Something extraordinary happened to me in 1993, something that changed everything.

I don't remember the day or even the month or even the exact circumstances – I only remember receiving a box from a company named NSA in Golden, Colorado.
Inside were two plastic canisters, one labeled MET-Rx "base" and the other MET-Rx "plus." The instructions were to take two scoops of the base and one scoop of the plus and mix them in milk or water.
I took one sip and my palate felt . . . okay. It didn't go into convulsions.
You have to realize that prior to this, protein drinks were in a dismal state. They tasted like soup made from that thing a Sumo wrestler wears around his enormous waist and through his enormous butt cheeks. Furthermore, the price for drinking them (in addition to the horrible taste) was enough gas to float a blimp and often, gastrointestinal cramps.
But this MET-Rx stuff was different! It tasted pretty good. It didn't cause me to become socially repugnant. My gut didn't convulse in the aftermath.
What's more, as the weeks went on, you could actually see something happening to your body that sure as hell didn't happen when you drank other protein drinks! You got harder, stronger, bigger!
It was puzzling. The list of ingredients didn't list anything all that weird except for some mysterious protein blend called Metamyosyn. But hey, why look a gift horse in the mouth or any other orifice, for that matter?
I was hooked. As were about 50,000 other lifters in the country. It was, to that point, the greatest thing that had ever happened to bodybuilding.
But then something changed. Subsequent batches didn't have the same kick and instead of producing it in two containers, they combined the "base" and the "plus" into one. Oh, it tasted the same, but your body knew something was missing.
So the years went by. You started to think that maybe you'd just been imagining the effects. After all, why would any company re-formulate something that had been so effective? Why would any sane company rip the guts out of what had been a miracle?

The Secret: Micellar Casein

I didn't know then but I know now. The secret to the bodybuilding effects of the old MET-Rx was an exotic protein called micellar casein. They stopped including it in the formula because it was scarce and very expensive to produce. Making and preserving micellar protein was like trying to catch a snowflake in Maine and then shipping it intact to Arizona using UPS.
Oh, it was doable all right, but it was incredibly expensive.
But then MET-Rx started to get competition from other companies. Furthermore, they got pressure from consumers to lower the prices, and the prices of the other proteins they used in the formulation starting getting more expensive, too. Lastly, there was self-imposed pressure to get the price point down so they could get the stuff to the mass market through giant retail stores where women could buy baby's diapers and hubby's protein powder at the same place.
So MET-Rx changed from being miraculous to just another protein drink, or more precisely, just another meal-replacement drink.
Some bean counter in a dusty old office who was overly sensitive to whiny customers changed everything. While they continued to list something called Metamyosyn on the label, Metamyosyn no longer contained micellar casein as one of its constituents.
Sure, there are companies today that list micellar casein on the label of their protein products, but they're like those bargain basement K-mart jewelers who put an atom's worth of gold into a bracelet or necklace and charge you a year's pay because it's "gold." In other words, today's "advanced" protein powders don't have enough micellar protein in them to add muscle to a hummingbird.

New Micellar GROW!

Except for one. Biotest's newly formulated Grow! has all the micellar protein of the original legendary MET-Rx and more.
But before we talk about how and why Biotest did it, maybe you need to know why this micellar protein stuff is so cool. After all, you might not have been one of the lucky few who ever got to try the original MET-Rx. Fair enough.
In the simplest words possible, micellar casein is the undenatured form of casein found in raw milk. All of the amino acids are intact, unprocessed and unaltered. They are possibly the most exotic proteins in existence but ironically, they're destroyed when the milk is processed in any conventional way.
If, however, the milk proteins are "handled" in the most careful way possible, shielded from light and heat and mechanical insult, we can preserve the micellar casein. That means that the good properties of casein are magnified, increased exponentially. Micellar casein has antibacterial action; leads to increased nutrient absorption and even increased HDL levels; and it even has immuno-modulatory effects and opioid-like peptides that might ease achy joints and muscles.
Perhaps most importantly, nitrogen retention – the physiological condition that's essential for muscle growth – is amplified by micellar casein. All of that remains intact when it's processed properly.
Given that micellar casein forms a kind of gel in the stomach upon ingestion, it's absorbed slowly and uniformly. That means it's the ideal muscle-building food (if something with these effects can justifiably be called "food"). And for those who ingest protein at bedtime and then wake up in the middle of the night to eat again? Forget it. Micellar casein would render that practice obsolete since studies have shown that postprandial leucine balance remains high up to 7 hours after casein ingestion.
Ingest some at night and put your mind at rest because you'll be insured of 7 or 8 straight hours of growth.
So, given all that, it should come as no surprise to you that Biotest didn't let anything stand in its way as far as finding a way to introduce micellar casein into Grow!
Let me tell you something, if Biotest were selling this stuff on the shelves of health food stores, we wouldn't be able to do it. Why? Because the cost of a single bottle of Grow! would be almost a hundred dollars. I doubt there'd be many buyers, unless their last names are Gates or Trump.
But given that we don't use middlemen and the only place you can get Grow! is direct from Biotest, we're able to sell it at the ridiculously low price of $23.00.
The truth is, we could and probably should charge more for it, but we're kind of sneaky. We figure that if we can take a product like Grow! with it's phenomenal taste, luxurious mouth feel, superb nutrient profile and combine it with humungous amounts of micellar casein and only charge 23 bucks, you'll come to the Biotest store, buy it, and probably buy some other Biotest products at the same time.
Regardless, you're just plain absolutely nuts if you don't at least try Biotest's reformulated Grow!