Strong Greens
$39.99
Negatives
- Alkalizing blend is useless; you can't change blood pH!
- Main blend could be 99% lemon powder
- Wheatgrass does nothing for immune function or mood as BPN claim
- Ashwagandha dose is laughably low
- Chlorella dose ridiculously small
Summary
Like most greens powders, BPN Strong Greens promises far more than it can actually deliver. With ingredients like coconut water powder, wheatgrass and turmeric, this greens powder is never going to dramatically improve any aspect of your health and performance; certainly not more than your average smoothie will (or just a better diet). The claims about greater mental clarity and enhanced immune function are almost definitely overblown. A high quality multivitamin will have more of an effect.
BPN Strong Greens Review: What does this greens powder do?
Strong Greens is a greens powder supplement made by Bare Performance Nutrition, or BPN as they are more often known. Greens powders are a rapidly growing supplement market, and BPN Strong Greens seems to be selling extremely well right now. Why is that? What does this “super greens” supplement have to offer?
According to the Bare Performance Nutrition website, BPN Strong Greens can:
- Promote mental clarity
- Improve immune system function
- Reduce anxiety
- Improve digestion
These are fairly standard claims for a greens powder or “superfood” supplement; Athletic Greens promises pretty much the same mix of benefits (although it doesn’t come close to delivering on them).
The question is, does BPN Strong Greens actually work?
Can this greens powder do all of the inredible things it promises? Is BPN Strong Greens worth the money? Or is there a better option for enhanced cognition, immunity, and health? In our detailed BPN Strong Greens review below, we answer all of these questions and more.
BPN Strong Greens Ingredients
Here is the Strong Greens ingredients list as it appears on the tub:
In case that isn’t clear, here is a list of the ingredients in BPN Strong Greens with doses:
- Vitamin A – 74IU
- Green Balance Alkalizing Blend – 2,500mg
- Alfalfa grass
- Wheatgrass
- Barley
- Lemon
- Gotu kola
- Kale
- Astragalus
- Spirulina
- Bitter melon
- Oat grass
- Chlorella
- Organic Wheat Grass Powder – 1500mg
- Organic Wheat Grass Juice Powder – 100mg
- Organic COconut Water Powder – 500mg
- Beet Juice Root Powder – 250mg
- Organic Chlorella Powder – 200mg
- Organic Turmeric Root Powder – 200mg
- Organic Ashwagandha (KSM 55) – 100mg
Right off the bat, we notice that there’s no indivudual serving size information for the Alkalizing Blend ingredients. This is an issue; not only are some of the ingredients repeated (multiple times) in the formula, but some of the Alkalizing Blend ingredients are completely useless, so we wouldn’t want them in large quantities!
We’ll now go through the Strong Greens ingredients one by one, explaining what they are, how they’re supposed to work, and what the evidence has to say about them.
Vitamin A – 74IU
Vitamin A is an essential nutrient; it is needed for maintenance of the skin, eyes, teeth, mucous membranes, and other important tissues.
However, Vitamin A is in lots of foods, including eggs, broccoli, bright vegetables, and beef liver. The average egg contains about 300IU of Vitamin A. A typical multivitamin contains about 2000IU of Vitamin A (ideally as a mix of retinol and beta-carotene). The 74IU of Vitamin A in Strong Greens is not going to make a difference to anything; it is a pointless, inconsequential dose.
Green Balance Alkalizing Blend – 2500mg
The Green Balance Alkalizing Blend in Strong Greens is supposed to provide a stack of “superfoods” which, according to BPN, “optimizing your bodies pH balance, supplying your body with essential nutrients and phytochemicals, and also providing an organic source of antioxidants and amino acids”. What’s more, Bare Performance Nutrition go on to claim that two of the blend ingredients – barley and wheatgrass, are “both rich sources of chlorophyll, which helps fight cancer, promotes liver detoxification, and is vital for skin health”.
We don’t need to tell you that this is absolute nonesense. It’s no surprise that the BPN website provides absolutely no scientific sources to back up these vague, unfounded claims.
In any case, the main problem with the “alkalizing blend” is that it is impossible to change the pH of your blood, no matterhow much wheatgrass you eat. We don’t know how much of any ingredient is in the blend either; it could be entirely made up of ground-up lemons for all we know!
Organic Wheat Grass Powder – 1500mg
Wheatgrass is one of those foods about which people make endless health claims – vague, abstract, unverifiable health claims. According to BPN, wheatgrass can do everything from “detoxing” the liver and killing harmful bacteria to bosting immunity and even curing cancer. Obviously, these are ridiculous claims; the liver is the body’s detoxification tool, so “detoxing” the liver makes no sense. There is absolutely no evidence that wheatgrass consumption affects cancer in any way, shape, or form. The only studies we’ve seen showing wheatgrass consumption having a positive effect on health have looked at its effect on cholesterol in rabbits fed a high-fat diet.
Even if this was an amazing “superfood”, most people recommend consuming about 10g of wheatgrass powder as a juice or tea per day for optimal results. We don’t get anywhere near that much from Strong Greens.
Organic Wheat Grass Juice Powder – 1000mg
The inclusion of wheatgrass powder and wheatgrass juice powder is a ridiculous redundancy; this could only be done to jazz up the label as it makes no practical difference to the end product.
Put another way, the fact that this wheatgrass powder was mixed with water before being turned into a powder again does not make it meaningfully different to the (useless) ingredient listed above!
Organic Coconut Water Powder – 500mg
People make all sorts of health claims about coconuts. In almost every case, these people are confusing coconuts with medium chain triglycerides (MCTs); particular fats with interesting health properties. While coconut oil is the richest natural source of MCTs, coconut powder does not contain particularly large quantities of the stuff – this is why people use refined MCT oils!
But all of this is irrelevant, as coconut water doesn’t contain ANY medium chain triglycerides at all! It contains some electrolytes and minerals, but not enough to really make a difference to your mental or physical performance.
Beet Juice Root Powder – 250mg
We assume that BPN actually mean beetroot juice powder. Consuming beetroot raises blood nitric oxide (NO) levels. Nitric oxide drastically improves blood flow by triggering vasodilation (expanding of the blood vessels). This improves physical performance, brain function, and cardiovascular health. However, again we have a problem with dosing. BPN Strong Greens contains just 250mg of beetroot juice powder. Good beets powders provide about 500mg per serving.
Organic Chlorella Powder – 200mg
Chlorella is possibly the only ingredient in Strong Greens which is capable of making a meaningful difference to your health and performance. Like the incredibly popular spirulina, chlorella is an algae supplement abundant in lots of important nutrients not found in most foods. Compared to spirulina, chlorella is richer in omega 3 fatty acids, provitamin A (beta carotene), iron, zinc, and magnesium. Chlorella also has benefits beyond the delivery of nutrients; studies have found that chlorella consumption may improve digestion, protect against heart disease, and help with blood sugar control.
Once again though, the tiny dose of chlorella in Strong Greens is far below what we get from dedicated algae supplements (which don’t cost very much).
Organic Turmeric Root Powder – 200mg
Trumeric is a standard ingredient in Indian cuisine. Turmeric has been found to have serious health benefits, most notably lowering systemic inflammation. Consuming an extra 200mg of turmeric per day is not going to make a tremendous difference to your health. This is obviosly true when you consider that high-curcumin turmeric tablets available from most supplement stores contain about 1g of highly-bioavailable turmeric.
Organic Ashwagandha (KSM 66) – 100mg
Ashwagandha is a phenomenal supplement. It has powerful effects on the human body; effects so powerful that ashwagandha is can be classed as both a hormone supplement, an anxiolytic, and a nootropic.
Ashwagandha works primarily by lowering blood cortisol levels. As your body’s main stress hormone, cortisol is responsible for producing feelings of anxiety, an elevated heart rate, and other symptoms fo stress. By lowering cortiol, ashwgaandha produces a calm, relaxed state in which you can think clearly and make good decisions.
Most good nootropics which use ashwagandha will use around 500mg of KSM-66 (the best ashwagandha supplement on offer). Strong Greens gives us just 100mg – another cheap skimp from BPN.
Our thoughts on the BPN Strong Greens formula
We are not at all impressed with BPN Strong Greens. We don’t see how this greens powder can ever hope to deliver on the promises it makes to its users.
The “alkalizing blend” contains whole food powders, many of which do absolutely nothing for your health and performance – nothing worth mentioning anyway. For all we know, this blend could be 99% lemon powder!
Wheatgrass has only ever been proven in clinical trials to lower blood cholesterol levels in mice fed high fat diets. The claims made by BPN about wheatgrass boosting immune function and fighting cancer are scientific gibberish. A large chunk of the Strong Greens formula is wheatgrass, in two forms no less, each as useless as the other!
The potentially beneficial Strong Greens ingredients – the ashwagandha, the chlorella, and the beetroot powder – have all been dosed too low to produce significant results.
All-in-all, this is a poor greens powder which is unlikely to produce any of the advertised results.
We think a high-quality multivitamin would do more for your cognitive performance, immune system function and overall health than any greens powder, but particular when that greens powder is BPN Strong Greens.
Strong Greens Side Effects: Is it safe?
We can’t see any reason to worry about side effects or long-term health effects with Strong Greens. BPN have used plenty of inert, ineffective ingredients, but they are not thought to be dangerous ingredients.
Importantly, all of the ingredients i Strong Greens have been thoroughly tested in clinical trials and have been deemed perfectly safe for regular human consumption. There’s nothing worrying about the doses in this greens powder either; quite the opposite, there isn’t enough of the most powerful ingredients!
Overall then, Strong Greens looks like a safe supplement, unlikely to cause side effects for the vast majority of users.
That said, everyone is different. You all have your own food allergies and existing medical conditions. It’s important that you do your own research carefully and that you get medical advice before using any supplements.
Strong Greens Review Conclusion: Is it worth the money?
Generally speaking, we aren’t huge fans of greens powders. If you eat fresh vegetables on a daily basis – as everybody should regardless of your situation – then they really don’t offer you anything you aren’t already getting from food.
Strong Greens is a prime example of this. We see no reason why anybody would spend $40 of their hard-earned money on a supplement that is just wheatgrass powder, a tiny amount of Ashwagandha, and useless vegetable powders. Half of the Strong Greens formula could be lemon skin powder for all we know!
The ingredients in greens powders like Strong Greens are usually just sources of the nutrients you really want to optimize health and performance. You’re therefore consuming a middle man when you could just be going straight to source.
This is why we recommend using a high-quality multivitamin instead of a greens powder if you want to optimize health and performance.
Our current top rated multivitamin would definitely serve you better than Strong Greens; less dead plant matter, more formula transparency, and better value for money.
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Brian Johnson is a former academic researcher, psychologist, and tireless proponent of bio-hacking. Brian has dedicated all of his time since leaving academia and private practice to promoting the benefits to be obtained from the application of biotechnology and bio-hacking supplements. He has years of experience with nootropics, as well as prebiotics, probiotics, and other natural nutritional supplements. He has published scholarly research on natural nootropics; you can find his papers on his Google Scholar page.
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