For goodness shakes are just milk. Look at the nutritional content and it looks very similar, if not identical to normal flavoured milk – similar calorific value, similar amount of fat and carbs, similar levels of vitamins and minerals. I struggle to see what it has over milk. If it looks like milk, smells like milk, tastes like milk, it probably is milk. The marketing shpeel used to talk about how milk has been found to be the best recovery drink you can have, so For Goodness Shakes is milk with added oomph.
This industry is just full of so much BS it is hard to cut through it all and find the truth. Experts disagree and will point to studies that support their claims, so we have no chance of finding out the truth.
But why is everybody in such a hurry to recover? Recovery is a natural process your body does. If you’re an athlete and are getting off the bike at the end of a hard mornings ride and, after a few hours break are going to hit the gym for the afternoon or go and run a half marathon, then fair enough, but if you’ve just got off your bike after your sunday club ride and are not doing anything else for the rest of the day and probably for a couple more days then why the rush to recover? It makes no difference if you recover in 1 day or 3 days unless you’re doing some other form of very strenuous exercise.