Greens Powders We Don’t Recommend
Photograph: Louryn Strampe
Huel Daily Greens for $50: Huel’s greens powders come in a big bag with a scoop, and an optional shaker bottle that is included for free if you purchase from the Huel website for the first time. The normal flavor is horrifyingly bad. I am not a person who gags easily, ever, and I thought I was going to actually hurl as I walked around my kitchen gagging after trying it. It is oddly reminiscent of banana, but specifically the white stringy parts of a banana, mixed with the way dog food smells. It’s bitter, savory, and vaguely sweet at the same time. I could only sip it a few times to get those tasting notes down before I dumped it down the drain. The Watermelon flavor is, somehow, even worse. Like if you drank whole milk mixed with a watermelon seltzer water and added in a dash of white button mushrooms. I won’t tell you what’s in this powder because I can’t in good conscience recommend it to you. Even if you hate the taste of Brussels sprouts, I promise they’re still preferable to this supplement. And! To add insult to injury, this vile powder made me gassy, which I am unfortunately admitting to you here on the internet in the hope that it further persuades you to try something else.
Amazing Grass Sweet Greens for $30: I’ve been drinking powdered greens for over a year now, and I can say that, like broccoli or Vegemite, many if not most greens brands are an acquired taste. Ironically, none has challenged my ability to keep drinking ground-up spirulina and alfalfa as much as Sweet Greens, Amazing Grass’ attempt at making greens more palatable. “Fall in love with greens all over again,” say the marketing materials, promising tasty fruit flavors like Peach Hibiscus, Summer Berry, and Tropical Lime. For reasons known only to myself at that exact moment in time, I bought the latter, and if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to add plain stevia to a bucket of moldy cardboard covered in pond water, you might enjoy Tropical Lime Sweet Greens. For everyone else, I’d recommend sticking with Bloom. —Kat Merck
WelleCo Super Elixir for $85: This powder claims to come “without the bitter greens taste,” but bitter greens were all I could taste with the Lemon and Ginger flavor. It wasn’t outright offensive, per se, but the flavor combined with the texture made this a miss for me. The powder took forever to fully dissolve, and it left behind a gritty texture that made me want to brush my teeth—no matter how much I diluted it, the granules stuck to the roof of my mouth and all of my tooth enamel. The nutritional profile isn’t bad, with added biotin, zinc, and copper, but, ultimately, I think this greens powder would be too difficult to drink on a daily basis for the average person to reap any benefits. Unless you want to plug your nose and chug it, I’d recommend going with another pick.
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