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Green Superfood Powder: Worth It? (+ How to Find a Good One)

January 9, 2019 by Katie Wells
How to choose a good greens powder
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • What Is a Green Superfood Powder?
  • Why Greens Supplement?+−
    • Depleted Soil with Less Minerals and Good Bacteria
    • Reduced Food Diversity and Wild Varieties
    • Reduced Nutrient Density in Vegetables
    • Modern Lifestyle Depletes Vitamins and Minerals
  • Greens Powder vs. Vitamins
  • Harmful Ingredients in Some Green Powders+−
    • Hidden Sweeteners, Gums, and Artificial Colors
    • Harsh Processing
  • Types of Greens & Their Benefits+−
    • Marine Sources
    • Moringa Leaf
    • Grasses (Alfalfa, Wheat, Barley)
    • Fermented Greens (Like Kale)
    • Green Superfood Powder Blends
  • Green Superfood Powder Facts and Myths+−
    • They Can Replace Multivitamins (Myth)
    • It Can Make the Body More Alkaline (Fact and Myth)
    • Good Source of Micronutrients (Fact)
    • High in Antioxidants and ORAC Score (Fact-ish)
  • The Green Superfood Powders I Use

You can’t out-supplement a poor diet (or poor sleep or high stress either). But even with a perfect diet and great sleep, it is still possible to experience nutrient deficiencies because modern foods can be deficient in certain essential nutrients. To ensure we get enough, I make homemade herbal teas (packed with micronutrients) and rotate various green superfood powders.

What Is a Green Superfood Powder?

In short, a green superfood powder contain many servings of vegetables and superfoods in a scoop of water-soluble powder. In addition to veggies and superfoods, the powder may also contain other health-supporting ingredients like probiotics and immune-supporting herbs.

Why Greens Supplement?

An ancestral and whole-foods diet may be a significant step up from the Standard American Diet that has a lot of grains, vegetable oil, and processed ingredients. However, there are many reasons even the seemingly healthy diet alone might still not provide enough micronutrients and antioxidants.

Depleted Soil with Less Minerals and Good Bacteria

Over the last 100 years, industrial farming has depleted the most nutritious topsoil from important minerals and beneficial soil bacteria that would grow the healthiest foods. As a result, the vegetables in our food supplies also have less mineral density. The reduction of minerals in our foods, as well as the fertilizers and pesticides, may be a contributor to diseases of civilization.

Reduced Food Diversity and Wild Varieties

On Chris Kresser’s podcast, Dr. Thomas Cowan, MD said that healthy hunter-gatherer humans ate a much wider variety of vegetables than we do today — up to 20 species per day and 100 species throughout the year! The supermarket vegetables we normally eat have been bred to have more uniform shapes and sizes, with higher sugar content and less bitterness, which also means less micronutrients and phytonutrients than the wild vegetables.

Think about it — is your family consuming 20 different types of vegetables (or herbs) per day? Our family usually hits that mark, but only through using herbal and adaptogenic teas and green powders.

Reduced Nutrient Density in Vegetables

Grocery store veggies may have been harvested weeks before and traveled thousands of miles to reach your table. This means that they don’t have the nutrient density of a freshly harvested vegetable at the peak of its growth.

Modern Lifestyle Depletes Vitamins and Minerals

The modern lifestyle, with chronic stressors and pollutions all around us, increases our needs for micronutrients. We need more B vitamins and magnesium to deal with stress. We also need more B vitamins, selenium, and antioxidants to remove the chemicals that we are exposed to.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the world leading nutrition researcher Dr. Bruce Ames wrote that low micronutrient status can lead to metabolic disruption, mitochondrial decay, cellular aging, and increased DNA mutation. These can lead to fatigue, hormone imbalances, poor immune function, weight gain, and increased risks of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

Therefore, supplementation with a multivitamin and mineral is a recommended as a cost-effective way to prevent nutrient deficiencies.

Greens Powder vs. Vitamins

As a general rule, it is better to get micronutrients from whole foods than from synthetic or isolated vitamins unless there is an underlying issue or if working with a doctor.

First, nutrients that are present together in whole food sources often work in synergy. Vitamin C and bioflavonoids in fruits or vitamins A and D in egg yolks, cod liver oil, and butter work together for better absorption. Second, micronutrients in whole foods are generally more bioavailable than the synthetic forms. Third, there are still important nutrients and phytochemicals in plants that we have yet to discover.

Because a greens supplement provides vitamins from nutrient-dense whole food sources, it is a great way to ensure that you get sufficient amounts of micronutrients and antioxidants. The soil may be depleted from minerals, but the sea is not. Therefore, you want to get a greens supplement that includes some marine sources of nutrients.

Most vitamins, especially B vitamins, are stimulants. Many people find B vitamins so stimulating that it causes heart palpitations and anxiety. Whereas, vitamins from whole food sources, with the natural nutrient forms and synergies, are less likely to cause this problem. You may have eaten foods high in B vitamins like vegetables or liver without the heart palpitations. Since it’s also a whole food, greens powder can help with fatigue and hormone balance without the excess stimulation.

Harmful Ingredients in Some Green Powders

There are a LOT of greens powders out there, but not all are created equal. In general, there are some important things to watch out for when choosing a powder.

Hidden Sweeteners, Gums, and Artificial Colors

Vegetables, especially the more nutrient-dense ones, are good for you. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make vegetables taste good, especially when you try to condense as many as 12 servings of vegetable into a single scoop.

In order to make the green powders taste palatable, many manufacturers use potentially harmful ingredients, such as:

  • artificial sweeteners
  • sugar
  • emulsifiers or thickeners to maintain texture for mouthfeel
  • artificial colors
  • non-organic or GMO ingredients

Watch out for these and avoid powders (or anything) that contains them.

Harsh Processing

Creating a greens superfood powder is technologically difficult because many vitamins and phytochemicals are very sensitive to heat, light, and certain forms of chemical processing. The vegetables in the greens powder have to be gently freeze-dried into water-soluble powders in order to preserve the nutrients. Whereas, in order to make use of single-celled algae, the manufacturer may need to harshly crack the cell walls of these algae to make nutrients inside the cells available.

Therefore, you want to make sure that you purchase the greens powder from a reputable company that understands the biology of the superfoods they include in their products and confirm the presence of intact nutrients in the final products. (See the ones I’ve tested and like below.)

Types of Greens & Their Benefits

Not all greens are created equal either! The best greens powder for you will depend on what you are looking for in your greens. Many are a good source of micronutrients, but there is a lot of difference in the type and what they do in the body. These all get lumped in as a “green superfood powder” though they have some key differences:

Marine Sources

Marine (water based) sources of greens include spirulina and chlorella. (And phytoplankton, though that is a different type and is not powdered). These types of green powders are very nutrient dense and often used supplementally for their benefits.

Spirulina, for instance, contains amino acids, calcium, potassium, b-vitamins, and iron. Chlorella is a great source of protein, magnesium, B-vitamins and zinc.

Marine powders are available on their own, but they don’t taste great. I prefer them in combination powders like this Aquatic Greens Blend or in Energy Bits (small caplets of chlorella and spirulina that can be taken as a snack or to boost nutrients).

Moringa Leaf

Moringa has an excellent nutrient profile and it is often added to greens powders for this reason. It can be consumed alone or in tea form, but I prefer to mix it into green drinks.

Grasses (Alfalfa, Wheat, Barley)

The traditional “green powders” are what most people think when they think of greens. Alfalfa, wheatgrass, and barley grass contain dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, iron, zinc, copper, manganese and selenium. Alfalfa is rich in vitamin K, zinc, copper, magnesium and vitamin C.

Worried about gluten? I asked world-renowned expert on gluten sensitivity, Dr. Tom O’Bryan, if wheatgrass contains gluten and is a concern. He explained that in the first 11 days of growth, it does not and is considered safe. He even consumes wheatgrass if he can verify it is less than 11 days old. (At 11 days, the plant starts to get the traditional proteins found in wheat and is problematic.)

Most green powders do not list the age of the wheatgrass, so those with celiac disease or gluten intolerance should probably err on the side of caution and avoid. This without severe issues who avoid refined grains will likely do fine with wheat grass powders.

I’ve tried and liked this three grass blend.

Fermented Greens (Like Kale)

These greens are newer to the market in powdered form and I’m enjoying them. Of course, people have been fermenting vegetables for ages, but the powdered form provides a unique benefit of being shelf stable, easy to travel with, and more nutrient dense than traditional greens. Just like fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, these have a higher nutrient availability and increased probiotics. I’ve been using fermented kale and while it has a strong taste, I really like it.

Green Superfood Powder Blends

These are my favorite because they pack the nutritional punch of some or all of the above greens. They also contain a wider variety of micronutrients so they provide a bigger nutritional punch in a single serving. Blends include powders like Organic Greens Superfood Blend and Organic Traditions Superfood Greens with Turmeric in the list below.

Green Superfood Powder Facts and Myths

It’s easy to get excited and want to start drinking all the green powders, but first, we must understand some of the facts and myths surrounding superfood green powders.

They Can Replace Multivitamins (Myth)

Greens are very nutrient dense but they don’t contain a complete array of vitamins and minerals. Supplementing with only greens or eating too high of a concentration can actually lead to imbalances of other nutrients. Since most of us aren’t getting enough greens to begin with, they’re a good thing to add, but they don’t replace a healthy diet or a well-rounded multi.

It Can Make the Body More Alkaline (Fact and Myth)

The theory goes that our body wants to be more alkaline but foods like meat and dairy are acidic and make us acidic. Therefore, proponents of this theory suggest eating foods that are alkaline in nature, especially veggies and greens to alkalize the body.

I don’t buy into this theory and Chris Kresser has an in-depth post that explains the scientific flaws in this theory if you’re interested. The basic explanation is this — foods can change urine pH, and vegetables and greens do make the urine more alkaline. They don’t seem to change the blood pH and the body naturally maintains a blood pH of around 7.4 unless there is a serious medical issue.

Bottom line: vegetables and greens are beneficial for many reasons and we should all be consuming them, but not to alkalize our blood.

Good Source of Micronutrients (Fact)

Greens are a great source of a variety of nutrients and micronutrients. Since many of us aren’t getting enough of these, greens powders can be a good way to get small amounts of a variety of nutrients in a single serving.

High in Antioxidants and ORAC Score (Fact-ish)

Greens do naturally contain a lot of antioxidants and have a high ORAC score. But the ORAC score should not be part of our purchasing decision. The USDA recently removed ORAC score as a metric in its database after recent research found that it isn’t as relevant as once thought and was mostly used in shady marketing.

The Green Superfood Powders I Use

I’ve experimented with dozens of these over the years and currently have and rotate:

  • Organifi Green Juice (with chlorella, spirulina, beets, turmeric, and more… use code wellnessmama for 15% off)
  • Organic Greens Superfood Blend
  • Probiotic Super Greens with Turmeric
  • Energy Bits Caplets (spirulina and/or chlorella in an easy-to-take form… use the code wellnessmama for 20% off)
  • Perfect Supplements 3-Grass Blend (oat, wheat, and barley grasses)
  • Perfect Supplements Fermented Kale (only high quality fermented one I’ve found)

NOTE: If you want to try any of the Perfect Supplements, use the code wellnessmama10 to save 10%. You also get discounts of 25-30% for buying more than one supplement (you can mix and match) and you can stack the discount. Here’s the link to grab the discount.

What’s your experience with green superfood powder supplements? Please share in the comments!

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Category: Natural Remedies

About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder and CEO of Wellness Mama and Co-Founder of Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a wife and mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

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Reader Interactions

Discussion (85 Comments)

  1. Leslie

    January 7, 2018 at 10:59 AM

    Thank you for this useful and detailed article!
    I collect and dry dandelion leaves I let grow in my garden, all summer long and powder them up. I also use them fresh in my green smoothies. Same with plantain and the French Sorrel I always have in my herb garden. Kale, collard greens, watercress (which I planted once and now it grows everywhere, even in the lawn! I know it is good for you so I let it!) broccoli and cauliflower leaves all get used when I have them as well
    Otherwise I try to stick to the human food chain and so avoid algeas when I am shopping for green powders.

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:10 AM

      Wow! I want to come live at your house… that sounds amazing!

      Reply
  2. Mary

    January 7, 2018 at 10:47 AM

    Medical Medium opposes to what you just explained as he is all abt Hawaiian Spirulina. He is very interesting. He is not a fan of high fat diets due to the liver issues. What’s your take? Mary

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:13 AM

      Hawaiian Spirulina is great, but it isn’t the only green powder that an be beneficial. I think the amount of fat consumed if a largely personal issue that seems to vary based on genes, gut health, enzyme production and a lot of other factors. In general, some fats, like vegetable oils and margarine are definitely harmful and should be avoided in any amount, but the body needs some fat in order to make hormones and for a variety of other important reactions.

      Reply
  3. Catherine Ross

    January 7, 2018 at 10:46 AM

    I have been using Dr. Berg’s Raw Wheatgrass Powder. It is listed as organic and raw. It has a tiny amount of lemon and natural sweetener. It comes with a plastic shaker glass, which is nice because you don’t have much to clean up after. My naturalpath also told me I needed to eat gelatin for my joints, so I am mixing the wheatgrass powder and the gelatin (which is hard to take on its own) together. 1 teaspoon of each in a bit of water each morning. What do you think of Dr. Berg’s products.

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:14 AM

      I’ve never tried them personally but know that he has a good reputation and his products do as well.

      Reply
  4. anne

    January 7, 2018 at 10:34 AM

    I have had an excellent experience with paradise greens. I was feeling pretty tired and I’m always on the search for things to cut down inflammation to address some health issues. I felt a difference in energy in a couple days of going on this product. I would be curious to hear what you think of this product.

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:16 AM

      I don’t have any personal experience with them. The products look pretty good and if you feel great on them, that is probably the best metric. My only concern is that they seem to focus a lot on ORAC score in their marketing and that is not a useful metric.

      Reply
      • Jamie

        March 22, 2020 at 10:46 PM

        Do you have to worry about heavy metals in greens?

        Reply
  5. June

    January 7, 2018 at 10:30 AM

    I’ve been reading your blog for many years and I always felt you had really done your homework and I could trust your information But!

    You have really improved and stepped up your blog! I love it. I’ve always followed Christa Orecchio and was glad to see you team up with her. Plus even though I don’t read every word you write (time) but its always something I’m interested in for our health.

    Also, I trust the brand’s you choose, I am an intense label reader but I don’t always know what something is, but U DO!

    So thank you for all you DO! God bless you!

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:17 AM

      Thank you so much for the kind words and thanks for being part of this community over the years! <3

      Reply
  6. Cathy

    January 7, 2018 at 9:23 AM

    Hi Katie! Do you find that super greens help with detoxing, especially as it relates to MTHFR? My 6-year-old daughter has the MTHFR gene mutation and catches colds a lot despite a healthy diet, so we’re looking for a safe option to get more nutrients into her, to boost her immunity and help with detoxification. We already do Epsom salt baths. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:23 AM

      They can. It really seems to vary from individual to individual based on a lot of factors, but in general, I’ve seen positive results from greens powders (I also have MTHFR mutations). Since many with those mutations have trouble getting enough folate, leafy greens are a good natural source.

      Reply
  7. Mary

    January 7, 2018 at 9:07 AM

    Have you ever tried any powdered super-greens-foods-available through mass market? I have passed on them myself, as I use Amazing Grass products. It all just starts costing too much, for so many of us.

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:24 AM

      I haven’t tried those, so I’m not sure about their quality.

      Reply
  8. BRIDGET

    January 7, 2018 at 8:14 AM

    When I hit the link for the superfood powders you use nothing comes up. Are these specific blends that I can buy?

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:29 AM

      Which link are you trying to click on? I just checked and they all seem to be working for me?

      Reply
  9. ANA MARIA CAPUTO

    January 7, 2018 at 8:08 AM

    Hi Kate! Happy New Year and thank you for this very informative post! You hit all the key points and frequently asked thoughts about supergreens! Do you have recipes on how to incorporate these into smoothies? Also, How do you feel about the brand Amazing Grass?
    Thanks,
    AMC

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:32 AM

      I haven’t tried Amazing Grass, but their ingredients look good. I like to either drink greens in just water (and get it over with) 😉 or mix into a smoothie with almond milk and berries.

      Reply
  10. Marg

    January 6, 2018 at 11:44 AM

    Can these be taken during pregnancy, Katie?

    Reply
    • Katie - Wellness Mama

      January 7, 2018 at 11:59 AM

      Most can, but I’d check with a doc or midwife to be sure before taking anything new.

      Reply
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