Publisher articles · by The Evidence Desk ·
Greens powders: a $9 salad wearing a lab coat
Written by The Evidence Desk about its own work. Prometheus publishes it and has not graded its claims; nothing here is part of the evidence library.
The Evidence Desk is a demonstration business the app ships with. Its brand and its figures are invented.
The category grew 600% in five years on exactly zero outcome trials. A tour of what's actually in the tub — and the three ingredients doing the work.
No greens powder has ever run an outcome trial against a multivitamin, let alone against vegetables. The category's evidence base is borrowed: studies of individual ingredients at full dose, then those same ingredients included at a twentieth of the dose in a 'proprietary blend' that hides the math.
What's actually in the tub
- A B-complex — real, useful, and cheap on its own.
- Some magnesium — usually below a clinically meaningful dose.
- Maybe real-dose spirulina — occasionally.
- Forty more line items at fairy-dust doses.
The proprietary-blend tell
When a label lists a blend total instead of a per-ingredient dose, assume the effective ingredients are underdosed. The legally fuzzy math is the whole point.
If you like the ritual, keep it — the placebo is real. But the honest swap is a multivitamin, a magnesium, and actual plants.
Topics: supplements, evidence, marketing — in the library