Are Green Juices Worth Your Money?
My review of the most well known, Athletic Greens
If you’re interested in health and performance, or you’ve listened to podcasts in that space, you’ve probably heard about Athletic Greens (now known as AG1). The company claims that their drink, with a mix of 75 different ingredients, does the following:
- Promotes gut health
- Supports immunity
- Boosts energy
- Helps recovery
- Covers all your nutritional bases
I’ve always been sceptical of such claims and especially of such products in general. However, given that I still seem to be recovering from a heart procedure 8 months ago and I have an adventure race coming up, I thought, why not give it a shot for a month? It might give me a bit of a boost. Even though it’s expensive, I’ll know either way if I just try it once.
The great thing for me when trying these things is I still live a very structured life even though I’m not competing anymore. I have the same routine, eat the same foods, have the same sleep time etc, day to day, week to week. Generally when I add in something new, I know whether it’s effective because I’ll feel it in my energy levels and training sessions.
So any new effect that’s a result of taking this is going to be pretty apparent.
The taste
It’s fine. The best word I could use is “unobjectionable,” but that comes with a big caveat — I eat very few hyper-palatable foods, so I’m used to eating vegetables. If you’re a fast food or sweets junkie and you try to drink this stuff, you’ll hate it. You know the smell of freshly cut grass clippings? Yeah, that’s the taste basically. It does have a tiny hint of sweetness that makes it palatable, but it certainly isn’t anything approaching enjoyable.
As a side note, god I hate those influencers on the ‘gram who act like green drinks taste great. Give me a break, they all taste like swamp water.
The convenience
You have to refrigerate it, which limits portability, but that’s fine if you’re just drinking it at home every day first thing which is what you’re supposed to do. I do love the bottle they include with it — it’s simple, has clear measurements on the side and makes it easy to put the right amount of water in. Add the powder, shake a few times and you’re good to go.
After you’re done, rinse out the bottle, throw it in the fridge next to the pouch and that’s all she wrote. It’s about as convenient and simple as it gets.
The price
Make no mistake, this stuff is expensive AF. At $100 in Australia for a month’s worth, that is super-premium pricing for any supplement. If you’re going to be spending that kind of cash, you want a supplement that adds something that you’re not getting anywhere else. You want to know you’re getting value for your money and that it’s not some gimmick.
After all, for less than that price per month, I buy magnesium, zinc, fish oil, and collagen powder, all of which give me very clear benefits in my performance and feeling of well-being every day. So if you’re charging me more than that for one supplement, it better be really freaking good.
So, is it worth the price?
Here’s where we get to the crux: I absolutely don’t think it’s worth the price. After weeks of use I’ve noticed absolutely no difference in my feelings of well-being, in my energy levels, in anything whatsoever. Even if you think of it in terms of “filling in nutritional gaps” the question is, what gaps?
If you’re like me and getting 5+ serves of fruit and veggies every day, you’re already eating better than every human in the history of this planet. There aren’t any gaps at that point that you need to fill, and in this case it certainly seems more is not better.
Some of their claims are straight-up bullshit
I’m not saying or even implying the company is lying, I’m talking about two very specific things in their ingredient listing:
Look at that top line there: “alkaline.”
For Christ's sake, how are we still here? The idea of acid and alkaline foods was a hypothesis that never panned out over a hundred years ago. Go check out PubMed — they’ve actually disproven it entirely. The fact that it suggests you eat more vegetables, I suspect, is what keeps this whole thing around, but the science behind it isn’t there.
I suspect in this case that it’s a marketing tactic to get idiots that believe in it to buy the product in which case, have at it I guess. If you continue to believe something that’s been scientifically debunked, then I have no care when people talk you into parting with your cash.
Notice also that it’s a “complex” where they tell you the overall weight of it, but not the specific amounts of each ingredient?
Yep, that’s just like the bodybuilding supplement term “proprietary blend,” which means they don’t have to tell you what’s in it. What you see there could be 99% of the first ingredient and 1% made up of all the others, but there’s no way of knowing.
That’s actually really important: when I buy magnesium, for example, it states exactly how much of it is in there and what type it is, because you have to know the dosage. In the case of AG1 or any green drink, you don’t know whether you’re getting effective amounts of anything, or if you’re just getting a bunch of stuff blended together.
You might actually be better off blending your own green drink, because at least then you’d know exactly what’s in it.
The bottom line
Seriously, just eat more vegetables. Stop trying to take shortcuts. If you’re getting 5 serves a day combining leafy green/cruciferous vegetables and some fruit, then you’re not going to notice any benefits from taking a green supplement. I train 5 days a week and haven’t noticed anything, which says to me that when you get to a certain point, more is not better.
On the other hand if you want to play into a marketing gimmick and part with some serious cash, who am I to stop you?
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