Beyond Greens vs Athletic Greens, Which is Better?
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that only 12% of American adults were getting their daily necessary fruits & vegetables, it became pretty apparent why we are seeing such a crisis of health in this country. Aside from the obesity epidemic, we are seeing an increase in many different types of illnesses, which some could say are a result of poor health.
The human body is like an extremely high-end sports car. If you put only the highest octane fuel in the tank, change the oil regularly and take good care of it, you are going to get some amazing performance. But if you neglect it, fill the tank with old or bad fuel, and don’t pay attention to the regular maintenance schedule, you will end up broken down on the side of the road before long.
This makes us extremely happy to see the newfound popularity of greens supplements and powders. These supplements provide all of the daily nutrients and minerals that are needed to fulfill a healthy diet requirement. Many even have healthy additions like probiotics, L-glutamine, spirulina, wheatgrass, fiber, protein, and others that help supercharge your wellbeing.
Athletic Greens (now rebranded as AG1) is the most popular greens supplement on the market today, but there are a handful of alternatives. We will use this article to break down two of the most popular greens supplements and to create a matchup of Beyond Greens vs Athletic Greens to see if one of those supplements is right for you. If not, we will also discuss some of the best alternatives that we have found on the market today.
Athletic Greens Pros and Cons
The main reason that we believe that Athletic Greens is the most popular greens supplement on the market today is their massive spending on advertising and celebrity endorsements. This is a good move for the company, but it also helps Americans break into the market of greens supplements to begin working toward better health, which means that it is actually a good move for everyone.
But despite their massive popularity, Athletic Greens may not be the best choice for everyone. To start with, neither those advertisements nor celebrity endorsements come free, which may be one of the reasons that Athletic Greens is also the most expensive greens supplement on the market today. Costing nearly $100 per bag, a scoop of Athletic Greens breaks down to about $3 per scoop.
On the plus side, if you were to go to the grocery store in an attempt to mimic the ingredients list of Athletic Greens, it would cost you far more than $100 per bag if you were to get the ingredients on your own. There is a wide variety of ingredients that make Athletic Greens extremely beneficial to your health. Each bag contains more than the recommended daily allowance of many vitamins & minerals.
On top of the basics, Athletic Greens also contains several “complexes,” which are groupings of beneficial additions outside of the standard vitamins and minerals to help keep you healthy. These include complexes like their “Alkaline, Nutrient-Dense Raw Superfood Complex,” the “Nutrient Dense Extracts, Herbs & Antioxidant,” a “Digestive Enzyme & Super Mushroom Complex,” and probiotics.
Unfortunately, despite these complexes being arguably the most beneficial ingredients in the whole package, Athletic Greens considers these proprietary blends, meaning that they don’t list exactly how much of each component of these complexes are included in a serving or bag. If you were to attempt to go to the grocery store to recreate a bag on your own, there would be no way to do so as you do not know the ingredient makeup.
One of these complexes is made of probiotics, and while these are extremely beneficial to your overall health in many ways, each serving of Athletic Greens only includes 7.2 billion CFUs of a single strain of probiotics. While this may seem like a lot, probiotics are tiny “good bacteria” that assist your gut, a woman’s flora, and your immune system. There are many strains of probiotics that may be beneficial to your health, so 7.2 billion CFUs of a single strain still leave a lot to be desired if you are looking for the benefits of probiotics.
The final places that we see Athletic Greens as lacking are both in fiber and protein, two valuable additions to any supplement drink. One of the reasons that dieticians & doctors don’t like fruit juice is because it takes away an ingredient that nature adds to fruit and vegetables that allows our bodies to break down and fully absorb all of the nutrients included in the fruit itself: fiber. If you were to eat raw fruit, the majority of the fiber is included in the pulp, which is what helps your body effectively break down the good stuff. Athletic Greens only contains 2g of fiber, which may not be enough for your body to even take advantage of the vitamins and minerals the supplement provides.
Protein is also extremely important for the human body; if you do not consume enough of it, your body will steal it from other areas like your muscles. People who are especially active have a higher need for protein than those who are sedentary, and people who are active are generally the most concerned with their health as well. Given that Athletic Greens is the most expensive greens supplement on the market, active people who buy this product may not also want to have to buy protein supplements as well. There are green supplements like Maximum Vibrance by Vibrant Health which provide more minerals, nutrients, and plenty of plant-based protein in a single supplement, and we’ll get into that one later.
Beyond Greens Pros and Cons
There are tradeoffs between many things in life, and greens supplements are often no different. Beyond Greens is another popular product from a company that has been in the health business since 2014 (Live Conscious) that contains some of the most beneficial health supplements that are available, but are lacking in other areas.
Let’s start with the company itself. If you are a person who is environmentally friendly or concerned about our planet, you can feel pretty good about doing business with Live Conscious by buying their Beyond Greens supplement. The company has partnered with the Eden Reforestation Project and has the goal of helping Eden plant a million trees in one year. Live Conscious also uses 86% less plastic in its packaging than other companies, adding more to its environmental friendliness.
Beyond Greens is the most popular product for Live Conscious, and there are some amazing benefits. Firstly, it is far more cost-effective than Athletic Greens. They offer a subscription or a la carte model, and the subscription can have a bottle sent to you every month for $31.99, with the a la carte option only costing you $39.99. Keep in mind that the bottles of Beyond Greens are much smaller vs Athletic Greens bags of their greens supplement, but that is because Beyond Greens is far more concentrated - it should still last you a month.
As we said previously, the place where Beyond Greens really shines is in the additional ingredients, the stuff outside of standard vitamins & nutrients that typically separate greens supplements from one another. Beyond Greens contains milk thistle (great for your liver & immune system), Rhodiola Rosea (great for anxiety, depression, and mental clarity), Chlorella (algae-based superfood packed with proteins), Echinacea (antioxidants), Lactospore (probiotic), matcha powder (antioxidants), Ceylon cinnamon (antioxidants), Acacia gum (helps wounds heal & strengthens the immune system), and various types of mushrooms for brain power and the immune system.
What is severely lacking from Beyond Greens, however, are the actual greens. With only 2650mg of superfoods, it is pretty light in this category. This is a little strange since it is a greens supplement, but as we said this product does pack a lot of great additional benefits. If you already eat a very healthy diet, this won’t create any kind of shortfall for you, but it can’t be seen as the end all be all replacement for your daily fruits and vegetables.
What Reviews Say
Customers, professional reviewers, and bloggers all love both of these products, and the reviews show which aspects of each are typically heralded as setting them apart from the competition. For Beyond Greens, many reviews highlight both the taste and increase in energy levels felt after starting the greens supplement into your daily diet.
The taste is most likely because they use FOS & XOS in the product, which are prebiotics that are also often used as sugar alternatives in health products. For the enhanced energy levels, well, the special additional ingredients used in Beyond Greens all assist with that, especially those high in Vitamin B12.
You can’t throw a rock these days without finding an ad featuring a celebrity like Joe Rogan touting the benefits of Athletic Greens, but since those people are paid to give their two cents, we can’t really take their word for it. However, the people who have paid to use AG1 also sing a similar tune in their love for this greens supplement.
The taste, however, is not one of the elements that people rave about. If you are a fan of the “natural” flavors of a greens supplement, Athletic Greens does not have any type of additional elements to change the flavor, so this may be a good option for those in that camp. Many reviews of Athletic Greens espouse their happiness of getting so many of their nutrients in a single sitting, but there are equal complaints about the price (no free shipping either), and natural taste.
Alternatives
Whether you are looking for a greens supplement alternative that has more fiber, protein, probiotics, actual greens, or lower cost, there are plenty of great alternatives available on the market outside of Athletic Greens vs Beyond Greens.
More fiber, lower price, and better additional ingredients
Green Vibrance
If you’re looking for a great all-around greens supplement that contains 2730mg of plant-based micronutrition, 25 billion CFUs of probiotics from 12 different strains, 14 powerful antioxidants, spirulina, L-glutamine, wheatgrass (plus five other cereal grass varieties), and 3g of dietary fiber, Green Vibrance from Vibrant Health is one of the best that we’ve found on the market.
Enrolling in their subscription plan provides you with a bottle every month for only $72.01, making this greens supplement a full ¼ cheaper than Athletic Greens while providing more vitamins and minerals. Green Vibrance is the only green supplement that we’ve found that is on nearly every single review of the “best greens supplements” that you will find (neither Athletic Greens nor Beyond Greens appear on as many) because this one truly is in a class of its own.
More protein & fiber, lower price, and better additional ingredients
Maximum Vibrance
If you are an active person who doesn’t want to have to consume both a protein shake and a greens supplement every day, Maximum Vibrance has you covered with 20g of plant-based protein per serving. This greens supplement also contains twice the fiber as Athletic Greens and has all of the same additional nutrients that make Green Vibrance such a hit. If you use the subscription model offered on the Vibrant Health website, this product can come to you every month for only $66.01, giving you more of the benefits for just a little over half the price of Athletic Greens.
