use in the United States cause cancer or other serious health problems.” (13)

 

*The FDA approved sucralose as a safe-to-use artificial sweetener in 1998 after reviewing over a hundred medical research trials, finding no evidence that sucralose causes cancer.

 

Acesulfame potassium (Ace K)

* Digging around online I found a few nutrition researchers who feel acesulfame potassium is not safe enough for regular consumption.

* The FDA approved it as an artificial sweetener in 1998 like sucralose, again after examining dozens of Ace K research reports. (16)

*The National Cancer Institute agrees with the FDA, saying

“The results of these studies showed no evidence that these sweeteners cause cancer or pose any other threat to human health.” (17)

 

Prefer cleaner protein?

If you’re interested in clean protein products — meaning no sucralose or other artificial sweeteners — I’ve analyzed a boatload of protein powders, protein bars, & BCAA supplements.

I published my opinion on dozens of protein products — including those I currently consider the best — for each of those categories here on heydayDo in the following articles:

Best Protein Powder Without Artificial Sweeteners

7 Best BCAAs Without Sucralose Or Artificial Sweeteners

Top 24 Protein Bars Without Artificial Sweeteners

 

MyP vs ON: Other additives

As we saw earlier when looking at the ingredients list, Myprotein’s Impact Whey Isolate & Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Whey have several similar ingredients.

So here in this section, I’m just going to focus on the ones that are unique to one or the other.

 

Natural & artificial flavors

Both protein powders list “natural & artificial flavors”.

Just to be clear, the formulas each company uses for this ingredient description are different from one another.

The FDA allows companies to hide the recipes of proprietary ingredients under generic names like these, including a popular one you see in fitness supplements, “proprietary blends”.

 

Lecithin/Sunflower lecithin

Both protein powders also list a lecithin, Myprotein going with sunflower lecithin and Optimum Nutrition just calling it lecithin.

Both are emulsifiers, which are used extensively in processed food products.

An emulsifier is an additive used to help unlike ingredients blend together better, like oil & water or as in this case, protein powder & water.

 

This greatly reduces the likelihood of drinking one of those dreaded clumps of dry protein powder, which happened a lot back in the day.😉

 

ON uses soy lecithin

With ON doing this, the odds are almost certain that it’s soy lecithin.

You can tell this by looking at the allergen disclosure on the Gold Standard Whey’s Nutrition Facts panel:

Some people don’t want to consume soy, and the FDA allows the word lecithin to be listed as-is on the ingredients list.

But the FDA requires that the word soy be listed as an allergen down at the bottom of the Nutrition Facts labels, which Optimum Nutrition indeed does. (18)

 

Other Additives in Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate

*Modified food starch – usually made from corn or tapioca, it’s used to improve blending & texture. (19)

*Sucralose – we covered earlier.

*Salt – and Myprotein must not use much of this at all – only 40mg per serving, and 70% less than ON Gold Standard has.

 

O.N. Gold Standard Whey other ingredients

*Aminogen® – this is a patented digestive enzyme designed to improve the amount of protein you absorb when you drink Gold Standard. (20)

*Lactase – is also a digestive enzyme. And this one is designed to improve the digestibility of lactose (milk sugar), which some of the population have difficulty doing. (21)

Man-made chemicals – As mentioned earlier, several ON Gold Standard flavors have a variety of synthetic chemicals added to them: food coloring, thickeners, blending agents, etc.

Myprotein vs. ON: flavor choices & taste

In this section we’ll look at what other flavor options (besides my two chocolate versions here) are available for Myprotein’s Impact & Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard whey powders.

And of course I’ll give you my 2 cents’ worth of taste-testing opinion when comparing the two chocolate flavors of theirs that I bought too.

 

Flavor options quest

You’ll be hard-pressed to find accurate info on Amazon & other retailer sites regarding exactly how many flavors are available for either ON’s Gold Standard Whey & Myprotein’s Impact Whey Isolate.

There are multiple duplicate-yet-incomplete product listings (yes, there is such a thing), and the “Available Flavors” sections on a product’s page are often a hot mess.

Pick a flavor, suddenly the size changes. Pick a size, suddenly flavors disappear.

Good times.

 

Visit their websites 

No doubt due to backroom deals between Amazon & most manufacturers, Amazon’s prices are often cheaper than what you’ll see on the product’s own home website.

Not with Myprotein though. 

Here’s what I found on Optimum Nutrition’s site regarding all the flavors they have for their Gold Standard Whey. Looks like 17 of them on that page today, but a few days ago I landed on it and it showed a whopping 30 flavors:

(I’ve been checking in on the O.N. site every so often and can tell you they change their Gold Standard flavor selection all the time.)

 

And a more complete Impact Whey Isolate flavor list also exists over on Myprotein’s website too, and they offer 10…well as of today anyway.

Taste-testing time

I’ll share my opinion regarding the taste comparison between these two protein powders in a sec, but first…

I put the Taste category last in this article because — and I’ve said this lots of times here on heydayDo — I don’t believe that my opinion on how it tastes provides any real value for you.

My feeling about this is perfectly expressed by chef, cooking teacher, & taste-test expert Becky Selengut, author of the interesting book, How To Taste: 

“The world of taste is subjective. What one person experiences when they taste a dish is not necessarily the same as someone else, which means that no one can contest what it is that you, yourself, are tasting.” (22)

 

Science has proven that there are thousands & thousands of taste preference variations in human taste buds. (23)

So I’m pretty sure your taste preferences are different than mine, but as promised here are my thoughts.

Myprotein vs ON Gold Standard Taste-test

I do all my protein powder taste tests with plain water, because it reveals the true nature of these processed supplements.

Bottom line: I like Gold Standard’s Double Rich Chocolate flavor more than the Chocolate Brownie version of Impact Whey Isolate.

 

FAQs

Here are answers to a few questions regarding Myprotein Impact Whey Isolate & Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard.

 

Wrapping Up

Related protein articles here on heydayDo

Creapure vs. Creatine Monohydrate: Not All Creatine Is Created Equal

My Taste-Test Project To Find The Best Myprotein Flavors

The Hunt For The Best Optimum Nutrition Flavor

Do Resistance Bands Build Muscle As Well As Free Weights?

Mystery No More: Do You Take Creatine On Rest Days Or Not?

MusclePharm Combat Protein Review

I hope that my article comparing Myprotein’s Impact Whey Isolate to Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard Whey is useful to you, and I wish you well on your fitness journey.

– greg