Ghost Whey Protein Review — As Good As the Popular Powders?

We’ve got a lot of protein powders on our shelves, but none of them stand out the way Ghost does. Most protein powders are housed in serious black tubs emblazoned with block letters and terms like “ultra-premium” and “extreme muscle,” but Ghost comes in a cream-colored tub with ghosts, monkeys, and funky, graffiti-like branding scrawled across it.

The brand, which overall is more focused on pre-workouts than protein, hopes to be the world’s first “lifestyle sports nutrition brand” and their website includes music playlists, fitness articles, and short documentaries about the founders. They don’t just sponsor athletes, they sponsor DJs and entrepreneurs.

To sum it up, Ghost is cool, cool in a way that no other self-serious supplement company manages. The branding pops, and we were happy to find that the product itself held up: it delivers a lot of protein per calorie, it digests effectively, and it’s one of the few protein powders that taste great with water.

Editor’s note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. It’s always a good idea to talk to your doctor before beginning a new fitness, nutritional, and/or supplement routine. Individual needs for vitamins and minerals will vary.

Ghost Whey Protein Powder Nutrition Facts

Given this macronutrient breakdown below of a single-scoop serving, Ghost is a good pick for low-carb diets, low-fat diets, and/or low-calorie diets:

• Calories — 130
• Fat — 1.5 grams
• Carbs — Four grams
  • Fiber — One gram
  • Sugar — Two grams
• Protein — 25 grams

Outside of the macros, Ghost also contains 10 percent of your recommended daily intake of calcium and six percent of your iron. If you have a more restrictive diet, you should also know that it has 40 milligrams of cholesterol (13 percent of your recommended daily intake (RDI)) and 160 milligrams of sodium (seven percent of your RDI).

[Related: The Best Whey Protein Powders Reviewed]

Ghost Whey Protein Powder Nutrition Ingredients

Their Ghost Whey website says “most brands…get all crazy and tend to overthink their protein. We wanted to keep Ghost Whey as simple as possible.”

The ingredients list is shorter than some of the other companies. The Whey Protein mix is comprised of whey protein isolate, concentrate, and hydrolyzed whey in that order. Each form of whey has its own benefits — isolate has the most protein, concentrate has more ingredients linked to health benefits (like CLA fats), and hydrolyzed whey absorbs the fastest.

What’s nice is that they also disclose the exact amount of each kind of whey: one scoop has 14.53 grams of isolate, 13.16 grams of concentrate, and 2.98 grams of the hydrolyzed isolate. Note that the isolate and concentrate have been sunflower lecithinated, which should improve mixability without adding any soy.

In the Milk Chocolate flavor, after the protein mix, you’ve got enigmatic “natural and artificial flavors,” followed by cocoa powder, salt, “Ghost Enzymes,” cellulose, and xanthan gums (those are thickeners), and sucralose (also known as Splenda).

[Related: When Is the Best Time to Drink a Protein Shake?]

Ghost Whey Protein Benefits and Effectiveness

The lactose and the thickeners may be tough for some folks to digest, which is why the “Ghost Enzymes” (proteases, bromelain, and lactase) are notable. These should help to digest the protein and minimize gassiness, plus bromelain has been linked to reduced inflammation and soreness after exercise.

The product is soy-free and gluten-free and unlike some protein powders such as Ultimate Nutrition Whey Gold, it’s designed to not spike your insulin. This, in addition to the fact that it’s low in fat and carbs and the fact that it contains three kinds of whey, means it’s a pretty solid “anytime” mix. You can add it to something carb-heavy (like milk or cereal, or milk and cereal) if you want to boost your pre-workout nutrition. If you’re eating at night or during a period of low activity, you can mix it into something with fewer carbs and more fat (like yogurt) or water without worrying about an energy crash.

[Related: What You Need to Know About How to Increase Strength]

It’s pretty low in allergens — there’s no soy, gluten, or corn, and the lactase should help folks who are lactose intolerant (though the truth of that statement depends on how severe your reaction to whey normally is).

If you’re wary of artificial sweeteners, this product does contain sucralose. However, it doesn’t contain any other sweeteners like acesulfame potassium, which is present in a large number of protein powders and tends to be vilified more than sucralos.

Ghost Whey contains more than just whey, but the additives make sense. And while the product isn’t totally natural, it does a decent job of reducing the number of problematic ingredients you find in many other whey powders.

Mixability

The powder mixes and dissolves very well, and that’s particularly impressive given the fact that it’s soy-free. Most of the time, whey will include soy lecithin, an ingredient that improves mixability. Ghost gets its lecithin from sunflower, so they’re able to make a rare, soy-free protein that mixes great.

[Related: The Lifter’s Guide To Magnesium: What This Nutrient Does For Strength]

Ghost Whey Protein Taste

We tried a few different flavors. First of all, the milk chocolate flavor was excellent. Normally it takes a whole lot of artificial ingredients to make a protein powder that tastes great with water, but Ghost tastes fantastic with water. With whole milk, I found it just a little too sweet and creamy, but I think it would work really well with low-fat milk or almond milk.

Then we tried the cereal milk flavor, which is intended to taste like the milk that’s leftover from a bowl of children’s cereal like Cap’n Crunch®. That’s pretty much what it tastes like; some say that it’s like a vanilla flavor, but there’s definitely a sweet, corn-like flavor too, like you’d taste in Corn Pops®.

Finally, we tried the blueberry toaster pastry flavor. Personally, I find that blueberry-flavored protein powder can be pretty hit or miss but Ghost’s protein was actually pretty good. It didn’t make me think I was drinking actual blueberries, but it was pretty close.

And then there are the pastry pieces. It’s actually got crunchy chunks of pastry throughout the whey, even though it only has one more gram of carbs and half a gram more of fat compared to the chocolate flavor. It’s great, but don’t chug it — those pastry pieces won’t feel great flying down your gullet.

[Related: Why Protein Isn’t Created Equal (And How to Find the Best Sources for Your Needs)]

Ghost Whey Protein Price

Ghost Whey is currently only sold in two-pound tubs, which delivers 26 servings for $40. That comes out to $1.53 per serving or 6.15 cents per gram of protein.

That’s pretty pricy; most protein powders are between four and five cents per gram of protein. Compare Ghost with two pounds of Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard at $1.03 cents per serving (4.31 cents per gram of protein), BPI Sports Whey HD ($1.04 per serving or 4.16 cents per gram of protein), 2 pounds of Cellucor Cor Performance Whey ($1.15 per serving (4.61 cents per gram), and two pounds of Pro Jym ($1.27 per serving or 5.29 cents per gram). Hopefully, Ghost will come out with a larger sized tub so that they can charge a little less per serving.

The Takeaway

Ghost has pulled off the rare feat of producing a whey powder that’s low in carbs, low in fat, low in artificial ingredients, free of soy and gluten, and tastes amazing with water. The biggest downside is the price and you may take issue with the inclusion of sucralose as well. But if money is no object and you can handle a little Splenda, this protein powder can happily fit into just about any diet.