Posted 6/24/2012 3:21 AM (GMT 0)
Alright, I looked up green powder and some of the main "superfood" ingredients, and here is my thinking:
Firstly, I took a class on Algae (way more interesting than you might think) and the professor spent a good 20 minutes trashing the health food craze of eating spirulina. He said that when you look at it, there really is no exceptional nutritional benefit to ingesting it. If you look at the wiki page for it, you will see that yes, it does have vitamins and minerals. However, it doesn't have anything that you can't get anywhere else - it isn't some magical nutritional gift from the gods.
Second, I have always felt that wheatgrass is one of those health fads that is extremely popular but in reality never lives up to the claims. The wiki page (again) shows that the nutritional content is no better than veges like broccoli, and is even lesser is some cases. I tried to find some scholarly articles to get better information, but all I could find was a study that showed fresh wheatgrass as being upwards of 20% more bioaccessible than powder/pills. Either there are no available articles documenting wheatgrass as a strong health benefit or vice verse, or the research-force is not with me tonight. You can also argue about the enzymes and whatnot, but I don't believe that wheatgrass has any extra-special enzymes that any other edible plant lacks. But again, that is just my belief as one of those pesky amateur scientists who has enough knowledge to be dangerous.
In terms of the powder as a whole, from what I have seen just briefly looking the stuff up, it kinda looks just like ground up dried veggies with assorted extras such as green tea, protein and probiotics. You could probably do better for yourself by getting a juicer and making your own, but that will take a whole lot more time and effort. So, in those terms, you are probably better off with the powder than with nothing.
And something I just thought of: I looked up powders like this about a year ago, thinking I could seriously improve my diet just by adding in something like this, and found a lot of the reviews disheartening. It seemed like it either tastes absolutely awful, or it gave people stomach problems. Most of the powders also advertised "awesome energy" and "uncompromising nutrition," and yet I could get all of that with a vitamin and a few servings of vegetables. Looking now, there seem to be better options but the whole cost-to-benefit ration seems off.
In summation, I would say they are mostly hype, but at the same time it clearly isn't an unhealthy thing to do. If you think there is even a 1% chance they will make you feel better then you might try it out. This disease can be so ephemeral in cause and in care that to me, if you find something that you think might make you even a little less miserable, then you should go for it. Sorry if I sound like I am both recommending and slamming the powder, I just wanted to get all of my apparently highly conflicting opinions across :) Hope this helps!