I joined the cult of AG1
The good, the bad, and the absolutely insane
I have an unofficial rule for myself that a health product needs to cost $1 per serving or less for me to consider adopting it into my daily routine. This equates to about $30 for 30 servings or $1 a day.
So as curious as I was about the elite greens powder that is AG1, I never really considered it because it is, wait for it, $88 USD per 30 servings. For Canadians, this equates to about $125 per serving or roughly $4.50 a day.
Then one day I was scrolling through Facebook when I saw an ad for a 30 day supply of AG1, 5 travel packs, a shaker cup, a canister, and a Lululemon crossbody all for $79 USD.
What the heck, I thought. Let’s splurge.
AG1 is an all-in-one supplement offering “foundational nutritional support”
They’ve been around for over a decade (having previously gone by the name “Athletic Greens”), though they’ve blown up in recent years largely through their sponsorship of popular podcasters and creators.
Joe Rogan. Chris Williamson. Rich Roll. All of them are sponsored by AG1, and all of them happily sing its praises. Andrew Huberman claims he’s been taking it since 2012, long before they were a sponsor of his podcast, because it is that good.
But I didn’t want to just take Andrew Huberman’s word for it. I decided to take AG1 for two months so I could find out for myself, once and for all -
is AG1 worth it?
~~AG1 Quick Facts~~
AG1 comes in the form of a green powder that dissolves in water
It’s recommended to consume in the morning every day on an empty stomach
It contains 75+ ingredients
It has over 50,000 5 star reviews
The Good
What did I like about AG1? Well, more than I thought.
It tastes good and mixes well
You would be surprised at how many greens powders you have to choke down with gritty fragments sloshing between your teeth. But not AG1.
AG1 dissolves easily in water with minimal grit. It is nutty with a hint of apple, light on the greens taste, and remarkably pleasant. Every morning, I mix my AG1 with the juice of 1 lemon, water, and a splash of coconut water, and I genuinely look forward to drinking it everyday.
I do have to mention that it is not the best tasting greens powder - that would be Bloom hands-down. But it is definitely a 9/10.
The vitamin and mineral formulation is solid
Many conventional nutritional supplements on the market today are poorly formulated. There are two main reasons for this.
Companies use the cheaper form of nutrients to save costs. These forms are often synthetic and not absorbed well in the body. If you are not a natural methylator, you may not absorb them at all.
Companies only include the RDA. The recommended daily amount (RDA) of a vitamin is the minimum amount you need each day to not develop disease. It is not the amount needed for optimum health - that is usually much higher.
AG1 does neither of these things. They use the most effective forms of vitamins and nutrients at doses high enough to positively impact your body. They claim they’ve invested a lot into formulating the product and by all accounts, it appears they have.
Tip: If you’re looking for a quick way of figuring out how well-formulated a multivitamin is, look at the B vitamins. If you see B12 in the form of methylcobalamin (instead of cyanocobalamin) and Folate in the form of 5-MTHF (instead of folic acid), it’s probably pretty good.
I do have more energy
One thing I noticed pretty soon after taking AG1 was that I had more energy. This is something that AG1 markets quite extensively, leaning heavily in to the fact that 97% of people report having more energy after 30 days. I was part of that 97%.
Now whether this was from the B-vitamins, the zinc, or their magic combination of 75+ ingredients, we’ll never know. But since taking AG1, I consistently have more energy and crash less in the afternoon.
Their customer service is top tier
My first AG1 package actually got lost in the mail. Their website told me my package had been delivered to my house, but alas, it had not. Great, I thought. Now I have to get in touch with their customer service team and grovel.
Turns out, I did not have to grovel. Their CS rep (who was, by the way, a regular sounding human who I called and not an AI chat bot or annoying automated email system) was extremely kind and understanding. She apologized profusely, then sent me another package with an additional 5 free travel packs. When you’re ordering an expensive product like AG1 online, having great customer service definitely gives you peace of mind.
Then eventually my first package showed up and I ended up with two of everything which was very fun.
The Bad
So yes, there’s a lot to love about AG1. But let’s talk about what I could do without.
It may cause stomach upset for a week (or more)
AG1 contains probiotics. If you’re not used to taking probiotics, you may want to be close to a washroom for a few days. Probiotics are notorious for stomach upset and getting things moving in a way that can be uncomfortable. Your body should get used to it, but it takes time.
It’s also recommended you take AG1 on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. I presume this is to increase the efficacy of the probiotics, but multivitamins on an empty stomach don’t fare well for most people. I have a vivid memory of being doubled over over the toilet of my high school’s washroom one morning because I took a Centrum on an empty stomach and thought I was going to die. AG1 didn’t make me feel like this, but it was close.
For the record, I did eventually stop taking AG1 on an empty stomach because I just couldn’t make it work with my routine, and I was tired of feeling sick all the time.
It isn’t really all-in-one
This is probably my biggest gripe with AG1 - it is not an all-in-one supplement.
Ask any health expert what supplements every human should be taking in 2025, and they’ll probably say some version of the same thing:
Magnesium: because our soil is depleted and it's hard to get from food
Omega 3s: because we consume too many omega 6s and most people aren’t eating oily fish everyday
Vitamin D: because we all sit inside all day then wear sunscreen when we go outside
Creatine: because it's highly beneficial and impossible to get enough from food
Of this list, AG1 only includes magnesium. That means, if you really want to cover your bases, you’ll need to take 3 supplements in addition to AG1. This kind of defeats the whole point of an all-in-one supplement.
It’s also worth mentioning that AG1 knows this, at least to some extent, because they sell Vitamin D3 and Omega 3s separately. Strange, but okay.
It didn’t change my life
When you start taking a supplement like AG1, you expect it to change your life. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true - deep down, there is some part of you that is expecting this product to have some sort of lasting transcendental effect. Or at the very least, something you notice.
AG1, unfortunately, did not have that magic. Yes, I have more energy. And while I do feel better in other ways, it's hard to say whether that's from AG1 or something else. Is my skin better because of AG1 or because I changed my skincare routine? Am I less anxious because of AG1 or because I’m meditating?
In tech, we often say the true measure of a product is how upset someone would be if you took it away from them.
If someone took AG1 away from me, I would buy a zinc supplement, maybe some B vitamins, and soldier on.
If it did change my life, I wouldn’t have known why
AG1 has 75+ ingredients, which sounds great in theory, except that 1) if you feel better, you don’t exactly know why and 2) many of those ingredients are in such small amounts, their effects are negligible.
Sure, AG1 has reishi mushroom powder and hawthorn berry extract, but how much? Enough to do anything? If it did anything, would I know? Could I isolate improvements in my body to a single nutrient? Does it matter?
Supplements like AG1 profit off of you not knowing exactly what it is that’s improving your body. Because if you did, you wouldn’t need 75+ ingredients - you would only need one.
The Absolutely Insane
There is some good. There is some bad. But then there are two things about AG1 that are kind of nuts.
The cost
AG1 is, in my opinion, a glorified multivitamin. The cost is not reflective of the quality (though it is high quality), but rather, their positioning as a unique one-of-a-kind foundational nutritional supplement. They have put themselves in a category of one, and so they charge whatever they want for it.
But as someone who has tried dozens of supplements over the years, carefully attuned to how each one affects their body, I can confidently say that you can do equally amazing things for your body at a much lower price point.
Start by getting some bloodwork done and addressing your nutrient deficiencies. And if you’re really looking for “foundational support”, you can pick up a multivitamin by Thorne - it’s $33 for 30 servings and has a very similar makeup of vitamins and minerals as AG1.
The marketing
Finally, we can’t talk about AG1 without talking about their marketing.
AG1 has built a brand around high-performance and elitism. They’ve developed partnerships with the most influential people in the health and wellness sphere. Most of all, they have convinced you that the answer to your problem lies in a greens powder that is somehow unique and different to anything that has ever existed before it.
Too often, I have been fooled into thinking the answer to my health woes was in a product, and with the exception of addressing actual nutritional deficiencies, it almost never is. Instead, I hold firm in my belief that the best things you can do for your body are free or low-cost:
Exercise regularly
Get 8 hours of sleep
Manage stress
Eat whole foods
Marketers create problems so they can sell their solutions to you. Our culture of consumerism has you believing that if you just buy the next thing, the next product, the next supplement, your problems will be solved.
The more likely scenario is you need to put your phone down, go for a walk, and not eat so much processed food. Stop stressing over things you can’t control. Maybe have a smoothie.
As much as I wanted to love AG1, I think it represents a lot of what is wrong in the wellness space. It perpetuates a stereotype that you need to spend money to be healthy, that wellness is only for those who can afford it.
But in my opinion, this isn’t true.
Wellness is for everyone, health is more affordable than you think, and a product will not change your life - the only person who can do that is you.
A very senseless tragedy took place in Vancouver this past weekend. It sits heavy on the city and my heart. While I won’t pretend like I have the words for something like this, I (and so many others) send our love to the Filipino Canadian community. Life is so short and precious. Tell your friends you love them.
xoxo Kelly