If you are like us in that you love to eat, but also love to be healthy, then finding balance is a constant struggle. We find ourselves cutting out a lot of “bad” carbs like white potatoes, breads, bagels and chips because they hold very little nutritional value. Now I get super excited when I find a new brand that’s found a way to cut down on the net carbs and pack a punch of protein in some of my favorite carb or fat heavy foods. So I was dying to try the P28 products when I heard about them. A friend had RAVED about their white chocolate peanut butter spread and how it had SO much protein in it. While peanut butter is a natural source of good protein, it’s not a HUGE amount by any means nor should you live off of peanut butter to get your protein for the day.
Anyone who is trying to get lean or even bulk up by losing those pesky last bits of fat knows that the secret is eating protein by the truckloads and they also know how hard that is to do short of eating straight up grilled chicken all day. Man that gets old real fast.
Enter P28 Foods – a company developed by three brothers in the bakery business and their personal trainer/nutritionist. Like a lot of people in the food industry, especially bakery business, they were overweight and out of shape. Their personal trainer explained how your nutrition is just as important as exercise when it comes to being fit. Not seeing the results they wanted after months of working out and “some” changes to their diet, they began to realize how right their personal trainer was about diet. As bakers though, one thing they didn’t want to give up was bread. Thus launched a partnership between them and their personal trainer to create a line of high protein nutritious breads that could help them and others achieve their fitness goals. The name behind P28 stems from the fact every product they sell has a whopping 28 grams of protein per serving. Needless to say, I was super excited to see how the taste held up to these promising nutritional facts when they sent me a trial pack.
It can be difficult to find P28 products as they typically aren’t in regular grocery stores, but you can shop online from their website. Sometimes you don’t want to clunk down a chunk of change plus shipping costs for a food product you’ve not tried yet and are unsure you’ll even like. So I absolutely LOVE the fact that P28 had the foresight to offer a trial pack on their site. You get to try their bread, wraps, bagel and each of their spreads for a very reasonable price and depending on your area the shipping is free. Plus they include a 10% off coupon. Gotta love that.
Now let’s get into the nitty gritty – do their products even taste good?
After ripping open the box and seeing what was inside, I couldn’t resist the white chocolate spread after hearing such great things. So I quickly dug into it to get a little taste before the hubs got home. Oops.
Did it live up to the hype?? YES. It had a rich white chocolate and peanut butter flavor. It was a tad granular from the whey protein, but nothing off-putting. The consistency was super thick and creamy. I could spread this on anything and everything and not have to feel guilty about it. Because let’s look at the nutrition labels…
The calorie count, fat content and total carbs are on par with regular peanut butter. But the protein is the kicker here that takes these up a notch. One more thing I wanted to point out – Xylitol. They are using this as a natural sweetener, which is just another thing I love about these products. Xylitol is a naturally derived sugar substitute known to help prevent cavities and is absorbed more slowly than sugar, it does not contribute to high blood sugar levels or the resulting hyperglycemia caused by insufficient insulin response.
Next up was their plain peanut butter. The consistency was thinner than the white chocolate spread, which wasn’t a big surprise since it did not have the addition of white chocolate to thicken it. But it still had a nice consistency that was thin enough to spread easily, but thick enough to stick to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter should. It wasn’t totally smooth, but again had a slight granular texture that I actually enjoyed here. I like both crunchy and smooth peanut butter so this was almost like a middle ground. The peanut butter flavor was perfect; I did pick up on a hint of the whey protein in there though. Again, nothing off-putting and the peanut flavor masked it pretty well.
At first glance, the signature blend looked deceivingly like any other peanut butter spread, but there’s a hint of something else there. Dip into it with a spoon and we realized that P28’s signature blend spread is a delicious, chunky blend of peanut butter with spices like cinnamon, dried cranberries, honey, sunflower seeds and flax seeds. Talk about a power punch in a jar. This was my second favorite flavor behind the white chocolate. All the textures going on made it a chunky, chewy, crunchy spread with loads of flavor. The hint of cinnamon really made it special kind of like the cinnamon honey butter at restaurants like O’Charley’s – it’s just a hint of cinnamon and honey, but it makes you want to just lather it on everything. And I never would have thought to put chewy dried cranberries into a peanut butter spread, but I really loved what it did for the texture and flavor. That’s an idea for those of you that make homemade nut butters. 🙂
Their Banana Raisin flavor intrigued me because a lot of banana flavored products have too much of an artificial banana flavor, which I don’t care for at all. I also don’t usually go for raisins. Just like with the signature blend, opening up the jar, you can’t tell what’s underneath that smooth top layer. It was chock full of raisins! Again, while I am not a big raisin fan, I really liked what they did for the texture adding a bite from the chewy raisins. The texture of the spread itself was thinner like the plain peanut butter again with granules from the whey protein. The banana flavor on the other hand was too overpowering for me. It definitely had an overwhelming banana taste – it wasn’t a bad banana taste – just too much for me. However, the hubs LOVED this one. He absolutely loved the amount of banana flavor it had and said it was his favorite.
The final spread we had to try was almond butter. As you can see in the top photo, the oil had separated in this one just a bit, but nothing a quick stir couldn’t fix. The consistency was similar to the plain peanut butter, thin and spreadable, but not too thin. The granules of whey protein were masked here by the familiar texture of ground almonds. Basically, it tasted like any other good quality almond butter – not overly sweet, great flavor and texture that really lets the almonds shine through.
Next up, we tried their wrap. Pulling it out of the box, I actually thought it was a flatbread, not a wrap. It is much thicker than the wraps I normally eat! The underside is smooth and you can see the flecks of whole grains and seeds inside.
The other side of the wrap reminds me even more of a flatbread with it’s gnarled texture. I got really excited to try it though because I love a chewy wrap with some texture and bite to it – this looked promising. First, let’s look at the nutritional information for this baby:
260 calories and 21 net carbs seemed like a lot to me for just the wrap when I try to keep my lunch around 350-450 calories in total. If I added meat, cheese and veggies I was looking at a hefty meal. But after re-examining the large size of the wrap, I realized for me, I could easily cut it in half to accommodate the desire to cut down on the calories and it would be about the size of my normal low carb wraps.
I tried it plain first to get the texture and flavor, then I turned the rest of it into a quesadilla style flatbread/wrap sandwich by grilling it in a non-stick skillet with a little spray. It crisped up nicely and gave it a bit of crunch. As expected though, the plain wrap had a nice thick, toothy texture thanks to the whole wheat flour, sunflower seeds, flaxseeds, millet, and cracked wheat. The flavor was slightly nutty as well, which was really nice. I could easily see using this as a wrap for sandwiches, as a base for a homemade pizza, or even as a vessel for tacos.
P28’s High Protein Bagel was the next item I was most excited to try. A bagel that promised to be nutritious, lower in carbs, high in protein and delicious? I was skeptical. A bagel’s texture is sacred territory. It certainly looks like a bagel – a whole grain bagel with those same flex of seeds found in the wrap. But again, I was skeptical, especially after checking out the nutrition facts.
Let’s compare to a Honey Whole Wheat Bagel from Einstein Bros, which also has 260 calories, but a whopping 49 grams of carbs. It does however only have 3 grams of fat, but also only 12 grams of protein. The P28 bagel is better balanced with almost half the carbs, more fat and more than double the protein. So how did it taste? The flavor was similar to any other whole wheat bagel, however, I have to be honest that the texture did end up being a disappointment. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the chewy, moist texture I am used to from a bagel. It was actually quite dry even after toasting it and smearing it with a cream cheese spread. So the bagel ended up being my least favorite of their products because of the texture. Would I eat it again? Yes, because it’s a great healthy alternative to a regular bagel and the texture wasn’t a total deal breaker.
Finally we are to their crown jewel – the thing that started it all, the centerpiece of their product line. P28’s High Protein Bread, similar to the wrap and bagel, is made from wheat flour, their blend of whey protein, sunflower seeds, flaxseed, millet, cracked wheat and a few other ingredients. It is great to see nutrition labels where you can read the ingredients and understand them and know what truly is in your food. I like supporting businesses that use natural ingredients in their products and not processed chemicals.
Here’s what else I absolutely loved about their bread:
-The generous size makes up for the fact that one slice has 130 calories. If you make this into a sandwich, it will be very filling.
-The texture was perfect in my opinion. Just the right amount of chewiness, softness, bite. While I love the sprouted grain breads, sometimes the thick, crunchy texture of those breads makes them hard to eat or chew, especially if you toast it for a sandwich. Unlike the bagel, the bread was not dry at all. It was pillowy almost.
-The flavor was a nice light whole wheat bread kind of flavor. It wasn’t overly sweet like some of the honey wheat breads can be, but also no dry flavorless cardboard taste of some low carb breads out there. It just feels like you are getting to eat good quality, whole wheat bread, but with the added benefit of the nutrition.
It’s the perfect sandwich bread. And it would be perfect for french toast. I could honestly eat this bread every single day and be happy.
P28 has also created a high protein pancake mix in two flavors – buttermilk buckwheat and white chocolate – that I cannot wait to try now too!
So what from P28 would I recommend you add to your regular grocery list and daily diet? Most definitely the bread, the white chocolate spread and the signature blend spread. Those were my favorites and things I could totally see trading out daily for my regular bread and peanut butter to get more protein!
Where can you find P28? Order online from their website: https://www.p28foods.com/.
Or find locations near you: https://www.p28foods.com/retail-locations.
Locally in Knoxville, Smoothie King and Vitamin Shoppe sells P28 products.
This is a “sponsored post.” We received a free trial pack from P28 Foods to try their products and write a review. As always, all opinions are our own and we aren’t afraid to be honest about products. If we don’t like it, we will tell you. Regardless, this blog only recommends products or services we use personally and believe will be good for our readers.
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