NanoGreens On Sale Here

NanoGreens Review

NanoGreens is another really great example of a green powder.  They’ve got just about everything you could ask for from a green powder formula, minus probiotics, which isn’t necessarily a deal breaker.  Their formula combines a variety of grasses, algae, herbal extracts, fruit and vegetables, using a proprietary process and formula for their phytonutrient fruit blend, which is great for people looking to add more antioxidants into their diet.  NanoGreens also makes the interesting boast that they’re the number one doctor recommended brand of green powder.  I have no way of verifying that, but it’s probably accurate, which is impressive.  If you’re wondering when doctors every recommend a natural supplement like this, they sometimes will do so for patients undergoing chemotherapy or other difficult treatments that ravage the body and make it difficult to eat and get proper nutrition.  A powder like this one helps a patient keep from being malnourished even when they aren’t able to eat as much as they should.

Some Notable Ingredients

• Green Tea Extract (50% Polyphenol) – This is something that you don’t see very often in other powders.  Green tea is a powerful herbal extract that can help kick start the body’s fat burning action.  The 50% polyphenol content is significant because it’s the polyphenols, also known as catechins that provide this benefit.  In a study done by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, green tea extract was shown to kick start the thermogenic fat burning process in the body. 690 mg of polyphenols taken for 3 months was demonstrated to significantly decrease the subject’s total fat area.  The reason for this is that the polyphenols found in green tea inhibit an certain enzyme known as catechol-O-methyltranferase, or COMT, which has been shown to degrade main fat-burning hormone of the body, norepinephrine.
• Phytonutrient Blend – Their proprietary phytonutrient blend is pretty impressive.  It combines a wide variety of fruits and vegetables using a process that makes them more bio-available to the body, giving a person the most bang for their buck.  A lot of the ingredients in a green powder formula are complex and difficult for the body to break down and digest.  So having a proprietary process for making these ingredients more bio-available can be a really helpful thing.

Cons

The only two cons that I can see from this product are the fact that it doesn’t contain probiotics, which I like to have in a green powder, and it has what I consider to be a few fillers.  I don’t like soy lecithin.  It’s not really all that helpful of a compound and it’s cheap.  This powder has 1250 mg of it, which is a lot.  It also has 2500 mg of rice bran and 2500 mg of oat beta-glucan, which are pretty much just simple fiber.  Together, these three compounds comprise half of the total serving, which to me seems like a lot, especially when it’s called a green powder, not a fiber powder.  But most green powder formulas have a lot of fiber in them, and fiber is good to have in the diet anyway, so this isn’t a huge drawback.  And overall, for the money, it’s hard to do much better than this powder.

PureGreen Protein on Sale Here

PureGreen Protein Review

At last there’s a reputable company making a serious effort of creating a high quality plant protein powder.  If there was a green powder company that I would trust to tackle this difficult task, it would be Vibrant Health, makers of Green Vibrance.  So why is it so difficult to make a vegetable protein powder?  The reason is because vegetables, though they have amino acids and proteins, often have a very poor protein profile when matched up to human muscles.  Human muscles require specific amino acids in high quantities, amino acids which are rare in the plant world.  Whey protein and egg albumin on the other hand, match up very well to human muscle tissue, which is why they’re so effective at building and maintaining lean muscle.  Most vegetable proteins do a poor job of building and maintaining human muscle tissue.  Instead, the amino acids in most plant proteins are converted into energy and used for other jobs in the body instead of being used for muscle growth and maintenance.  That’s what’s so great about this protein powder.  Vibrant Health has endeavored to create a plant protein powder with an amino acid profile similar to whey and eggs.

Completeness*

The reason why there’s an asterisk next to completeness is that, for the purposes of this article, we’re measuring completeness in terms of protein powder completeness, not in terms of green powder completeness.  As a protein powder, especially a plant protein powder, PureGreen Protein is very complete.  Vibrant Health has done a great job of duplicating the amino acid profile in the best animal sources.  If you are a vegetarian or vegan, this product is definitely something you should be taking a look at.  I’ve not seen another plant protein powder nearly as power packed with good muscle supporting amino acids.  Here’s a quick list of some of the ingredients:

• Pea Protein — Pea protein has an amino acid profile that’s similar to the profile needed by human muscles.  It’s an excellent base for a good plant based protein powder.
• Spirulina — Spirulina is an excellent source of protein, containing more protein by volume than any other source on the planet, including beef, chicken, fish, and pork.  It has a nice balance of amino acids, giving the body a boost of everything it needs.
• Rice Protein – Rice protein also has a nice amino acid profile for human muscle tissue that gives the body a couple of amino acids that pea protein is lacking.

Cost

Another great thing about this product is the cost.  It’s a bit more expensive than traditional protein powders like whey, but not much more than other plant protein powders like hemp protein.  If you’re interested in a plant protein powder, then this is probably the very best product for your money.  Like we said earlier, Vibrant Health is probably the top manufacturer of green powder formulas on the market, and they’ve done a really great job with the idea and the creation of this plant protein powder..

Vitamineral Green On Sale Here

Vitamineral Green Review

Vitamineral Green is another example of a green powder formula that has it all.  Not only does it give you a nice assortment of grasses, algae, and vegetables, it also has a lot of extras like digestive enzymes and probiotics.  Another great thing about this powder is that it doesn’t have any fillers that a lot of green powder formulas have, things like lecithin, apple fiber, and other cheap ingredients that don’t really do the body any good.  That’s why we gave it 5 out of 5 stars for completion.  On the contrary, Vitamineral Green is power packed with things like:

• 7 Different Types of Grasses
• Nova Scotia Dulse and Icelandic Kelp
• Digestive Enzymes and Probiotics

Bio-Availability

One potential problem however is with the bio-availability of Vitamineral Green.  The ingredients in green powders are generally notoriously difficult for the body to break down.  That’s why green powder formulas usually come with things like probiotics and digestive enzymes, to help the body break down and absorb all of the complex nutrients.  Not only that, but a lot of green powder manufacturers have proprietary methods of freeze drying and rendering their green powders more bio-available to the body.  I think of Garden of Life’s Poten-Zyme process in which many of the nutrients are already pre-digested and fermented, helping the stomach absorb as much as possible.  Other powder makers, like Green Vibrance, leave as many of their ingredients in raw form as possible, which also aids the body in digestion.  Vitamineral Green, on the other hand, doesn’t say much about their methods for drying and processing their powder, which leads one to believe that it isn’t anything special.  So as far as bio-availability goes, you might not be able to absorb this powder as much as you would other green powder formulas.  That’s why we could only give them 3 stars for bio-availability.

Cost

Another factor to consider is the cost.  Vitamineral Green is one of the most expensive green powder formulas on the market today.  It generally costs $50 for a two month supply.  Many of the more popular brands of green powder will be similarly priced, but for my money, I prefer something like Green Vibrance, because it not only has everything Vitamineral Green contains, it also has extras like herbal extracts for liver support and whole body wellness, and it also contains raw foods, which are rare to find in a green powder.  So the choice is yours, as always.

Greens First On Sale Here

Greens First Green Powder Review

Greens First is a relatively new green powder to hit the market.  There are a lot of great things about this green powder formula.  It’s full of fruits and vegetables, high in antioxidants, and has a nice blend of grasses and algae. But there are a few drawbacks that you should be aware of before purchasing it.

Cons

1. Serving Size — One subtle drawback that most people probably overlook is the serving size.  Greens First has 30 servings per container, just like most green powders, yet the serving size for Greens First is only 9 grams, compared to other powders like Green Vibrance, which has a serving size of 12 grams.  So even though you’re still getting 30 servings per container of Greens First, you’re actually getting 25% less product for the same price.  That’s why we gave Greens First only 3 out of 5 stars for cost, because we think it’s overpriced compared to other brands.
2. Filler Ingredients – In our opinion, Soy Lecithin and fiber are more like filler ingredients than anything else.  Sure you need your fiber, but you really don’t need much soy lecithin, especially from a green powder.  Soy lecithin comprises 1800mg per serving, that’s just under 20% of the overall serving.  Fiber comprises 1950mg per serving, which comes in at just over 20% of the overall serving.  So not only are you getting 25% less powder per serving compared with other brands, 40% of what you are getting is somewhat superfluous in our opinion.

Pros

1. Process — Greens First green powder has a good manufacturing process.  They flash dry their ingredients, keeping the enzymes and other vital nutrients intact.  That’s definitely a pro.  But this pro is offset by the fact that other manufacturers like Green Vibrance do the same thing, and usually at a cheaper price.
2. Testimonials — All of the testimonials for this product are 100% positive.  Though there aren’t that many of them yet, since this green powder is relatively new, people really seem to like the flavor and feeling they get from this product.  This is a decent powder for the money, but if you’re really looking to get the most bang for your buck, check out the page up top where we go through what we believe to be the best green powder formulas on the market today.

Spirulina Pacifica on Sale Here

Hawaiian Spirulina Green Powder Review

We’ve already done a few reviews on Spirulina products, but it wouldn’t really be a complete green powder review site if we didn’t at least say something about Hawaiiam Spirulina pacifica.  Spirulina produced in Hawaii is considered by most to be the best Spirulina in the world.  There are a lot of varieties of Spirulina, and a lot of different habitats where Spirulina is grown.  Since Spirulina is a very small algae, and since there are lots of them in every serving, it stands to reason that a better strain of Spirulina grown in a healthier environment will cause each microscopic algae to be more power packed with nutrients.  That’s the theory anyway.  And among Hawaiian Spirulina products, Nutrex is one of the best.  They use a harvesting process that takes the Spirulina from the growing vat to a sealed bottle in just 30 minutes.  And their state of the art drying and sealing techniques makes sure that the Spirulina powder is as fresh as humanly possible once it enters the bottle, and stays that way until you open it in your home.  I’m really impressed with this company.

Completeness

We rated this Spirulina with 4 out of 5 stars for completeness, as far as green powder formulas go.  Spirulina is considered a superfood, and Nutrex Spirulina is definitely one of the very best Spirulina powders out there.  But in the world of green powders, without the extra ingredients, things like probiotics, digestive enzymes, and herbal extracts, it’s just difficult to give 5 out of 5 stars.  In order for a green powder to really be complete, we’d like to see all of those things present, especially the probiotics and digestive enzymes that help you digest the full range of nutrients offered by the formula.  Many people have pretty lazy digestive systems from years of eating processed foods, sodas, and snacks, and just taking a great green formula might not always give you the nutritional value you’re looking for.  If your digestive system is lazy and can’t really absorb everything you’re eating, then it’s always nice having an extra digestive boost that a lot of other formulas offer.

Cost

Cost is definitely a plus with this particular brand of Spirulina.  It’s on sale right now and is even cheaper than a lot of the inferior brands out there.  So if you’re in the market for a Spirulina powder, then this one is definitely a great one to consider.  You really aren’t going to find a Spirulina powder that’s much better than this, and for the cost, it’s tough to beat.  But, as always, the choice is yours.

Greens Gold on Sale Here

Greens Gold Review

Greens Gold is a green powder that basically supplements all of your various fruits and vegetables.  One serving of their formula equals 10 servings of fruits and vegetables and also has 70 vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.  That sounds pretty good.  This is another one of your meat and potatoes varieties of green powder.  There are no probiotics in their formula, no algae like Chlorella or Spirulina, and no herbal blend.  However, the good thing about this green powder formula is that it’s on a pretty amazing sale right now.  Right now, a nearly 12 ounce bottle is on sale for less than $20, down from $50.  That’s pretty good.  If you’re new to the world of green powders, or are looking for ways to boost your consumption of fruits and vegetables, then this formula is definitely a good candidate for you. If however, you’re looking for a bit more from a green powder formula, things like digestive support, algae, and herbal wellness blends, then you may want to look elsewhere.  That’s the only reason why we gave this powder 3 out of 5 stars.  It has everything the body needs, nothing more, nothing less.

ORAC Value

This formula has a very high ORAC value, at 10,000 ORAC per serving.  ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, which is basically a fancy way of describing how many antioxidants are present in the powder.  10,000 ORAC is difficult to beat, and we don’t often come across a formula with such a high value.  So if antioxidants are something you’d like to have more of in your diet, then definitely consider this powder, especially right now while it’s on such a good sale.

Bio-Availability

Bio-Availability is one of those buzz words in modern culture.  It basically stands for how easy a compound is to be digested and absorbed by the body.  Many plant products are difficult to absorb, containing a lot of fiber, which is known as indigestible plant matter.  In many green powder formulas, they have digestive support like enzymes and probiotics to help boost the digestive tract in order that all of the rest of the nutrients in the formula be absorbed and used by the body.  When a formula doesn’t have that extra boost in digestive support, it’s tough to give it all 5 out of 5 stars.

Berry Greens on Sale Here

Berry Green Review

Berry Green formula has what we consider to be an average list of ingredients.  If it weren’t as expensive as the leading brands, it might be something we’d consider as a great green powder, but it’s just as expensive as Green Vibrance and Miracle Vibrance, and has a much less impressive list of ingredients than either.  That’s why this green powder got only 3 stars for both completeness and cost.  Don’t get us wrong, Berry Green is definitely a very healthy powder, but the purpose of this website is to compare different green powders and try and give you the best bang for your buck.  A few key differences.  Berry Greens has probiotic cultures in its formula, but only has 1 billion cultures per serving.  That may sound like a lot but not really when compared with Green Vibrance which has 25 billion probiotic cultures per serving.  1 billion cultures per serving really isn’t enough to make an impact.  Another big thing that we think that Berry Green powder is lacking is algae.  Most green powder formulas contain both organic Chlorella and organic Spirulina, and sometimes others, but Berry Green powder doesn’t have any algae in its formula.

Bio-Availability

The one relative strength of Berry Green powder is its bio-availability.  Berry Green powder freeze drys its ingredients, which is a very good way to capture the nutrients that are locked inside, delivering lots of nutritional value to the body.  According to Berry Green’s website: “Freeze-drying has been widely recognized as the best way to instantly capture and to preserve the vital integrity of whole organic foods. Foods processed in this way retain their optimal color, shape, flavor and nutritional values, and become concentrated up to 10 times their original form.”  So this makes Berry Green powder good in terms of bio-availability.  We don’t quite agree with them that freeze-drying is the very best way to process fruits and vegetables for human digestion, but it’s definitely a very good way to go.  The Poten-Zyme process that we talked about in the last article is another very great way to process foods for human digestion, and is probably a little bit superior to freeze-drying.

Cost

If you’re going to pay top dollar for a green powder, you should probably go for one that has 5 stars for completeness.  There are a couple of other brands that we’ve reviewed that are comparable in terms of cost, but we feel that they’re much more complete green powder formulas.  Check out our “Best Green Powders” page to see how we’ve rated each powder.  But as always, the choice is yours.

Garden of Life’s Green Powder on Sale Here

Poten-Zyme Whole Food Matrix

Garden of life’s green powder uses a proprietary method in its formula that we wanted to touch on more thoroughly.  It’s called the Poten-Zyme process for rendering food into a usable powder form.  The Poten-Zyme process involves lacto-fermentation and enzymatic predigestion, which basically means that the food you’re ingesting is already somewhat predigested, making it much easier to absorb by the intestinal tract.  The Poten-Zyme process is known as bio-fermentation and uses 14 strains of beneficial micro-organisms to help render complex foods down to their most basic components.  The process both creates and frees up valuable nutritional compounds from foods, things like enzymes, antioxidants, phytosterols and more. It can be said that the Poten-Zyme process actually enhances the nutritional value of the food. This is a very promising system that deserves some recognition.

Their Green Powder Poten-Zyme Ingredients

There’s just one hang up we’ve noticed with the Poten-Zyme process as it’s applied to Garden of Life’s formula.  The powder only delivers 1200mg of ingredients per serving that have undergone the Poten-Zyme process, which is only a fraction of the whole.  And of those ingredients, many aren’t particularly useful ingredients.  Some of the ingredients that they apply the Poten-Zyme process to are:

• Garbanzo Beans
• Kidney Beans
• Lentils
• Sunflower Seeds
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Sesame Seeds

While the Poten-Zyme process does render these ingredients more absorptive to the intestinal tract, it would be nice to see the process applied to other ingredients that have a higher base nutritional value.  To be fair however, the first few ingredients in the list were barley grass, oat grass, and wheat grass.  But since the overall Poten-Zyme ingredients only amount to 1200mg per serving, it’s difficult to say how many extra nutrients a person is getting from the rich grasses and other ingredients.  There isn’t really any way of telling.  A person just needs to decide for themselves whether or not it’s worth giving it a shot.  We definitely believe that Garden of Life’s green powder is a very good green powder formula, comparable with the leading brands in the industry like Green Vibrance and Miracle Greens.  But whether or not you want to put a lot of stock in their proprietary Poten-Zyme process is up to you.  We’re just here to inform.

Perfect Food on Sale Here

Garden of Life — Super Green Powder Review

Garden of life makes a green powder that’s very similar to a lot of the other leading green powder formulas out there.  But there are a few things about its formula that make it a bit lacking in our opinion, which we’ll highlight in just a moment.  That’s the reason why we gave it 4 stars for completeness instead of 5, because it’s just not quite as complete as powders like Green Vibrance and Miracle Greens, and it costs about the same amount.  Here are a few of the ingredients in Garden of Life’s green powder that we feel are more like filler ingredients than must haves:

• Rice Bran Extract
• Garbanzo Beans
• Kidney Beans
• Lentils
• Sunflower Seeds
• Organic Tomato

It’s not that we have anything against these ingredients, but they definitely are more common to the standard diet and can easily be gotten through eating a healthy diet.  When we think green powder, we think of a bunch of green compounds that are rare, and aren’t usually a part of a normal healthy diet, things like grasses, algae, and herbal extracts.  So while the ingredients listed above can definitely be considered healthy, we consider them to be more filler ingredients than must haves.  So for our money, we’d go with a powder like Green Vibrance or Miracle Greens for the same price every time.

Poten-Zyme Whole Food Matrix

This is something very intriguing about Garden of Life’s green powder.  They utilize a proprietary process called Poten-Zyme which uses lacto-fermentation and enzymatic predigestion within a matrix of carefully selected whole foods. What that basically means is that this bio-fermentation uses multiple strains of micro-organisms to gently break food down into their most basic state without damaging the foods or reducing their nutritional value. Poten-Zyme neutralizes any of the common nutrient inhibitors found in foods, things like phytates in soy and gluten in grains.

Bio-Availability

The Poten-Zyme process used to formulate Garden of Life’s green powder is the reason why this powder gets high marks for bio-availability, because they’ve taken the time to make sure that you’re able to absorb and utilize as much of the nutrients in the powder as possible.  So even though some of the ingredients might be somewhat lacking, you’re definitely getting more bang for your buck with the healthy ingredients that actually are present.  And bio-availability is key with green powders because so many of the ingredients found in green powder formulas are difficult to digest.  Green powders are full of things like algae and grasses which are difficult for the human body to process.  So it’s nice when you find a green powder that purposefully goes out of its way to make its formula as bio-available as possible.

Vitaforce on Sale Here

Vitaforce Powder — Multivitamin Strength

I find it interesting that Vitaforce brand green powder has specifically formulated their powder to function as a complete multivitamin, meaning that they’ve added in everything to their formula that’s on the list of essential vitamins and minerals that the body needs on a daily basis.  While this is an intriguing claim, it’s somewhat hollow in our humble opinion.  We’ve already made the claim previously that if a person takes a complete green powder, meaning a green powder with a high star value in completeness, then they really shouldn’t have to take any kind of normal dietary supplements because the leading green powder formulas are so full of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.  Vitaforce, however, is the first formula that we’ve come across that actually has intentionally sought to replace the multivitamin.  So while that’s a great aim, it doesn’t necessarily put them leaps and bounds above other brands.  The vitamins and minerals they claim that other brands are lacking are relatively common vitamins and minerals, things like Vitamin B-12, Vitamin D, Calcium, Vitamin E, Folic Acid and Zinc.  Vitamin D and Calcium are common in dairy products, and Vitamin E is common to most seeds and vegetable oils.  So as long as you’re eating dairy and seeds and vegetable oils, you’ll most likely be getting the rest of the vitamins and minerals that are lacking from your green powder combination.

Nutritional Yeast

Vitaforce is however, the first brand of green powder we’ve reviewed that has nutritional yeast in its formula.  Nutritional yeast is full of health benefits and protein and has itself been called a superfood.  It has 18 amino acids, making it a complete protein, and 15 minerals.  Many vegetarians use nutritional yeast as a supplement for meat.  Nutritional yeast also contains the trace mineral chromium, which is known as Glucose Tolerance Factor (GTF), and is helpful for people who are dealing with diabetes.  So if you’re a person either dealing with diabetes or having blood sugar issues, the Vitaforce powder might be the right blend of green powder for you.  If you aren’t then you really ought to check out the reviews on Green Vibrance and Miracle Greens before making a decision, as these are comparable products that are around the same price or cheaper in many cases.