You can not supplement a poor diet (or sleep and stress levels). But even with a perfect diet, it is still possible to experience nutrient deficiencies because modern foods may be deficient in some essential nutrients. To ensure that we get enough of these, I personally use and recommend a multivitamin of whole food source as in a green superfood powder. Read about How to Choose a Good Green Powder
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What is a Green Superfood powder?
In short, a green superfood powder is many portions of vegetables and superfoods in a water soluble powder ball. In addition to vegetables and superfoods, the powder may also contain other health-promoting ingredients such as probiotics and immune support herbs.
Why Green Supplement?
An ancestral diet and whole foods can be a significant step up from the standard American diet that has lots of grains, vegetable oil, and processed ingredients. However, there is many reasons, even healthy looking diet alone could still not provide enough micronutrients and antioxidants.
Our soil is depleted of minerals and good bacteria
Over the past 100 years, industrial agriculture has exhausted the most nutritious topsoil of important minerals and beneficial bacteria in the soil that would grow the healthiest foods. As a result, vegetables in our foods also have less mineral density. The reduction of minerals in our food, as well as fertilizers and pesticides, can be a contributor to diseases of civilization.
Reduction of dietary diversity and wild varieties
The healthy hunter-gatherer humans had the much broader category of vegetables than we do today, up to twenty species per day & hundred species throughout the year. The supermarket vegetables we usually eat have been bred to have extra uniform shapes & sizes, by greater sugar comfortable & less bitterness, that further means fewer micronutrients and phytonutrients than wild vegetables.
Reduced nutrient density in vegetables
These vegetables may have been harvested weeks ago and have traveled thousands of miles before they reach your table.
The modern way of life depletes vitamins and minerals
The modern lifestyle, along with the chronic stressors and pollutions all around us, increases our micronutrient requirements. We need more B vitamins and magnesium to cope with stress. We also need more B vitamins, selenium and antioxidants to eliminate the chemicals we are exposed to.
In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the world’s leading nutrition researchers wrote that the low status of micronutrients can lead to metabolic disruption, mitochondrial decomposition, cellular aging, and increased mutation Of DNA.
These can lead to fatigue, hormonal imbalances, weight gain, reduced immune function and raised risks of cancer & neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, supplementation with a multivitamin and minerals is recommended as a cost-effective way of preventing nutrient deficiencies.
Greens Powder vs Vitamins
Generally, it is better to get your micronutrients from whole foods than from synthetic or isolated vitamins. First of all, nutrients that are present together in whole food sources often work in synergies, such as vitamin C and bioflavonoids in fruits or vitamins A and D in egg yolks, cod liver oil and butter.
Second, micronutrients in whole foods are generally more bioavailable than synthetic forms. Third, there are still important nutrients and phytochemicals in plants that we still have to discover.
Because a supplement of greens provides vitamins from nutrient-rich food sources, this is a great way to ensure that you get sufficient amounts of micronutrients and antioxidants. The soil may be depleted of minerals, but the sea is not. Therefore, you want to get a green supplement that includes some marine sources of nutrients.
Most vitamins, especially B vitamins, are stimulants. Many people find B vitamins so stimulating that it causes palpitations and anxiety. While vitamins from whole food sources, along with natural nutrient forms & synergies, are few likely to begin this difficulty.
You can have consumed foods great in B vitamins so as vegetables or liver without heart palpitations. Since it is also an entire food, the green powder can help with fatigue and hormone balance without the excess stimulation.
Problems with (most) green powder products on the market
There are plenty of green powders out there, but not all are created equal.
Most green powders have a terrible taste
Vegetables, especially the richest in nutrients, are good for you. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make tasteful vegetables, especially when you try to condense as much as 12 servings of vegetables in a single spoon.
In order to make the green powders taste pleasant to taste, many manufacturers utilize possibly harmful components such as:
- Sugar
- Artificial sweeteners
- Emulsifiers or thickeners to support texture in the mouth
- Artificial colors
- Inorganic Ingredients or GMOs
Treatment can destroy beneficial nutrients and antioxidants
The creation of a greens superfood powder is technologically difficult because many vitamins and phytochemicals are very sensitive to heat, light and certain forms of chemical treatment.
Vegetables in the green powder must be lyophilized into water-soluble powders to preserve nutrients. Considering that in order to make use of unicellular algae, the manufacturer may need to severely crack the cell walls of these algae to make the nutrients inside the cells available.
Therefore you want to make sure that you buy green powder from a reputable company that understands the biology of superfoods that they include in their products and confirm the presence of intact nutrients in the final products.