Is PEScience Protein Clean?

Consumers ask, “Is PEScience protein clean?” because the industry often uses “clean” as a marketing word — not a verified measurement. When you’re tracking protein for performance, “clean” can’t just mean tastes clean or looks premium. It must be proven.

This review answers that question using only verified findings from my PEScience Protein Review — Hidden Gaps in Testing & Amino Data, and the same standards I apply to every product on JKremmerFitness.com.

What Clean Protein Should Mean

Clean isn’t a marketing word here — it’s a standard. A clean protein proves five things:

• Claimed protein per serving
• Little to no heavy metals
• Third-party testing verification for ingredients and protein
• No contradictions in the ingredient list
• Transparent protein disclosure

PEScience shines with safety. The rest depends on how much trust you’re willing to extend.

Protein Transparency & Amino Integrity

This is where PEScience stops looking clean and starts looking cloudy. There is no published amino acid profile anywhere—no full table, no batch data, no way to confirm that the 24 grams of protein listed per scoop are actually 24 grams of complete, biologically useful protein. You’re asked to trust the label without seeing the map.

This isn’t a theory. Under federal regulations, basic nitrogen testing (such as the Kjeldahl method) is explicitly permitted to determine the grams of protein shown on the Nutrition Facts Panel. A 2023 Ninth Circuit decision clarified that, as long as the required percent daily value is shown on the label, brands may rely on nitrogen quantification even if it overstates the nutritional quality. Legally compliant protein math does not guarantee biologically meaningful protein.

There’s also a broader concern worth noting. In March 2025, a class-action lawsuit alleged that PEScience overstated protein quality and %DV in its Select Vegan Plant Protein Powder. This is the first lawsuit for PEScience. Yes, it’s still under litigation. However, concerns about the listed protein don’t meet buyers’ expectations. That doesn’t prove this product is inaccurate, but it does confirm that protein integrity at PEScience is already being challenged in court.

Put all of that together—no amino map, undisclosed leucine dosing, reliance on nitrogen math, and a documented legal dispute over protein accuracy—and PEScience’s “24 grams” becomes a number you cannot verify. You can’t see how much is intact dairy protein vs. free-form amino padding, or how much would hold up under a real amino assay instead of crude nitrogen totals.

If you can’t verify the protein math, you can’t verify the muscle-building value. A clean protein isn’t just low in junk; it’s willing to show you the numbers that prove every gram is real.

Third-Party Testing: What’s Real and What’s Missing

To PEScience’s credit, they publish Certificates of Assurance with ICP-MS heavy-metal screening. The product is made in NSF-audited facilities, and microbial and safety testing appear to be routine.

But the kind of testing athletes care about — Informed Protein, Informed Choice, NSF Certified for Sport — is absent. Those programs verify the integrity of the protein itself, not just that it is clean and free of bacteria.

Facility standards aren’t the same as ingredient truth.

Ingredients & Sweeteners — Built for Flavor, Not Minimalism

PEScience Select is built to drink like a dessert, not to impress the “two-ingredient whey” crowd. You get a casein-heavy milk protein isolate base, whey concentrate, tapioca starch, and guar gum for body, cocoa powder, oils in some flavors, plus a sweetener stack of sucralose and acesulfame potassium. On paper, the list is short and familiar. It looks “clean enough” for most shoppers.

The real issue isn’t that PEScience uses artificial sweeteners. It’s that “Natural & Artificial Flavors” sits prominently on the label, in a protein that already relies on nitrogen-based testing. Under U.S. flavor rules, that single phrase can hide a long roster of compounds, including nitrogen-bearing ingredients that still show up as “protein” when you run a Kjeldahl test. In a brand that refuses to publish a full amino acid profile or disclose its added leucine dose, that flavor umbrella becomes more than a taste decision — it becomes part of the measurement fog.

So from a “no dyes, no oils” perspective, PEScience can pass as reasonably clean. From a protein-integrity perspective, the flavor system is another place where the math can look better on the label than it does in your shaker.

Heavy Metals & Prop 65 Compliance

Here, PEScience performs well. The brand publishes heavy-metal testing results, and those screenings show the product falls under California Proposition 65 enforcement thresholds. There is no Prop 65 warning required or present on the container.

On safety alone, PEScience Select is a clean product.

Sourcing: Vague by Design

“Manufactured in the USA” is confirmed. Where the dairy comes from is not. Customer support notes that they source domestically when possible but provide no certification, country-of-origin documentation, or substantiation for quality claims beyond facility audits.

The whey could be from the U.S., or from anywhere the price is right. When a brand chooses not to specify, the consumer is left guessing.

So, Is PEScience Protein Clean?

Is PEScience protein clean? Not in the way shoppers mean when they ask this question.

I’m an advocate of buying clean protein, with the nutrition panel representing the amount of protein that I’m buying. PEScience, on the other hand, like many supplement companies, is trying to pull a fast one.

With no amino acid profile, undisclosed leucine additions, and nitrogen-based testing that counts all nitrogen ingredients, it’s unclear how much intact protein you’re actually getting with the advertised “24 grams of protein per serving.” If you care about building muscle and recovery from your workouts, look elsewhere.

PEScience has shown that their products are safe. Unfortunately, there’s enough information that protein integrity is at the bottom of the list. Consider this the dividing line:

• For flavor-first casual lifters: Clean enough
• For serious strength or hypertrophy goals: Not clean enough

A protein you can’t verify becomes a protein you overscoop.

PEScience Protein — Straight Answers to Real Questions

Is PEScience Protein Clean? Resources

Actions, T. C. (2025, April 30). PEScience class action says Select Vegan Plant Protein Powder falls short on protein. Top Class Actions. https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/pescience-class-action-says-select-vegan-plant-protein-powder-falls-short-on-protein/

Hayes, M. (2020). Measuring protein content in food: An overview of methods. Foods, 9(10), 1340. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods9101340

Ninth Circuit Issues Decision clarifying protein labeling requirements | News & Events | Clark Hill PLC. (n.d.). https://www.clarkhill.com/news-events/news/ninth-circuit-issues-decision-clarifying-protein-labeling-requirements/