Protein supplements offer a quick way to ramp up the amount of protein we get. You can choose between three kinds of protein: Free form, whey and soy. Each comes in supplement form, whether pill, powder or liquid. Whey and soy protein also come in the form of protein shakes.

In all of them, we’re talking about getting protein in the form of essential amino acids. ‘Essential’ means it’s essential that we get them as part of our diet because our bodies can’t synthesize them on its own.

So let’s talk about which is best.

If you choose soy, I will personally come and snatch your face off. For crying out loud! First off, soy is a filthy, insecticide-laden crop. It suppresses thyroid function. It makes a mess out of estrogen, throwing everybody–man, woman and child–into endocrine chaos. It makes it impossible for you to absorb the minerals you need. And it causes kidney stones. Offhand, I’d say soy is a bad choice.

Whey, on the other hand, offers protein without all of soy’s baggage. It comes from cheese processing. Remember little Miss Muffett eating her curds and whey? That’s what you get when you make cheese.

Whey comes in two forms: Concentrate and isolate. Advocates of either won’t listen to anything from advocates of the other. So we’ll talk amongst ourselves.

Concentrated whey retains a little fat, which is a good thing. Some people cower in fear at the very thought of a smidgeon of saturated fat, but as a matter of researched fact, we need it.

People with a dairy allergy can have a problem with whey concentrate. To minimize this, look at the percentage of protein in the whey. The more protein, the less problem with dairy allergies.

Whey isolate has no fat and no dairy allergy problems, but you have to get a quality product. Avoid isolates made by ion exchange; the acid-based process damages the protein molecules, and they won’t do much of a job.

Other isolates come from a filtration process. The quality of the process determines the quality of the whey.

I come down on the side of whey concentrate. I prefer less processing, which tends to do dastardly things to good nutrition, and isolates require a lot of processing. I also like the fact whey concentrate still has a little fat in it; our bodies don’t absorb nutrition without fat, so having it as part of the product sounds good to me. While dairy isn’t my friend, high protein levels seem to fix the problem.

Finally, the Rolls Royce of protein, free form amino acids, the ultimate in purity and potency. Free form amino acids come only as supplements, not shakes.

Starting with an amino acid combination makes sense. Country Life makes Max-Amino Caps. Vitabase offers MaxAmino 1200. And there are others. These products provide a balance of all the essential amino acids. Take a couple a day, an hour away from food. (Proteins in food can interfere with what aminos do.)

Get educated about individual amino acids before you head in that direction. That’s a lot of power to misuse. Proceed only with knowledge.

Some companies make amino acid supplements from soy. Read labels very carefully.

Amino acids or not, don’t abandon meat, fish and poultry. Besides protein, we need the many other nutrients they contain. Supplements can only supplement our diet, not replace it.

Bette Dowdell is not a doctor, nor does she purport to be one. She’s a patient who’s spent the past 30+ years studying, with great success, how to get out of the endocrine ditch. Now she’s out, doing great and wanting to share what she learned. Get a free, sample chapter of her new e-book, Pep for the Pooped: Vitamins and Minerals Your Body Is Starving For at http://PepForThePooped.com. If you’re dragging your patooty, but the doctor says you’re just fine, this is the place to get some answers.