I'm sorry, but as a clinical nutritionist and someone who sees everyday the effects of what we ingest on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels, I would not ever recommend this product to a client. First, you want to be extremely careful with whey since it is a fragile protein and is easily damaged by heat and even by the agitation of your blender. Most of the less expensive whey is a byproduct of the cheese making industry so it has been exposed to both high temperatures and extreme agitation. I would want to know the source of this whey as well seeing as how conventional American dairy is so abused by the time it gets to the consumer level. Second, until there is more information on the safety of sucralose, I can't recommend its use to anyone. Not to mention that chronic use of artificial sweeteners causes weight gain. Third, carrageenan can cause significant gastro-intestinal distress in some people. And fourth, sunflower oil is 100% omega-6 fatty acids which are pro-inflammatory. I would look elsewhere for wholesome real foods.

I was afraid of this. A marketed Ken Wilbur. Does this integral drink have magical powers too, or is it just subtly insinuated? I can't wait for my Holon multi-level home business package or has this arrived already too?

Why would Ken Wilber be promoting stuff with Omega 6, when in fact you only have to look around a tiny bit at various health blogs and elsewhere to see how the typical American diet is already packed with Omega 6 - and how an imbalance in Omega oils, not enough Omega 3's EFA/DHA is strongly linked to pervasive degenerative diseases...

Most odd!

I've got a few comments on this front. First, Full Strength's number one protein source is an isochilled whey protein isolate, the most expensive and prized protein isolate available because it doesn't use a flash heat process to create the isolate and thus it preserves the most bio-active fractions.

As for the criticism on cheap forms of protein, right on! Not only are they less than ideal to consume, they taste horrible. While many nutrition shakes do use the cheapest of proteins as their starting point, the assumption that Full Strength follows this unfortunate trend is inaccurate.

Full Strength did not receive its clinical results by building its protein base from the "bottom of the barrel." Full Strength's formula starts with the best of the best.

Secondly, Sucralose is the only artificial sweetener derived from sugar and it's received the most broad sweeping approval ever granted by the FDA. While there are many myths and conspiracies roaming the internet about this sweetener I've got another perspective that needs to be honored and respected.

The FDA's overwhelming acceptance of sucralose is based on more than 100 studies over 20 years that found the sweetener safe and inert. It's inert in that it doesn't undergo any changes as it passes through the body and it's safe because multiple populations and sub-groups have been tested without adverse effects. For example, pregnant women, nursing women and children all have been tested.

For those who've fallen prey to the myth that sucralose has never been tested in human subjects and was passed by the FDA through some conspiracy (it's out there!) here's just one reference:

Baird, I.M., et al. Repeated dose study of sucralose tolerance in human subjects. Food & Chemical Toxicology 38(Suppl 2): 123-129, 2000.

Third, Full Strength has been CLINICALLY SHOWN to help people lose weight and fat mass (see the 83% greater weight loss and the 60% greater loss in fat mass from the study linked to above). While chronic use of artificial sweeteners may cause weight gain, chronic use of Full Strength appears to send you in the other direction while lowering cholesterol, increasing muscle tissue and muscle strength, increasing energy among the other findings at Oklahoma University.

Third, there are many wholesome real foods that contain ingredients that can cause significant gastro-intestinal distress. When you come across those foods, you should probably avoid eating them again.

One of the hidden biases here is that "real foods" are better than a nutrition shake. While I'm not advocating for an "either / or" position, I'm saying there's tremendous merit to the "both and" perspective especially when Full Strength is the nutrition shake taken into consideration. Full Strength, a "liquid food" if you will, is pretty powerful when added to one's diet, at least that's what the science appears to suggest.

Picking out one or two ingredients and dismissing it's clinical results and real world impact lacks perspective. For those of you who are really concerned about individual ingredients consider this fact about food in general. Thus far nutritional researchers have only made correlations between nutrients and their physiological impacts for about 200 chemical compounds found in the foods you eat every day. That's 200 out of the several thousand chemical compounds we know of. The vast majority of what you eat we simply don't know what it does.

Some of it will be found to be good for you, some not so good, others really bad. Either way I do recommend eating whether it's a nutrition shake or "whole foods."
;-)

Didn't want to see this as part of Integral Institute.

Hi folks, as a hobbyist bodybuilder I've watched debates around nutrition for years. I've learned that nutrition is a very personal subject for many people, so I won't comment on specific nutritional aspects of Full Strength other than to say that a low fat, complex carbohydrate and lean protein nutrition shake could help most people with their nutritional regimen. I will ask Rob McNamara from Full Strength to reply to specific questions and/or critiques of the product, because it just came through a clinical study at the University of Oklahoma and I'd suggest that if there are criticisms that it be done in light of clinical data.

Beyond the nutritional value of Full Strength there is the issue of Integral Life's promotion of the product. I understand that some people look at any company that offers products through an email with deep skepticism. I get it, it's sort of characteristic of a media-saturated culture where we think everyone is out to get our hard-earned money through some sort of promotional sleight-of-hand. Integral Life is founded on the people who are here, just like you, who seek to live integrally with the best products, educational tools, community and practices we can find. In general if there is a product we can offer you that we think is high-quality and worthy of your time and attention, then we will do so. We see this as one of the ways we can help you sort through the high volume of questionable stuff that is out there. If in fact you don't trust us to do so, that's fair, but before your decide you should know that:

1. We make no money from Full Strength for this promotion. They are a partner because we think they have one of the better nutritional tools on the market. Feel free to try it, risk free, and decide for yourself. Or not.

2. Ken Wilber is not explicitly endorsing the products, events and other updates that Integral Life communicates in Holons updates because he doesn't know what is in most of our Holons updates (of course, nor is he not endorsing them). As Ken himself has said, Integral Life is the leading global community of integrally-aware people exactly because he is not central to its existence. (Though his work tends to be central to our conversations.)

3. The products and events we communicate to you represent our best judgment, usually from first-hand experience, of what we think might be valuable to you in your integral life . We strive to be a company that offers the highest-quality experiences and products available. We are fallible, but we also have a lot of experience with exactly the type of shoddy products that people are tired of buying. We've been there; we get it.

I hope this helps. We are listening and will continue to respond to your comments and suggestions. And we will always treat you with the same respect and love with which we would want all of humanity to be treated.

Much love,

Robb Smith
Chairman & CEO

Thanks guys. Very helpful to include these sorts of 'everyday' features in Holons. I've been a protein starved vegetarian all my life and if this stuff goes down well...

I am disappointed to see this product advertised here. Also, if I was to pick a protein shake it would be one with stevia, not sucralose.

Dear Integral Life,

Thank-you for bringing great products like Big Mind, Full Strength, David Deida's work and so forth to my attention. Without this information I most likely would not have found them or if I had I may well of dismissed them precisely because I can't filter through all the information and always find the 'gems in the rough'.

Please keep making this type of information available and please keep holding it in a broader and deeper context of seeing, knowing, being and giving.

with love

Richard

I'd like to add something to this dialogue that, as yet, remains unexpressed. Namely, that one might be advised to try the product before criticizing. Particularly since none of the opinions offered are responses to direct experience of the product in question. So go try it! Phillips is giving the stuff away so you can actually experience the difference firsthand (or should I say first-person?) instead of merely looking at it objectively (3rd person...). Both perspectives in this situation are equally important.

So let me offer a testimony. I used Fullstrength for the better part of a year in conjunction with regular strength training, and, frankly, had never and still have not felt better in my life. Unfortunately, I had to stop using it because I have a minor allergy to apparently any and all dairy products, including whey. I have since searched, unsuccessfully, for a product of equal or even remotely similar quality (criteria including taste, satiety, how I actually feel after consuming, etc.). During this search I've tried many difference products that claim to be the best or one of the best sources of "liquid" protein, and not one of them has come close to Fullstrength. Does this sound like every other testimony? Yes. So, again, go try it for yourself. If you don't like it, then you don't like it. Plain and simple. If you do like it, then man, you're in for a lucky ride.

S.

It looks like marketing, yes. I do not know so much about this protein drinks, though most of them (especially vanilla) taste very good.
But i like the idea to see here also offers and recommendation for food and food supplements.
I am not an admirer of food supplements, i like more natural and organic stuff, but i also learned that
the vegetables and food we get from the nature offers less and less vitamins, minerals and and other healthy stuff.
So we already need to take supplements to get a balanced nutrition.

In my view Holons-News is the right place to publish this kind of informations.
I would not like to see such things on Ken’s Blog or in a mail in the name of I-I,
except the would be a special shop to buy such useful stuff.

I knew it would happen eventually, much to my dismay. I used to hold the orientation that Richard Munn expresses, being grateful for various teachers and products being brought to my attention through Integral. Now I realize how dangerous it is. I used to think there could be no such thing as "integral fundamentalism" but I have since changed my opinion. I have been very disappointed in Integral Institute's orientation toward physical health, muscle building, and especially diet and nutrition. I believe I saw the "Atkins diet" suggested in the body module of my ILP packet at which I was horrified of course. I can make a clinical study have whatever results I choose, it doesn't mean the product is life supporting or health creating. Most of the time people get in shape physically to the detriment of their actual health and vitality. That people believe the myth that you need all kinds of calories and hundreds of grams of protein per day is a testament to that.

Ken Wilber is a hero of mine and opened many doors in my mind and stretched my consciousness to levels I had not previously experienced, and I am eternally grateful for that. But marketing these products as high quality and through the integral brand is just wrong. If someone holds Integral as their highest authority (which many people do, to the detriment of their own Higher Self), than they swallow up any perspective provided by KW very quickly. Whether KW personally endorses the product or not is irrelevant as KW and the Integral brand are inextricably interwoven.

The previous poster talks about how superior this product is while simultaneously offering that he had to discontinue the product because of dairy allergies. So, it is good for you except that your body completely rejects it. A little research might bear out that dairy products are probably the greatest cause of cancer in the world today (The China Study, The No Dairy Breast Cancer Prevention Program, etc), and it is sad to me that people still think that cow's milk is a good source of anything for human beings. With every endorsement of products like this (or criminal politicians for that matter), the density of Truth contained in the Integral movement is progressively diluted. That this represents the best judgment of Integral Institute is very disconcerting to me. So spins the world...

Anyone can feel free to email me to continue the discussion or explore any aspect of this or previous post.

If there are people who love you, you can bet there are people who hate you, too. It's a fickle and suspicious world out there. Part of "integral" might be said to be one's own integrity with respect to what one puts out into the world. We, as individuals, know if what we put out there is coming from a place of integrity, and others must choose to trust us, or not. I choose to trust the folks at Integral Life because they have earned it. I see no sign of dishonesty here, intentional or otherwise.

These folks are trying to do something wonderful and truly unique here. Put your suspicious nature on hold for a little bit and feel how good it is to trust - whether you buy the shakes or not, just allow them to earn your trust. You have nothing to lose.

I'm glad Ken Wilber brought Dharma to Academia-Land. Who else could have done it? You can learn how to meditate at Harvard now. Bring on the mainstream! Dharma (or Integral..whatever you want to call it...intelligence/wisdom and the practice of it) is good in all it's forms. Why would working out, relaxing your mind/body, being a good person, reading some books and working on your compassion ever be bad? So what things are being sold, marketed and this is funding Integral objectives. Bring it on! We need a good shake..I personally have always been trying to find the perfect shake. This may not be the one but the world need a perfect shake. The maybe I'll work out when that day comes. :)