I think Jonathan’s analysis validates a lot of the perception/suspicion many of us hold, your comment here about potential placebo and other benefits is interesting. I wonder how many others can anecdotally share how their performance has improved, perceived or otherwise, from taking these green powder products.
I certainly wouldn’t attribute any direct performance benefits but there may be indirect general health benefits. I have small kids who are always sick, my job has high stress, and I could always eat more whole unprocessed foods. Greens powders aren’t going to be the magic bullet for any of that, but if having what amounts to a multivitamin + probiotic + some other small potential benefit results in a general health outcome improvement that makes me even some few % less likely to get sick then that may be the difference between missing a week of training or not.
Given the cost of AG1 and the way they aggressively market through snakeoil podcasters I really doubt we’ll see many defenders here. It’s not a product I use, nor am I an advocate or evangelist of these products in general, but I do think it is worth noting again that @Jonathan’s piece is about the lack of evidence for direct performance outcomes and does not conclude that there is no possible general health benefit. If there is one, I’d guess it’s a small one and likely not one with a strong enough ROI to warrant the cost, but that is relative.
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Solid video. Even my non-cyclist Girlfriend watched it.
John’s deep dives are always a good watch
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This makes me wonder about all the stuff I’ve used, and am using. Like Hammer protein bars, and their recovery powder, and SIS Rego ‘recovery protein’ powder. Perhaps the FDA should regulate the industry so that products like the early ‘Muscle Milk’, etc, don’t come out laced with heavy metals. Yikes.
The FDA does step in from time to time, like in Balance of Nature. But they could/should do more to protect us from scams. It’s too easy to suck people into the morass and people do get hurt and die from the worst of it all. Sad…
EDIT: Somehow I got on the ‘Laird Superfoods’ email list. They seem to also market a ‘green powder’ thing. Pretty aggressively too. Like sometime 2 and 3 emails a day!!
You can thank Orin Hatch. 
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For what the FDA does, or is supposed to do, they are so ridiculously understaffed and underfunded.
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I take AG1 every morning. I have no idea if it makes me a faster cyclist. That’s not really my goal for taking it though. I view it as a bit of insurance for general health to ensure that I’m getting all my vitamins and minerals every day. I have no idea how they advertise, because that’s not actually how I came across it.
I started cleaning up my diet and general health last year and was actually looking for a good multi-vitamin. I’m aware that there are a lot of products on the market that don’t contain what they claim and/or contain things they shouldn’t. I was wondering how athletes that are going to be tested find good supplements and came across the NSF certified for sport program. I started scrolling through the list of certified supplements and saw AG1. I had actually never heard of green powders previously. Is it expensive? I don’t know. I don’t think it is, but I suppose that’s relative. It’s priced similarly to many of the multivitamins on the NSF list. I tried it, liked it, and have kept using it. YMMV.
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Really want to thank you for diving into this topic. I really enjoy some podcasts sponsored by AG and have definitely wondered if it would make a difference.
One thing in the same vein…what supplements are you (or anyone) taking now that they also took 3 years ago (or…just make up a time frame…1 year, 5 years, whatever). What worked and continues to work? I have tried things like beet powder, beta alanine, ecaps/race caps, various hydration and fueling formulas, multivitamins, etc. and the only things that have stayed constant and in continued use are caffeine and hitting my protein numbers…and I’m not even sure about the protein!
Joe
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Yup at $3 a serving you can buy a lot of influence in D.C., but Orin Hatch really bent over backwards to protect these conmen. What a great legacy he left. It is really the contribution to society of his that I remember, though I suppose there were other less dubious contributions.
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My wife is easily influenced, as in, everything we own she saw on instagram first.
The latest thing she has bought into is “Clean Greens” from Rheal
For those in the UK this was apparently on BBCs Dragons Den
My wife thinks its working for her and shes pursuaded me to try it too - looks like pond water - tastes like pond water - i said i’ll try it for a week 
Just the 7 ingredients though - which i approve of even if two of them are algea.
I’m not a user of AG1, but that was mainly due to pricing. Like many of the others, I do not get enough of what I need nutritionally during my daily food intake. I was curious about AG1, but, again, the cost of it made me unwilling to try. I researched other like Green drinks and stumbled across Gnarly Performance Greens. The ingredients are similar and the cost is about half that of AG1. I’ve been taking the Greens now for about 6 months. Do I feel a difference? Maybe, kind of. Others had mentioned a placebo effect. I have found that when I choke down the Greens first thing in the morning, I do a much better job of eating cleaner. This is similar to when I start my day with exercise - I just tend to do better the remainder of the day. Just my two cents!
I kid about choking down the drink. If you mix them with half water/half sugar free juice, it’s actually quite tasty.
Please watch…straight and honest (without influencers etc)
Thanks…
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Lots of good info in that video. In addition to driving home the point that likely a large part of the price you’re paying for the product is for paying influencers to promote the product he also makes an important point that you don’t really know how much of the key nutrients you actually get in each serving
I probably listen to too many podcasts, but I absolutely loathe the AG1 and Whoop influencer marketing. Overpriced, overhyped, no real benefit here, at least not near enough to justify the price. Comes across as snake oil to me.
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@Jonathan Top vid. Thank you!
Minor error - this ingredient table mixes pea protein and rodiola rosea I think.
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Yeah, probably because one of the best put together videos I’ve seen from TR. Very well done and professional!
Did anyone else find the constant zooming in and out made them feel seasick?
And the sequestration didn’t help. It’s horrific that politicians from both sides fight like hell to get into government on the idea that it doesn’t work, and do everything to prove it. Putting the supplement industry outside of regulatory review was/is stupid for sure. (Like letting Boeing certify their own jets)
But back to supplements, I take a few vitamins in the morning (One-a-day, 2 C, d, b-complex) and feel that I have spent enough on my urine. Most of what we take in over what the body uses and stores goes out in the ‘waste’, commonly urine, and feces. I am concerned about the ones that don’t excrete…
Word is they will never find out how that cinnamon apple sauce got so contaminated with lead, and that is just insane. So is the ‘manufacturer’, or the people that filled the containers doing NO TESTING which is just criminally negligent in my mind.
I’d like to see someone do batch testing on AG1 to see what the variability is from one batch to the next. THAT would be the tell if it really is crap.
But a German friend of mine from college said that he was amazed how ‘pill focused’ Americans are. Pills for everything and they are advertised on TV now too. Docs complain about people walking in demanding a certain pill or injection because they ‘saw it on TV’ and are convinced they have that illness/condition. And with Kathie Lee Gifford out hawking Balance of Nature, it’s just got to be good. 
It’s a billion dollar business. Trillion dollar?
And we all want to be faster, right?
That has gotten so common on youtube videos now. It’s mean to show emphasis, to draw attention. It gets really nauseating when it’s done several times, getting closer and closer.