When looking for the right greens supplement, there are a few metrics that most people use to find their fit. Taste is important because no matter how good it is for you, those nutrients don’t matter if it tastes too bad for you to take the supplement on daily basis. Price is of course a major factor because as something that you have to take every day, the costs can add up pretty quickly if too high.

But before you even take the time to look at the price tag or consider the taste, there is one metric that should always come first when seeking a new greens supplement: does it include the ingredients that you need? Today we are going to go through the popular greens supplement Beyond Greens. We will go through the supplement itself and break down all of the various factors, and then see if there are any other greens supplements on the market that provide the same - or more - benefits at the same price point.

What is Beyond Greens?

Beyond Greens is a greens supplement that is produced by the company Live Conscious, which was formerly known as Live Well. While we don’t know why the company changed its name, we do know a lot about the company itself, the other supplements that it has on the market, and what the company stands for.

In both the Live Well and Live Conscious iterations of the company, this brand is known for producing supplements that contain ultra-healthy ingredients. To make their products a little more special for those of us seeking to live a healthier lifestyle, they also tend to use ancient ingredients and superfoods that aren’t typically found in your run-of-the-mill supplements. 

The company is also very focused on all-natural, organic, and non-GMO ingredients, which is great if you want to be sure that there are no harmful preservatives or chemicals included in your greens supplements. The website is also full of consciousness and spirituality-focused educational materials, which can be pretty cool to peruse if you are interested in elevating your mind and spirit along with your bodily health.

But while Beyond Greens does check a lot of the right boxes - as does the Live Conscious company itself - there are some issues that we found which mean Beyond Greens may or may not be the right greens supplement for your daily dose of nutrition. We will go over those issues and questions that you should ask yourself below.

Is Beyond Greens Good for Me?

If the question is whether Beyond Greens is good for you, the answer is most certainly yes. If the question is whether there is anything in Beyond Greens that is bad for you, the answer is a resounding no. The issue that may lie in Beyond Greens isn’t one of whether or not it is healthy, but rather one of how healthy it is.

As we stated above, Beyond Greens checks a lot of the right boxes in terms of its ingredients list. We will go through that list, and what those ingredients provide for your health below. The issue that some may have with Beyond Greens is in the serving size and the total amount of nutrition that it provides.

We say that this is a question because the types of ingredients included in Beyond Greens aren’t scientifically tested by the FDA, which means they aren’t a part of the standard recommendations for daily values. So while the Beyond Greens ingredients list is extremely transparent and lists how much of each mineral or nutrient is included in every scoop, it takes a little more research to determine if those amounts are enough to provide the positive effects that they are known for.

And unfortunately, in some cases, the published studies show that they aren’t.

Beyond Greens has a total of 14 different ingredients meant to supercharge your health, which is an average number in regards to greens supplements. Some, like Green Vibrance by Vibrant Health, have a far deeper bench of nutritional ingredients, while others have fewer.

Beyond Greens includes nutrients that are said to support different aspects of your health, such as your energy, mood, gut health, immunity, and detoxification. But while these ingredients can in fact help support the various functions of your body, like anything else they have to be present in adequate amounts in order to deliver the required benefits.

Let’s take Rhodiola for example. A root that grows in Russia and Asia, Rhodiola is what is known as an adaptogen. These nutrients help your body respond to stress, which can mean physical stress and not just being overworked or overtired. Some studies have shown that Rhodiola specifically can help reduce stress, increase your energy levels, and also increase your mental clarity and focus.

One study used Rhodiola to measure its effects on symptoms such as chronic fatigue, poor sleep quality, short-term memory, and the ability to concentrate. Another study measured Rhodiola’s ability to enhance exercise performance. Both studies showed positive effects within the first week of taking the nutrient, which is great when you find that it is included in a supplement like Beyond Greens. 

The downside is that both of these studies were performed using 400mg of Rhodiola extract, which is far more than what is present in the daily serving of Beyond Greens (50mg). Of the 14 ingredients that are present in Beyond Greens, it seems that this is the rule rather than the exception to include lower doses than those that scientific studies have proven to be beneficial or effective.

What’s in Beyond Greens?

Beyond Greens does include some potent and powerful nutrients in its ingredients list. As we mentioned previously, many of these are not your standard additions to most shelf-bought supplements, so let’s go through some of them to help you understand why they are so important, and what they provide for a healthy lifestyle.

Rhodiola

As mentioned, Rhodiola is a root that grows in Russia and Asia. An adaptogen, the Rhodiola root can help reduce stress, increase your energy levels, and also increase your mental clarity and focus. As an adaptogen, taking Rhodiola daily in the appropriate amounts (400mg) can help your body to better respond to stress. 

Matcha Leaf

If you’re a fan of Japanese culture or frequent health food stores, you’ve likely encountered matcha tea before. Matcha is made from green tea leaves that are ground into a powder, making it higher in caffeine but also antioxidants than a single cup of regular green tea would be. Matcha is packed with nutrients and health benefits such as catechins that are responsible for many of its benefits, like increasing focus and memory, aiding weight loss, and supporting your immune system. 

If you’ve never tried matcha before, it also has a very unique taste, sort of like you would expect from a concentrated green tea extract. As we said above it also has a higher caffeine content than standard green tea (which is already high among teas). The matcha flavor makes up the brunt of the taste of Beyond Greens, which tastes like a naturally-sweetened matcha tea (which it sort of is). If you are caffeine-sensitive or don’t like the taste of matcha, Beyond Greens may not be for you.

Mushrooms (Reishi, Cordyceps, Turkey Tail, Lion’s Mane)

Many westerners have only recently started to find out about all of the health benefits that can be provided by some mushrooms. For vegans and vegetarians, mushrooms can provide a plant-based protein additive to help them get all that they need on a daily basis. For the health conscious, mushrooms can provide a wide variety of health benefits, depending on which strain you are using. These strains present in Beyond Greens are known for providing antioxidants and immunity support, energy levels, gut health, and mental clarity. 

As with some of the other ingredients in Beyond Greens, however, the dosages are lower than those which have been scientifically proven to provide these benefits.

Chlorella

Chlorella is a nutrient-dense ancient ingredient that is derived from alga and has been shown to provide a wide range of health benefits. It is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, and Vitamin A. Beyond its nutrient list, Chlorella has been said to aid detoxification of the body by helping in the removal of toxins and harmful heavy metals, protecting the liver, and aiding your immune system. Experts acknowledge that 1200mg is typically used in scientific studies to show positive effects, which means that the amount present in Beyond Greens (500mg) may not be enough.

Is Beyond Greens as Good as Advertised?

Beyond Greens certainly contains some powerful nutrients that can help to supercharge your body’s health, but the amounts provided in a single dose are not enough to provide the benefits that most of these ingredients have been shown to provide. Additionally, the ingredient matcha leaf has a unique and powerful taste, which overpowers the other ingredients that are present in Beyond Greens.

If you have an aversion to the taste of matcha tea or are especially sensitive to caffeine, Beyond Greens may not be the right choice for you. If your diet already includes some of the ingredients listed above and Beyond Greens would merely be an adjunct to provide more of them, then perhaps you would be getting enough on a daily basis to reap the health rewards. But most of these ingredients are not a part of a normal diet, which means that you would not be taking in enough of them to get the benefits purported by Beyond Greens.

Are Any Greens Supplements Better than Beyond Greens?

In short, yes. One of our favorites is another greens supplement from Vibrant Health called Green Vibrance. While one of Beyond Green’s selling points is that it is made from a simple list of 14 powerful health-promoting ingredients, Green Vibrance has over 60 supercharged nutrient additions. Most importantly, the amounts present in each serving of Green Vibrance are actually enough to provide their proven health benefits.

Green Vibrance is also non-GMO certified, vegan-friendly, and gluten-free. It packs a smorgasbord of health benefits into every serving, with ingredients that include cereal grasses, plant-based micro-nutrition, antioxidants, immunity support, adaptogens, skeletal support, fiber, liver support, enzymes, and even 25 billion CFUs of probiotics from 12 different strains.

Beyond Greens talks a big game and checks a lot of boxes, but Green Vibrance actually delivers. And for those who are worried about the matcha taste of Beyond Greens, Green Vibrance is available in a variety of flavors.

Wrapping up 

If you were a casual shopper looking no deeper into a product than its marketing, you may see Beyond Greens as a great addition to your daily health regimen. The company Live Conscious is very philanthropic, and transparent, and uses both its brand and website to do what it can to make the world a better place. These are all great things, and for those, we applaud the company and wish that more would follow in their footsteps. 

But Beyond Greens is one of their most popular products, and upon deeper investigation, it doesn’t seem that this greens supplement includes enough of any of its most hard-hitting ingredients to actually deliver the benefits promised by the product marketing. If you just happen to be a person who already has Rhodiola, matcha, mushrooms, and other ingredients in your daily diet, perhaps Beyond Greens could be a good addition to it, but not your main source of nutrition.

But in the end, that’s what we’re looking for. A greens supplement is supposed to be something that can be taken once a day to ensure that, no matter what else you ate that day, you got your needed greens-based nutrition. Beyond Greens doesn’t meet that requirement, but Green Vibrance certainly does. If you are looking for a fairly-priced greens supplement that can deliver all that your body needs on a daily basis, we suggest choosing Green Vibrance over Beyond Greens.