The goal when making this recipe was to be able to source the main ingredients locally while not necessarily knowing Chinese or having a Costco membership. If you do have a Costco membership, it might be more convenient for you to get the products from Ryan's recipe.

Remember that all the substitutions discussed below will require a recalibration of macro and/or micronutrients, so be sure not to use the products interchangeably in the same quantities, but always personally adjust the recipe if you change the specific ingredients listed above.

• Micronutrients:

  • I've assumed and/or tried to approximate the micronutrients values from the USDA generic whey protein entry, the USDA unenriched quick oats entry, and the USDA flax seeds entry for all vitamins and minerals I had no data for. As you can see, I've taken the data for unenriched oats, as they seem to be so; however, if they were enriched (as the US version is), we'd be going over the maximum recommended daily amounts of Vitamin A, Calcium, and Iron.

  • The vitamins and minerals are sourced from iHerb, which does a $4 dollars airmail delivery (1-3 weeks, and with weight limit, so you might have to make two orders), or +$15 urgent delivery. Sourcing these internationally was not a problem for me, while shipping the protein/oats can be quite a hassle. However, you shouldn't have much problem getting all the pills you need from iHerb for about a year in just one order. If you must source these locally, you'll need to go to Costco and get the ones from Ryan's recipe, which I wouldn't recommend when taking into account the low micronutrient bioavailability on the multivitamins.

• Protein: You can buy it at reasonable prices either at Power House Nutrition (it's on the 11th floor of the n.177; not the 3rd, but the 11th floor; Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT) or at Miracle Growth International (it's here, near Xiaonanmen or Ximen MRTs). At Power House you can get the one on this recipe (Ultimate Nutrition Prostar 100% Whey Protein, 5 Lbs) for 2000NTD, or Arnold Iron Whey, 5 Lbs for 1700NTD. At Miracle Growth you can get 5 lbs of Challenger Nutrition Whey Protein for 1988NTD or 10 lbs for 3700NTD. Because the one in this recipe has a higher protein percentage, it ends up being the cheapest - the other options are valid too, but you should increase the amount of protein powder in the recipe and reduce carbs for a similar ratio. I personally ended up doing a twice per month urgent delivery (so the value didn't go over the minimum taxable on imports) of this Soy Protein (the overall cost is still quite reasonable, and the order was here within the week); if you do the same, adjust macros and remember to add some Calcium supplement.

• Fats: So the idea here was to keep it a powder. To do so, we're using Flaxseed meal, available at any Pxmart (you're looking for something like this). The problem with this is that it has a lot of fiber in it, which coupled with the fiber in Oats amounts to quite a lot, and could induce gas problems. So we're using as little as we can to achieve some minimum amount of fats and, at the same time, introducing a second source of carbs besides oats (the "Rice and Carbs powder") that will also reduce the amount of fiber coming from that other front. Alternatively, if you still feel fiber is too high or want to increment the amount of fats in the recipe, you could reduce Oats and increment "Rice & Carbs powder" (would not advise), or just use some oil, like Canola (you can buy it at the same place), and ditch the "Rice & Carbs powder" altogether.

• Carbs:

  • The "Rice & Carbs powder" has received that name because it's all in Chinese and I honestly don't know it's real one, or what's in there, besides rice and sugar (28g of sugar in 100g of product, which puts the recipe on under 25g per day, so not a problem). It's a powder they make into some soup/beverage. It looks like this and sells at Pxmart for 69NTD. Between the sugar here and the sweeteners on the protein, you won't need to further sweeten the recipe, though if you still want to while avoiding adding more sugar, there's also aspartame at Pxmart (which I would avoid). Otherwise, NuNaturals Pure White Stevia Extract and NoCarbs Blend are pretty good, but since you're going to order online, pure sucralose would probably be more cost-effective.

  • Oats: There are two "Quaker Instant Whole Oats", orange label and blue label, both selling for 119NTD at Pxmart and with the exact same nutritional values. The only difference seems to be that the blue label one is "100% Natural" (whatever that is) AND it contains 800g of product, compared to the 700 of the orange. So blue it is.