THE FIRST TIME Eric Su tried AG1, formerly known as Athletic Greens, he was conflicted.
“Personally, I don’t think I really like the taste,” Su said in a 2023 YouTube review of the forest-green superdrink. (Watch carefully around the 3:10 mark and you’ll see his face sour.) “Maybe I’ll try it with milk in a couple days,” he added.
Su, 26, is an entrepreneur and a self-described health optimizer with more than 74,000 YouTube subscribers at press time. He says he committed to drinking AG1 daily for three months to see if it would change his blood biomarker levels or mood. The drink, after all, advertises a wealth of benefits, from improved digestion to increased focus to a boosted immune system—all thanks to its whopping 75 ingredients, which include probiotics, ashwagandha root, and reishi mushroom.
The promise of AG1, and a rising number of superdrinks like it, is alluring: Instead of buying, storing, preparing, and eating all the nutrients you need through healthy foods—or a supplement stack—you can just knock everything back in a few big gulps.
Su learned about AG1 as many health-conscious guys learn about new products these days: through celebrities. At this very moment, podcasters Joe Rogan, Tim Ferris, Peter Attia, and Andrew Huberman are, in one way or another, doing business with AG1.
In 2022, actor Idris Elba contributed to a $24 million investment in Huel, a company that sells nutritionally optimized ready-made drinks. That same year, Internet personalities Logan Paul and KSI launched Prime, their own line of now-coveted coconut-water-based sports beverages and energy drinks. Olympic snowboarder Shaun White endorses Ka’Chava, a superdrink that, not to be outdone by AG1, advertises that it contains 85 health-promoting ingredients.
On the whole, the nutritional-drink market has swelled globally. In 2021, the industry was worth roughly $12 billion, and it’s expected to rise to $19 billion by 2027. AG1 alone carries a valuation of more than $1.2 billion.
One contributing factor to that valuation is that none of these drinks are particularly cheap. AG1 offers a subscription service that costs $79 a month. A pouch of Huel’s complete-meal drink starts at $33.50. A 15-serving bag of Ka’Chava costs $70. And you can’t even buy a 12-pack of Prime for less than $29.99, more than three times the $8.29 price tag on 12 Gatorades at Target.
But there are factors beyond just celebrities (and their promo codes) driving the superdrink craze—factors that experts say touch on much deeper issues. These are issues many of us experience: loss of control, lack of self-care, unfulfilled goals, and the desire to find a solution through what we eat and drink.
NO, TRENDY NUTRITIONAL drinks aren’t a recent invention.
SlimFast ruled the late 1970s with slogans like “Gain new freedom over food to help put you in control of what you eat.” Soylent stirred attention in the 2010s after CEO Rob Rhinehart lived on the futuristic beige liquid for 30 days straight.
But neither product could claim it was at the crest of a wellness wave—or at least a status symbol along the lines of Lululemon joggers or an Oura Ring.
Then came AG1. Its origin story centers on CEO and founder Chris Ashenden,
a native New Zealander who says he suffered from gut issues related to nutrient deficiencies. (Ashenden declined to be interviewed for this article, though AG1 provided press materials.)
Spotting a gap in the highly specialized supplement market, the entrepreneur envisioned something more comprehensive—a sort of all-in-one nutritional product.
He launched the product in 2010, instantly garnering recognition from body-optimizing time-saver Tim Ferriss, who plugged AG1 in his New York Times bestseller The 4-Hour Body. The marketing around the superdrink hasn’t let up since. In podcasts’ sponsor spots, #ag1partner social posts from a legion of influencers, YouTube deep-dive reviews like Su’s—AG1 is everywhere and positioned for anyone looking to “optimize” their health.
Su found out about AG1 from The 4-Hour Body, but he’d been intrigued by the culture of optimization long before. “Where a person ends up in life is often a function of the tiny optimizations they’ve made,” he says. “The beauty of optimization as a mental model is that it pushes you to find inefficacies and question the status quo.”
Su’s quest for optimization, he says, emerged from a love of video games; he would spend hours customizing characters and increasing his stats. “I realized that real life wasn’t all that different, except it was way more fun when you actually were improving and optimizing yourself.” For optimizers, products like AG1 aren’t merely drinks—they’re level-ups.
As he mentioned in his video review, Su’s first obstacle in learning to love AG1 was the taste—which, like that of a lot of superdrinks, basically boils down to bad.
Scroll through Amazon reviews for the mushroom-based coffee alternative MUD/WTR and you’ll find comments like “It certainly lives up to its name.” On Huel’s Internet forum, a thread about its Daily Greens powder poses the unnerving question “Anyone not puke after drinking?”
Yet this acquired-taste experience may actually be part of the draw for people who have a “no pain, no gain” approach to health. (This same approach is often promoted by early-waking, ice-plunging, cold-showering influencers such as Rogan, Ferriss, Attia, and Huberman.)
“There are multiple reasons we might make significant compromises in the taste, pleasure, and satisfaction of our food lives,” says Emily Contois, Ph.D., an associate professor of media studies at the University of Tulsa. (Think back to the fish-oil-supplement craze, during which “fish burps” were a mere speed bump on the road to better heart health.) “We seem to be in a cultural moment where a segment of society is obsessed with optimizing every aspect of their life, including their health,” Contois says.
One possible reason for this focus on optimization is the pandemic, says Smithsonian Institution food historian Ashley Rose Young, Ph.D. “There was a huge sense of a lack of control for so many people,” she explains. “When I think about self-optimization, I sometimes see that as a way for people to try to regain a sense of control after such a destabilizing worldwide event.”
For anyone who strives for an optimized lifestyle, superdrinks seem like a simple solution. “These products echo our contemporary moment that’s filled with preoccupations about work and lifestyles that, in general, can feel too busy to take time to eat slowly and well,” says Contois.
Superdrink brands capitalize on this sense of busyness, too. Huel markets its product as less time-consuming than normal meals, perfect for the overworked professional. One of its taglines is “Less time cooking, more time living.”
Plus, some of these brands argue, cooking is expensive due to continued inflation. Yet the argument that turning to superdrinks to defray food costs hasn’t really held up. In 2023, two of Huel’s advertisements were banned in the UK for claiming that its“meals” could reduce people’s food bills. (The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Huel “had not provided evidence” to sufficiently prove that its products are cheaper than traditional food.)
However, the high cost of many nutritional drinks might hold value for people, says Men’s Health nutrition advisor Abby Langer, R.D. “These drinks are having a moment because they show everybody that you’re rich enough to buy them.” It’s a flex, an investment in yourself, like hiring a personal trainer.
But even on that very basic selling point—that superdrinks really are an investment in yourself—these products might come up empty.
SU SAYS HE was sort of sold on the idea that AG1 would improve his health.“It’s a lot easier to drink an eight-ounce drink than it is to down a dozen pills, even if they’re functionally the same thing,” he says. “A drink like this helps people solve the the problem of not knowing what supplements they should take and how much they should take.”
Except that, according to experts, what’s actually in superdrinks is murky.
Take what superdrink companies call “proprietary blends.” According to AG1, its greens drink contains an “alkaline, nutrient-dense raw superfood complex” and a “digestive enzyme & super mushroom complex.” And while the amounts of some of its individual ingredients are listed, those within proprietary blends are not given specific numbers.
This is a major red flag for Langer. “If you see a proprietary blend, you turnaround and you run,” she says, because you have no way of knowing whether the ingredients are included in effective doses. That means a superdrink product maybe shortchanging you on a nutrient.
Or, more granular still, the amount of a nutrient may not be one your body can even absorb. Dietitians call this “bioavailability,” your system’s capacity for taking in nutrients from a meal (or drink).
Nutrition therapist Jenna Hollenstein, R.D., author of Intuitive Eating for Life, echoes Langer. “Some of my nerdy questions include: Is this the most bioavailable format of the compound? Do any of these interact or hinder absorption of another?” She says, “Even the lack of chewing reduces the amount of amylase [a digestive enzyme made by our salivary glands] released in the mouth, which contributes to early digestion.”
Yes, liquids actually limit your body’s ability to absorb all those supposed supernutrients you just chugged. AG1 claims it harnesses “the power of synergy by combining nutrients that work better together” and uses ingredients that “are selected for how easy they are to absorb.” (AG1’s PR team doubles down on this claim but adds that “whole foods always come first.”)
Worse yet, proprietary blends may hide nutrient doses so high they could negatively interact with medications—and harm your health.
Again, AG1 provides a great case: Its “nutrient dense extracts, herbs & antioxidant” blend has an unstated amount of dandelion, an ingredient that may interact with diabetes medication. So if you are diabetic, that could really mess with your risk of suffering the dangerous effects of low blood sugar. And when superdrinks contain 70-plus ingredients, some in undisclosed amounts, the risk is multiplied.
You might be thinking, Um, FDA? Well, superdrink companies are able to skirt strict FDA requirements for claims and labeling because their products aren’t food—they’re supplements. AG1’s ingredients have been third-party-certified by NSF, but in general the FDA does not verify supplement marketing claims.
And then there’s the other Big Claim: that food is selling you short on nutrition. “You can’t really get all the micronutrients that best support your gut microbiome and health just from food,” Huberman said in a 2023 YouTube video promoting AG1. Critics say this is a form of nutritional fearmongering.
“We have become so afraid of food and so afraid of what it means to have a normal human body that we resort to some manufactured silver bullet to provide everything we might not be getting,” Hollenstein says. “The diet culture and the wellness industry are both responsible for instilling this fear that somehow a normal diet can’t possibly meet all your needs.”
Both Langer and Hollenstein say that even though brands like Huel claim their product is a “nutritionally complete meal,” drinking a processed cornucopia of nutrients is not equal to eating whole foods. One reason for this, Langer says, is that reducing ingredients into powders slashes their fiber content, and a lack of fiber can result in subpar digestion and increased hunger. Huel’s “meal replacement” drinks contain just 400 calories per bottle—a paltry amount of energy considering that active men should consume at least 2,800 calories daily.
Prime hydration drinks, meanwhile, lack substance altogether. They’re marketed as electrolyte replacements for athletes, but many of their flavors contain only
ten milligrams of sodium, “whereas [American College of Sports Medicine] recommendations for sodium intake are 300 to 600 milligrams per hour for prolonged exercise,” says Men’s Health nutrition advisor Dezi Abeyta, R.D.N.
None of this is to say these various tonics are entirely useless. Langer explains that drinks like Huel and Ka’Chava, which do contain protein, carbs, and at least some fiber, are fine if you’re in a pinch and “find yourself stuck with nothing.”
As for greens drinks like AG1, Hollenstein says, if you’re feeling like you haven’t had enough variety in your diet, drinking a shake here and there may help fill in the gaps.
But the consensus is clear: These drinks should never replace traditional meals, and despite claims that food isn’t enough, you can indeed be 100 percent healthy without superdrinks.
Or, as Abeyta says: “While these drinks can be a helpful addition for some folks, they’re not a meal ticket to perfect health. Think of them as a supporting act rather than the main event. A diet rich in whole foods is where it’s at.”
People in the U. S. are most likely to have the following nutrient shortfalls: calcium, iron, potassium, fiber, and vitamin D, according to the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Superdrinks advertise that they contain all that (and more!) for a steep price. But a simple (and relatively inexpensive) combination of milk, peanut butter, and whole-wheat bread will also help reduce those shortfalls.
This isn’t really news to the folks behind superdrinks. “Listen, we always advocate for eating whole foods whenever possible,” says Ka’Chava CEO Simon Malone. “But talk to a workaholic gym rat or a multitasking mom of three and you’ll see that that’s not possible every single day at every single meal.”
Nor is this news to Su, who, after three months of trialing AG1, decided it wasn’t necessarily the miracle drink he’d hoped for. He says he felt a small energy boost throughout the experiment (though he admits it might have been a placebo effect),and his blood tests did show a “positive trend in my biomarkers.”
But that wasn’t enough to convince him to buy more. He dropped his daily AG1 habit shortly after uploading his video to YouTube. “The best way to get nutrients is through real food, and I think the point of supplements should be to supplement an already healthy diet and lifestyle,” says Su.
Our team of editors knocked back 14 varieties. Many were rough. But these five we’d gladly chug again.
Kin Bloom
It’s a citrus-forward explosion of fruit flavors, with 35calories and six grams of fiber, which come from inulin. Yeah, fiber in a drink.
Huel Cinnamon Roll
All the bakery flavor, none of the bloat. A full bottle has 400calories, 22 grams of protein,and six grams of fiber.
Ka'Chava Chocolate
Two scoops have 240 calories,25 grams of protein, and six grams of added sugar. It tastes like chocolate protein powder, but it’s super thick (in a good way).
Salud Pepinolimón
This caffeinated liquid enhancer tastes like cucumber-lime spa water. A packet has just ten calories along with cane sugar, sucralose, and allulose
Bloom Strawberry Kiwi
Powderized fruits and vegetables (and green tea and seaweed) promise a whole lot of disease-fighting antioxidants for only 20 calories a scoop. And, yup, it beat out AG1 in flavor.
