Digestive issues with chocolate flavour

Does anyone else have bad reactions to certain flavours, and if so have you found a workaround?

I bought a batch of chocolate and strawberry plenny shake, and I’m surprised to find that while the strawberry is fine, I can’t drink the chocolate without getting an upset stomach, headache, bad farts, etc. It could be that I’m lactose intolerant, since I get the same thing from milk sometimes. But as far as I can see the only difference in the recipe between chocolate and strawberry is the flavouring (fruit powder vs. cocoa powder) - they both contain the same amount of whey. So this has to be a reaction I’m having to the cocoa powder, right? Does the chocolate flavouring include extra lactose?

Chocolate is my favourite flavour (I find the others waaay too sweet because of the sucralose), so I was considering getting some vegan chocolate instead - but if it’s the cocoa powder causing this rather than the whey then I guess the vegan version won’t be any different! I’m also concerned about the higher use of soy in the vegan version, because I know soy is a common trigger for digestive problems. The way I see it, there are three possible candidates for bad reactions to plenny shake: whey, soy, or sucralose. My issue seems to have raised cocoa powder as another one, but I can’t rule out that it’s actually an intolerance to one of the other ingredients that for some reason is more prominent with chocolate flavour.

Has anyone else had these kind of issues with one of the flavours but not others? Has anything helped, e.g. taking lactase tablets or mixing the offending flavour 50/50 with neutral?

Hi @pb473, sorry to hear about your reaction to our chocolate flavor, and what a bummer that chocolate happens to be your favorite flavor! Have you tried any other flavors besides strawberry and chocolate? Perhaps it could help you to rule some possible distressors? Perhaps you should try the vegan version if you have had problems with lactose in the past, especially since you don’t seem to have a history of digestive problems related to soy? Another solution might be to contact your physician about this problem, maybe he/she can rule out what exactly it is that your body is not reacting well to.

Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!