Primal Greens is a green drink supplement created by a company called Primal Harvest, and it has become immensely popular as of late. In this Primal Greens review, we will discuss the pros and cons to ultimately determine whether it’s actually worth it or not.
Is Primal Greens the real deal, or all hype? The SFP (supplement facts panel) doesn’t lie! We’re going to take an in depth look at the SFP later in this review, so stay tuned for that.
However, I can tell you right off the bat that Primal Greens does not have what it takes to compete with our most highly recommended greens powder supplements. If you want to learn about 10 products that are better than this one, click here: BEST GREENS POWDERS COMPARISON.
Primal Greens review by a NASM-Certified Nutrition Coach: Is Primal Greens any good?
Primal Greens is pretty much the definition of an average green drink. It’s not a bad supplement, but we certainly would not consider it to be top shelf. It only provides about 7,200 milligrams worth of superfoods per serving, whereas our top ranked green powder supplement provides 15,000 milligrams per serving.
That means my #1 ranked green superfood powder, TOTAL LIVING DRINK, is over twice as potent as Primal Greens. That’s a big deal, and that’s only talking about the superfoods! When you factor in all of the other nutritional components, it really blows this product out of the water. In addition to 15,000 milligrams of organic non gmo super greens, it also contains 11 grams of vegan protein, probiotics, digestive enzymes, amino acids, and plenty of vitamins and minerals.
The bottom line is no, Primal Greens is not a very good supplement, and I do NOT recommend it to my clients as a NASM Certified Nutrition Coach. However, don’t let this supplement’s mediocrity sour your view on greens supplements! There are certainly some much higher quality options out there. I’m a Certified Nutrition Coach, and I personally take the Total Living Drink. I also recommend it to all of my clients who ask for a superfood supplement recommendation.
Primal Greens Vs. Athletic Greens Comparison
Additionally, to answer the question of is it better than Athletic Greens (which is now called AG1 by the way), no it is not better than Athletic Greens. AG1 (or Athletic Greens) is more potent than Primal Greens, which earned it a higher ranking spot on my list of the best greens powders. AG1 provides 10,000 MG of superfoods per serving, whereas Primal Greens only provides about 7,000. That comparison alone gives AG1 the clear edge.
Here is a chart comparing Primal Greens vs Athletic Greens to further illustrate how Primal Greens is the inferior greens powder…
Comparison | Primal Greens | Athletic Greens | Winner |
Superfoods Per Serving | 7,200 milligrams | 10,000 milligrams | Athletic Greens |
Price Point | $49.95 | $99 | Primal Greens |
Flavor | 5/10 | 6/10 | Athletic Greens |
Probiotics | 3.5 billion CFU | 7.2 billion CFU | Athletic Greens |
Protein | 2 grams | 2 grams | Tie |
Digestive Enzymes | 675 milligrams | 154 milligrams | Primal Greens |
Overall Winner | Rating: 3.3/5 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Athletic Greens |
Bottom Line: Athletic Greens is better than Primal Greens, but I still do NOT recommend either one of these greens powders. Neither of them are potent enough to compete with the Total Living Drink, which is 50% more potent than AG1 at 15,000 milligrams worth of superfoods per serving. Think about that…for the exact same price ($99), the Total Living Drink gives you 5,000 MG more superfoods per serving compared to AG1…it’s a no brainer.
My Personal Primal Greens Results and Experience
As a Certified Nutrition Coach, I believe that the science (the nutrition facts) is the most important consideration when evaluating the supplement. Why? Because they are called the “supplement facts” for a reason…they can’t lie. With that being said, I do feel that it’s always worth it for me to personally test the supplement for myself when I am doing a review. So, I bought a bag of Primal Greens and tested it out. Here’s what happened…
The first thing I noticed when taking Primal Greens is that it helped increase my energy levels, which was a nice benefit. However, that is truly the only benefit I noticed while I was taking Primal Greens, and I took the supplement for two weeks. Let me repeat that…after taking Primal Greens for two weeks, the only actual health benefit I experienced was improved energy levels. That’s pretty sad. If all I wanted was more energy, I’d just drink a cup of coffee.
Generally with greens powder supplements, what I am looking for is a noticeable change in my workouts in terms of athletic performance, a significant improvement in my digestive health and overall gastrointestinal function, and improved cognitive function. These are the kinds of benefits you can get from a top shelf greens powder, and you start to notice them in a matter of days. Primal Greens did not produce those benefits for me.
Lastly, I wanted to touch on the taste and texture quickly. The Primal Greens taste is absolutely awful. I tried to mask the taste by mixing it with juice instead of water, and that did seem to help. However, the texture is so bad, that I ultimately just could not get myself to take the supplement for any longer than two weeks. I was originally planning on taking Primal Greens for a full month, but I literally could not get through it.
Bottom Line: Based on my negative personal experience with Primal Greens as well as my analysis of the Supplement Facts Panel as a Certified Nutrition Coach, I would never recommend this supplement to any of my clients or readers. It did not produce very many benefits for me at all, tasted horrible, and is literally half as potent nutritionally speaking when compared to my top recommended greens powder.
If you want to learn more about the greens powder I recommend to my clients (and take myself), check out my review of it here: Total Living Drink Review
Are there any Primal Greens coupon codes or promo discount vouchers?
Unfortunately, there are currently no Primal Greens coupon codes available. If we happen to come across any promo codes, we will certainly add them into this review. However, to be quite honest, we still would not recommend Primal Greens even if we had a discount code to offer you.
What does Primal Greens do?
What does Primal Greens do for you? Primal Greens contains a combination of superfoods, herbs, and algae that is designed to provide you with your daily dose of vegetables in a fast and easy way. Over time, regular consumption of green superfoods improves digestion, immune system health, and gastrointestinal function…you just need to make sure you pick one that is potent enough to produce these benefits!
Frankly, as a Nutrition Coach, the supplement I most commonly recommend to my clients is a superfood powder supplement. The reason for this is because it really doesn’t matter what your health goals or fitness goals are…everyone can stand to benefit from a superfood supplement because they can do so much for you and your body. Yes, it’s true that I don’t recommend this supplement in particular, but a really high quality one can be life changing.
Greens supplements are truly the ultimate health solution. Using the Total Living Drink, I have experienced benefits in almost every area of my body including digestive health, immune system function, cognitive function, weight loss goals, and plenty more. Many of my clients have reported experiencing similar benefits as well, which is something I love to see.
Primal Greens ingredients list
Here are the primary ingredients in the Primal Greens formula:
- Alfalfa leaf
- Wheat grass
- Spinach
- Spirulina
- Kale
- Beet
- Shitake mushrooms
- Probiotics
- Carrot
- Celery
- Acerola cherry extract
- Broccoli
- Coconut juice
- Ashwagandha root
- Ginger root
- Cinnamon bark
- Green tea leaf
- Korean ginseng root
- Green bell pepper
- Turmeric root
- Enzyme treated stevia extract
- Digestive enzymes
- Organic mushroom blend
- Probiotic blend
Superfood, Antioxidant and Mushroom Blend
The superfood, antioxidant and mushroom blend is the most important blend in the entire formula. What makes a high quality greens powder is this: high dosages of high quality, non gmo, organic green superfood ingredients. The cornerstone of every green powder formula is the superfood blend itself. Your most important consideration is what superfoods it contains, and how potent the blend is.
The Primal Harvest greens powder offers a superfood antioxidant and mushroom blend containing some excellent ingredients including Spirulina, Wheat Grass, Spinach, coconut juice, shiitake mushroom, green tea leaf, apple fiber, naturally occurring Vitamin C, and many more. In terms of the quality of the nutrients, the superfood antioxidant and mushroom blend is great. However, the overall potency of the blend is only 5,000 milligrams, which is simply far too weak. I’d like to see it be literally twice as potent. I’d also like to see a more diverse mushroom blend. The mushroom blend is pretty weak compared to the higher end green drinks. Usually there’s at least 5 mushrooms in a superfood powder’s mushroom blend.
Additionally, Primal Harvest failed in a major way…the product is missing what many believe to be the single most powerful superfood on the market, which is Chlorella. Clinical studies have shown that Chlorella can help produce a wide array of health benefits including improvements with regard to immune function, your digestive system, blood pressure, cholesterol, and even weight management in some cases…so yes, leaving out Chlorella was a big mistake by Primal Harvest.
Most greens supplement powders include chlorella, and they tend to have much more naturally occurring essential nutrients and essential vitamins in the formula as a result…and you can not underestimate the importance of essential vitamins. This is an epic fail on the company’s part in my opinion because as I said before, the superfood antioxidant and mushroom blend is always the most important blend, and in this case, it’s really just a major let down. Here’s an explanation of why essential vitamins are so important…
Essential Vitamins
Essential nutrients, including essential vitamins, are substances that the body cannot produce in sufficient quantities or not at all, and therefore, they must be obtained through the diet. These nutrients play crucial roles in various physiological functions, supporting overall health and well-being. Here are some key reasons why these nutrients are important in your diet:
- Cellular Function: These nutrients are involved in the fundamental processes that take place within cells. They contribute to cellular structure, function, and communication, ensuring the proper functioning of tissues and organs.
- Energy Production: Many of these nutrients are essential for the conversion of food into energy. For example, B-vitamins play a vital role in metabolic processes, helping convert carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into energy that the body can use.
- Immune System Support: Certain vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc, play critical roles in supporting the immune system. They contribute to the body’s ability to fight off infections and maintain immune function.
- Bone Health: Nutrients like calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin K are crucial for maintaining strong and healthy bones. Calcium is a major component of bones, while vitamin D and K play roles in calcium absorption and bone mineralization.
- Blood Clotting: Vitamin K is essential for proper blood clotting. It helps activate proteins that are necessary for the blood to clot appropriately when needed, preventing excessive bleeding.
- Antioxidant Defense: Certain vitamins, such as vitamin C and vitamin E, act as antioxidants. They help protect cells from oxidative stress by neutralizing free radicals, which can damage cells and contribute to aging and various diseases.
- Neurological Function: Essential nutrients, including various vitamins and minerals, play crucial roles in neurological function. For example, B-vitamins are involved in neurotransmitter synthesis, contributing to proper nerve function and signaling.
- Heart Health: Nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, potassium, and magnesium contribute to cardiovascular health by supporting normal blood pressure, reducing inflammation, and maintaining proper heart rhythm.
- Vision Support: Vitamin A is essential for maintaining healthy vision. It plays a critical role in the function of the retina and is necessary for the synthesis of visual pigments.
- Growth and Development: Many of these nutrients are particularly important during periods of growth, such as childhood, adolescence, and pregnancy. Adequate nutrition supports proper growth, development, and maintenance of tissues and organs.
- Hormone Production: They additionally contribute to the production of hormones, which regulate various physiological processes in the body, including metabolism, mood, and reproductive function.
- Skin Health: Nutrients like vitamin C and vitamin E are important for skin health. They contribute to collagen synthesis, protect the skin from damage, and promote overall skin integrity.
- Prevention of Deficiency Diseases: A deficiency in essential nutrients can lead to various deficiency diseases. For example, vitamin C deficiency can result in scurvy, while vitamin D deficiency can lead to conditions like rickets.
Nutrient Dense Natural Herbs & Extracts
The second key component with greens powders is the dosage of the nutrient dense natural herbs and extracts blend, which comes in at an overall potency of 2,200 milligrams per serving in this case. I see a very similar situation with the nutrient dense natural herbs blend as I do with the first one…excellent ingredient selection including green tea extract, wheat grass, acerola cherry extract, green bell pepper, apple fiber, alfalfa leaf, Korean ginseng root, ashwagandha root, ginger root, vitamin E, vitamin C, and turmeric root, but low overall potency.
Again, with greens powders, it doesn’t matter how high quality the ingredients are if the dosages are not large enough! The Primal Greens formula has that low dosage problem occurring way too often throughout the nutrition facts panel. This nutrient dense natural herbs blend is simply not potent enough to produce actual health benefits if you ask me. Nutrient dense herbs are specifically very good for your immune health, which is why this blend is such a disappointment. Everyone wants to improve their immune health, but the dosage of this blend just isn’t strong enough to get the job done in my opinion.
Digestive Complex
Here we have a very underrated and often overlooked component of any greens powder formula – the digestive complex. This digestive complex provides about 675 milligrams worth of digestive enzymes including Protease, Lipase, Cellulase, cinnamon root, enzyme treated stevia extract, and more. Primal Harvest did a great job here making sure to include a significant digestive enzyme component, which should help produce noticeable digestive health benefits.
If you overload your body with nutrients, the simple fact is that it will not be able to properly digest and absorb them all on its own. Naturally, some of the nutrients will go to waste. However, you can easily prevent this from happening using a digestive complex. They help to break down the fruits and vegetables, which allows your body to more properly digest and absorb the nutrients, making them a key aspect of all greens powders.
Probiotic Blend
Probiotics are extremely important when it comes to gut health and gastrointestinal function as a whole. Unfortunately, in the case of the Primal Greens powder, you’re only getting 3.5 billion CFU worth of probiotics per serving in the probiotic blend. That may sound like a large number, but in reality, it’s only about one tenth of what you should be getting. Primal Harvest really skimped on this probiotic blend. Top shelf greens powders contain a heck of a lot more probiotics than this.
Probiotics and digestive enzymes are both tremendously helpful when it comes to nutrient absorption and gut health. First, digestive enzymes help break down the phytonutrients so that your digestive system can properly process them. Secondly, probiotics improve your gut health and microbiome, which significantly enhances nutrient absorption. So these two elements really are crucial because they work together to make sure none of the nutrients you are consuming go to waste, and they drastically improve and support gut health. It’s unfortunate to see such a weak probiotic blend in this particular case.
Primal Greens dosage: How much Primal Greens should you take & when?
As per the instructions on the Primal Harvest Primal Greens jar, you only need to take one serving of the Primal Greens powder per day in order to reap the benefits. They do not specify when to take the dosage, but it’s my opinion that greens powders are best taken in the morning because they can help provide you with energy throughout the day. With top shelf greens powders, they help improve energy levels, exercise performance, gut health, brain health, immune system function, and more on a daily basis. Therefore, it’s nice to be able to experience those health benefits throughout the days opposed to taking the powder at the end of the day.
Primal Greens pros and cons
Here are the benefits and side effects of the Primal Greens powder supplement…
Primal Greens benefits
Primal Greens should be able to produce some pretty solid benefits with long term usage based on the fact that you’re getting over 7,000 milligrams worth of superfoods and herbs with every serving you take. Like I have said before, 7,000 MG is not a lot, especially when compared to superior supplements…but that doesn’t mean it will be completely ineffective.
Keep in mind, 7,000 milligrams per serving is less than half as potent as our top ranked greens powder, which is the main reason we don’t recommend Primal Greens. With that said, 7,000 MG is still nothing to scoff at. Primal Greens can produce benefits including improved digestion, immune system function and overall immune health, gut health, brain function, and energy levels.
Again, these benefits may be hard to come by seeing as how the formula does not contain enough essential nutrients overall in my opinion, but it’s possible you could experience some minor benefits. If you want life changing benefits, you need much higher dosages of essential nutrients, and you’re just not getting that here. The formula contains a large quantity of essential nutrients, but the dosages are too small. As you go down the list of the various blends, each blend of essential nutrients gets weaker and weaker.
I really could talk for hours about how many benefits superfood supplements in general can produce, but I won’t waste your time. This has been my area of expertise for ten years, so I get kind of nerdy when it comes to nutrition. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment on my YouTube channel!
Primal Greens side effects
Primal Greens does not contain anything that is known to cause side effects. The formula is 100% natural herbs, algae, vegetables, etc. It’s highly unlikely for side effects to occur. You may experience mild stomach issues such as discomfort or stomach cramps with your first couple of servings, but that’s about it. However, if this side effect persists, you should stop taking the supplement and consult your doctor.
It’s important to know that this is just a dietary supplement, not an FDA approved product. The Food And Drug Administration does not care enough to approve natural supplements like green drinks, which is a shame because these products are truly amazing. If you’re waiting for one of them to get FDA approval, you’ll be waiting forever because these supplements are not intended to treat or prevent any sort of disease.
Primal Greens complaints & praise (info from real Primal Greens customer reviews)
This section is typically where we would examine customer reviews in order to factor user experience into our review. However, in order to do this, we need a trusted third party website from which to obtain data (we usually use Amazon or GNC).
Since Primal Greens is not listed on Amazon or GNC, we’re going to have to write this section based off of the reviews that are posted directly on the Primal Harvest website, which we can’t be sure are trustworthy. It’s still worth taking a look at them, but I’d like to remind you at this time to make sure you stay focused on the nutrition panel as opposed to consumer feedback.
There are a total of 212 Primal Greens reviews on the Primal Harvest website at the time of writing, and yet there are zero negative reviews…in fact, all of the reviews contain 5-star ratings. This seems a little strange, so we’re not going to factor this into our conclusion. In general, it is a good idea always make sure you pay closer attention to the nutrition facts as opposed to the customer feedback…reviews can lie, but the supplement facts panel can not! I’m NOT saying that the reviews on the Primal Harvest website are fake, I’m just saying we can’t be 100% sure they are not.
To dive even deeper into what consumers are saying about the product, let’s take a look at this YouTube review of Primal Greens posted by a user named 31TV, who has over 27,000 subscribers. In this video, he shares his personal experience and personal results with the product. He also taste tests the product right in front of you, which is pretty interesting…
Is Primal Greens good or bad? My conclusion
Based on how weak the Primal Greens powder superfood blend itself is compared to the truly top shelf green drink supplements, I do not recommend Primal Greens. Additionally, as I talked about before, I had a very negative personal experience with the product. Check out some of our top ranked green powders instead!
Where to buy Primal Greens at the best price
First of all, how much does Primal Greens cost? Let’s take a look at where to buy Primal Greens & get the cheapest deal on prices. We checked the Primal Harvest website as well as several other third party sellers of the product and found that the lowest Primal Greens price can be found on Amazon.
References
- Primal Greens Reviews on Amazon.com
- Primal Greens Reviews on Walmart.com
- Potential of Chlorella as a Dietary Supplement to Promote Human Health
- Beneficial Effects of Spirulina Consumption on Brain Health
- The Medical Use of Wheatgrass: Review of the Gap Between Basic and Clinical Applications
- Effect of Spinach, a High Dietary Nitrate Source, on Arterial Stiffness and Related Hemodynamic Measures: A Randomized, Controlled Trial in Healthy Adults
I’m not just a supplement analyst. I’m an extremely qualified one! I am a Certified Nutrition Coach (CNC) and actually received my certification directly from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. I am also a Nutrition & Wellness Consultant, certified by the American Fitness Professionals Association (AFPA).
