Vivo Life Ritual Protein Powder Review: Worth It?

Vivo Life Ritual is a clean, affordable vegan protein powder that packs 20g of plant protein per scoop. After a couple of weeks of daily use, we think it's one of the best-value plant proteins you can buy. Vivo Life currently make two protein powders: the Vivo Life Perform and the Ritual reviewed here.

Ritual is often seen as the baby brother of the higher-protein, BCAA-rich Perform. But despite the lower protein content per scoop, we firmly believe Ritual stands on its own two feet for anyone after a well-balanced vegan protein powder, and for most people it may actually be the smarter buy. Here's why.

Vivo Life Ritual review

We bought ourselves a 1kg bag of Vivo Life Ritual (chocolate flavour) and used it regularly for a couple of weeks to give a full and unbiased review.

Ritual contains 20g of plant-based protein per scoop, with no added sugar, and is completely gluten-free. The protein itself is a blend of three vegan sources: yellow pea protein, hemp protein and quinoa protein.

It's a very well-balanced, straight-to-the-point vegan protein powder. There are no additional BCAAs and no extra ingredients like the turmeric you'll find in its bigger brother, Vivo Life Perform. So you might be wondering why buy this when you could just buy the "better" product.

The reason, we believe, is price. Although prices always vary, you typically find Ritual around 25% cheaper than its Perform counterpart. Spread across a year of consistent use, that adds up to a significant saving.

And while the additional BCAAs in Perform may benefit a lot of people, we'd argue they're not so important for the wider public. Most people simply want to supplement their protein intake with the best available vegan protein powder, and that's exactly what Ritual does.

Main features

• 20g of plant protein in every scoop, from pea, hemp and quinoa proteins
• A complete amino acid profile
• Created and manufactured without pesticides, herbicides or fungicides
• Three flavours to choose from: chocolate (our favourite), vanilla and natural
• Third-party tested for traces of heavy metals (one of the only brands actively doing this with vegan protein powders)
• Gluten-free

Ingredients and nutrition

The nutritional values vary slightly between flavours. We tested the chocolate flavour, so if you're opting for a different one, check the Vivo Life website for accurate figures.

A scoop of the chocolate flavour gives you a 32g serving of a well-balanced, high-protein supplement. Each scoop has just 120kcal, with macros of 1.9g fat, 4.5g carbohydrates and 20g protein. Pretty good numbers for a vegan protein powder.

In terms of ingredients, Ritual is made up of just eight. The three primary ingredients are the proteins in the blend (fermented yellow pea protein, cold-pressed hemp protein and quinoa protein), followed by natural flavouring, konjac fibre, pink Himalayan salt, stevia extract and cocoa powder. Super simple, clean and natural.

Taste and mixability

Once again, Vivo Life have knocked it out of the park with the taste.

Mixed with water, the chocolate Ritual blends well with little to no lumps. There's none of the gritty taste that comes with some vegan protein powders, and water alone creates an excellent shake.

Mixing with plant-based milk yields similar results, with an obvious shift to a creamier texture. We opted for oat milk, which added a fairly overwhelming oaty flavour, but that's down to the milk, so we're not knocking points off for it.

Our preference is definitely water, so give it a go even if you're usually a plant-milk person.

How effective is Vivo Life Ritual?

We said at the start of this review that Ritual stands up in its own right against its bigger brother, and it does. It's a great-tasting, nutritionally balanced vegan protein powder. The no-nonsense ingredients are a big thumbs up from our team, with the high protein content and quality ingredients being the real selling points.