Review of CytoSport Monster Milk

An unbiased review of CytoSport Monster Milk protein powder. Is it the best whey protein powder? Is it among the better muscle building supplements?

Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Welcome to this review of the CytoSport Monster Milk whey protein product. As you know, there many competing companies vying for the highly profitable sports nutrition supplement space. Unlike many of the competitors, the Monster Milk brand has been around for around 30 years and has tremendous brand recognition.

Even casual fitness enthusiasts recognize the name. Indeed, it is a well received brand in the marketplace although its popularity has slipped due to the increasing competition in the space by Optimum Nutrition, Gaspari Nutrition, MusclePharma, Dymatize, and others.

Let’s now get into this offering by CytoSport and their Monster Milk protein supplement powder.

Monster Milk Core Product Features

This product, according to Monster Milk Brand Manager Greg Sellers, will help “deliver muscle-building proteins into athletes’ diets, aiding in muscle recovery after intense workouts.” It is most ostensibly a “workout supplement” for either pre-, intra-, or post-workout recovery and muscle synthesis. This is somewhat unique as most muscle building supplements do one, perhaps two, of those stages. Monster Milk says it can do all three.

Moreover, from my research, I can tell you that it has the most prolific assortment of flavors of any whey protein powder on the market today. It is available in:

Vanilla crème
Chocolate
Strawberries ‘n Crème
Cookies ‘n Crème
Banana crème
Orange crème
Mocha Latte
Blueberries n’ Crème
Peanut Butter Chocolate
Chocolate Caramel Pecan
Chocolate Banana Crunch
Chocolate Mint
Chocolate Malt
Dark Chocolate
Cinnamon Bun
Cake Batter
Brownie Batter
White Chocolate Mousse
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Strawberry Banana
Peach Mango
Graham Cracker
S’Mores

In early 2013, the company transitioned from nondescript white with gold-colored labeling to black canisters. So, if you go to different ecommerce stores, you will see it mostly still shown as being sold in white canisters.

As for product options, Monster Milk is offered in 1 pound, 1.93 pounds, 2.5 pound, 4.94 pounds, and 10 pound options.

Let’s talk more about the specifics now. Each scoop of the whey protein powder gives16 to 50 grams per scoop and 150 calories with 50 of those calories coming from fat. Why do I say, “16 to 50” grams of protein? The newer product line has more protein in it.

In fact, the 50 grams per scoop is the highest I’ve been able to find with most brands coming in the 24-25 grams per scoop range. However, on the older white canisters, you will see it says “32” grams so be prepared for that.

Quality of ingredients is also important. CytoSport includes six different protein types so as to maximum a long-sustaining release of protein into the bloodstream for maximum effectiveness and muscle synthesis. The different proteins are:

Milk Protein Isolate
Calcium Sodium Caseinate
Micellar Casein
Whey Protein Concentrate
Whey Protein Isolate

It also offers a nice complement of core vitamins and minerals as well as critical amino acids to athletes, especially to bodybuilders like calcium, phosphorous, the B-vitamin complex for energy, L-glutamine, and L-leucine (that is not a comprehensive list).

Supplement fraud has been a problem in the sports nutrition and vitamin supplement industry and so it’s important to ensure you buy a product that is made from quality ingredients that are tested for contaminants, which is sadly more common than you may think.

To that end, CytoSport has NSF certified for sport cGMP compliance certification, which is an indication of purity and product quality. Not only that, CytoSport confirms that their products are free from any banned substances, which are illegal.

They says, “Our products are tested for athletic banned substances in compliance with the NSF International Certified for Sport® program, which includes semi-annual facility audits, verifying that no NSF 306-Certification Guideline Annex A List banned substances exist in our facility.”

What’s The Price for CytoSport Monster Milk?

Here are the prices you can expect to pay for Monster Milk:

1 pound option — expect to pay anywhere from $15.00 to $19.68.
2.5 pound option — expect to pay anywhere from $24.99 to $37.68.
4.94 pound option, expect to pay anywhere from $41.99 to $65.67.
10 pound option, expect to pay anywhere for $102.69.

You can buy it at Amazon.com, but you are free to choose

Does Monster Milk Have a Guarantee?

Yes, it does. CytoSport guarantees their products but so does Amazon.com. CytoSport, like most vendors in the sports supplement space, will defer to the brick-and-mortar retail or online retailer you bought it from. Thus, I recommend you buy it from Amazon as they have the cheapest prices on the Internet. I’ve looked at numerous ecommerce websites and other sites but Amazon has the best prices as they have multiple supplement manufacturers and ecommerce retailers competing head to head. But, you are free to choose.

Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world having reached last year $61.09 billion gross sales and $14.96 billion in gross income (see here). Clearly, they know how to do business right.

You can read more about Amazon’s guarantee here, if interested.

Consumer Reviews of Monster Milk

On one popular website, the CytoSport Monster Milk protein powder has 137 product reviews and ratings with an average score of 8 out of 10. Generally speaking, anything that is 8 or higher is good. On Amazon.com, on just one page selling the Monster Milk product, there are as of this writing 476 reviews with an average score of 4.3 out of a possible 5.0. Anything 4.0 or over is good.

Here are a few reviews taken from Amazon that are fairly representative:

I Love It
By Andres on October 2, 2006
Flavor Name: Chocolate
Size Name: 2.5 Pound

Well here’s the famous Muscle Milk.

If you are thinking about getting this product but you are not sure if it is appropriate for you let me let you know why it probably is, or probably isn’t or at least you should go easy on it.

Although this is no “weight gainer”, it is between a regular protein powder and weight gainer, since 2 scoops have 350 calories. 160 of those are from fats, 8 of them saturated. MCTs fats are easily burned as energy, but you can still find nutritionists that say that’s just not true. So it’s up to you. I would go with bodybuilders and athletes that love the product since, well, they are the, literally, living proof.

When should you drink it? The manufacturer tells you that you should consume it after waking up, before working out, after working out, and before sleeping…hehe well manufacturers are always telling us to consume their product as much as we can for “better results” but the truth is that supplements should be used wisely and aren’t magic so don’t worry about consuming it 4 times a day. Besides, 160 times 4 are 640 calories from fat. That’s 30% of 2000. You should get about 25% of your calories from fat (if you really wanna be lean) so if you mix the muscle milk with soy milk and you eat close to 3000 calories, that’s almost all the fats you should get. Nothing else, no peanut butter, no almonds, etc. Besides there’s no really need of muscle milk after waking up and before workout. Everyone knows that whey protein is the best pre workout protein due to its fast effect. But I get it after workout and before sleeping.

Does it work? Well, if you have a good workout and you have a good diet it does work. I have dropped some body fat % since I started to take it and I have gained some muscle mass without gaining any fat. Getting calories from fats at night is fine, when we sleep we burn calories and most of them from protein and fats. But we don’t burn that many carbs while sleeping. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live the “low carb lifestyle”, but I go easy on them at night. If you get less than 30 grams of them in the last hours of the day you’ll be fine. That’s why muscle milk is a good choice for pre-sleep protein since it has little carbs.

For post workout I recommend the same mixture of Muscle Milk and soy or low fat milk but eat fruits too. You need carbs after workout and the fats will help a lot since carbs work better with fats (and protein too. In fact, fats are much better being consumed to join carbs and protein).

Now , I’m not gonna say this is the best tasting bodybuilding powder in the world because I haven’t tried them all…but it is the best I have ever tried and I doubt there’s anything better. I just love every flavor. The cookies and cream is just delicious, almost like an ice cream. And it barely has sugar. You won’t find a better tasting powder, I’m sure of that.

If you are on a diet trying to lose that belly I wouldn’t recommend this to you. But if you are already lean or have always been and now your goals is getting lean muscle, then go ahead.

The price is the only turn off though but if you think a good product and with an awesome taste makes the price of a product even more worth it, go ahead.”}”>

A List of Flavors & My Impressions
By J. Kerekes on December 20, 2012
Amazon Verified Purchase

I’ve tried about 75% of the flavors that they put out over the last three years. Given that they’re all basically identical in nutrition, this review is about flavors. Highly subjective, admittedly, but it might help you choose. It’s worth noting that I mix all of these with water and water alone. Milk might significantly change how these taste, but I’m slightly lactose intolerant and don’t like to spend the rest of my day farting post-workout.

– Chocolate: A classic. It tastes quite a bit like melted chocolate ice cream, or very rich chocolate milk. If you like either of those, I strongly recommend this flavor.
– Chocolate Malt: Tastes almost exactly like a chocolate malt. Very well done.
– Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: Gross. This is one of the more disappointing flavors, as I love most things with that flavor – this is almost metallic, though. Once again, gross.
– Chocolate Peanut Butter: Lackluster at best. You can barely taste the peanut butter flavor, and the chocolate flavor is bland. It tastes like a bad protein bar.
– Brownie Batter: One can definitely tell it is supposed to taste like brownies, but it suffers from that strange flavor that protein products sometimes have. It was good, but I probably won’t get it again.
– Vanilla Creme: Wonderful! This was the first flavor I tried years and years ago, and it remains one of my favorites and standbys. It’s not a strong vanilla flavor, but it is smooth, sweet, and tasty.
– Banana Creme: Banana laffy taffy. Straight up. Highly recommended.
– Strawberries and Cream: THE WORST. Good lord was this terrible. I had to mix in other flavors to make is tolerable, and then I felt like I was wasting the others. Never again. It was like punishment.
– Cake Batter: Ridiculously good.- Graham Cracker: Have you ever drunk a graham cracker? It’s weird. Want to try it? Try this. Weird, but surprisingly accurate and enjoyable.
– Cinnamon Bun: This flavor is unique in having been almost too sweet. It’s tasty, but the sweetness is really overpowering. It’s like drinking cinnamon sugar. I found mixing it with other, less sweet flavors was nice. Vanilla Creme, Cake Batter, and Graham Cracker were good combination flavors.
– Strawberry Banana: Much better than the strawberry flavor in Strawberries and Cream. The banana flavor is pretty muted, but the overall flavor is very much like a real strawberry smoothie (without the texture, of course)
– Orange Creme: It tastes a bit like those chalky orange valentines hearts. Actually, it tastes a lot like those. Not bad, if you like that flavor.
– Chocolate Mint Chip: I didn’t expect much from this, but it was surprisingly decent! It’s like a slightly-bland Andes mint. or like any other chocolate mint flavor. Fear not, the \”chip\” in the name does not mean there are any chunks in it.

I’ll add more as I try them. So far, what I’ve noticed is that the vanilla and baked-good flavors are reliably tasty. Everything else is kind of a gamble.”

By Douglas G. Lally on March 26, 2009
Flavor Name: Chocolate
Size Name: 2.5 Pound

I’ve been reading quite a few reviews on Muscle Milk just to get a feel if others shared my experiences with it. What I find is just about half the reviews talk about nothing more than how great it tastes. That would be fine if the product were a very expensive milkshake, but it’s a muscle enhancing product and there are little details in these reviews about whether or not it worked for them. So let me share. Yes, it did give me results. I am 41, 6’1, 210 lbs and after using MM for about 6 weeks there was a very noticable expansion of lean muscle and reduction of fat, particularly around my midsection. I am not new at this, I have been working out since I was in my early 20s. Tried lots of different products all pledging to do everything but change my oil. I have been MM for three years now, cycling it every 6 weeks when in heavy training and for 2-3 months when training light. Yes, it does deliver. And yes, it does contain a lot of sugar and fat so make sure you balance your diet to compensate for that. I also stack it with an amplified creatine monohydrate, green tea supplements, and fish oil. Also use L-Glutamine along with my MM shake after each workout for proper recovery. Just be careful with MM as it WILL make you fat if you are not eating clean and staying consistent with your training. Otherwise I do recommend it highly. Oh…and it tastes great.

So, as you can see, this is a well regarded bodybuilding supplement product. Are there, though, any customer complaints? An honest review must shows the “warts” and all. And here are the “warts.” Like most protein supplements, this product can give flatulence.

It is also made from soy and milk constituent materials, and the facilities it’s made in also process milk, soy, wheat, and chicken eggs. So, if you have an allergy to any of those products, or for health reasons don’t to consume them, please be advised. Lastly, it is also gluten free.

Where Can I Buy Monster Milk?

You can buy it here from Amazon.com. But you are free to choose. Is it the best whey protein powder on the market today? I don’t think it is, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a quality product. When I started bodybuilding in the early 80’s, getting good muscle building supplements or a good protein powder was very difficult (I still remember Weider selling liver pills to gain muscle!). None of them worked and were awful tasting. Not anymore.