All of our products are made with 100% natural superfoods and nothing else - here's some great reasons why.
Your superfoods probably shouldn't taste that good... 🧐
Pssst - if your superfoods taste a great as your favourite snack or smoothie, they're probably not as good for you as you'd hope.
Superfoods are nutrient-dense whole foods which provide a spectrum of different beneficial nutrients in a small spoonful. Just like their fresh food equivalents, they don't always taste amazing but that's not why we seek them out in the first place.
We enjoy superfoods for the goodness they contain and the amazing health benefits they provide.
That's why we prioritise real, clean ingredients over taste (unlike many other brands). All of our products are completely natural and so taste just as nature intended - no flavourings or additives here.
Just superfoods, nothing else - really! 😇
You may be thinking... sounds great, but why not just add something else to the blend to improve the taste; win, win - right?
Sure, we could add a few different things to the blends to make them taste as good as they are for you - other ingredients, artificial flavourings, sugar, sweeteners and so on.
However, not only would these take up precious space in the blends where an incredible superfood could provide much greater benefit, but there are some real downsides to introducing any of these too. Let's take a look.
- Artificial flavourings
The clue is in the name when it comes to artificial flavourings, they're artificially manufactured in labs and so usually contain chemicals and toxins.
As well as being non-nutritive, this means that they're an unnatural, alien substance to us. Like any artificial ingredient, this has negative consequences on the body - from disrupting gut health to causing hormonal imbalances and even creating cravings.
They bring no goodness and are purely there for flavour - plus we don't like the taste of these overly-sweet, chemical-tasting and unnatural flavours anyway!
- And even 'natural' flavourings
So if artificial flavourings are bad - natural flavourings must be good, right?
Well, it may be surprising to know that despite their "natural" origins, these flavourings may be just as bad for you as their synthetic counterparts.
Natural flavourings are extracted from nature - plant or animal products - which seems better on the surface.
However, food manufacturers often create copies of these flavourings as it is cheaper and easier than extracting from the natural source.
These compounds can be just as harmful to our health as artificial flavourings!
- Artificial ingredients
Next up is artificial ingredients. Unlike flavourings which are added to improve the taste, these are usually utilised to bring a certain ingredient to a product - in a cheaper and easier way compared with utilising the natural, whole food ingredient itself.
In superfood blends one of the most commonly added artificial ingredients is synthetic nutrients - namely vitamins and minerals. That way the product can be marketed as 'containing this' and 'providing that', whilst sneakily not mentioning that the ingredient is synthetic and unnatural.
As synthetic nutrients are much less bioavailable and so much more harder to absorb and utilise compared with their natural forms, artificial ingredients are a definite no-go for us.
They may be more expensive but natural ingredients are always better for us and provide much more potent health benefits.
- Refined sugars
One of the most obvious ways to improve a product's taste in the eyes of the food industry is to add sugar! It's cheap, easy and super accessible - with great results on making something taste much better than it does naturally.
Something we get asked all the time is do we add any refined sugar to our products? And we always answer loud and proud with 'no'!
Added and refined sugars play havoc with our health - spiking our blood sugars, causing cravings, damaging our gut and increasing the risk of chronic health conditions such as Type 2 Diabetes.
They're simply not worth the harmful risk to our health and that's why we will never add any refined sugars to our products.
- Sweeteners
Think of sweeteners as being the artificial flavourings of the sugar world.
They're not only added to bring flavour, but are often utilised to lower the calorie content of a product, making it preferable for those aiming to maintain a healthy weight (as well as being a great marketing tool too!)
There are a few issues with sweeteners, which stem from them being unnatural and synthetic.
Artificial sweetness decreases our sensitivity to natural sweetness, which can increase cravings for sweeter foods and our desire for sugar overall. That's because lots of sweeteners are hundreds and sometimes even thousands of times sweeter compared with the sweetness of sugars found naturally in foods.
When you consume these overly-sweetened products over time, your tastebuds become acclimatised to the artificially heightened sweet flavour - and your natural taste for sugar becomes dulled, creating cravings for sweeter and sweeter foods - not good!
Studies have also shown that consuming sweeteners can change the composition of gut microbiota - affecting gut health and its associated functions throughout the body.
- Emulsifiers & bulking agents
Last but not least, many food products utilise emulsifiers, stabilisers and bulking agents.
They're added to help improve the quality of the product - usually by binding the ingredients together for a better texture and appearance.
These added extras have no nutritive value and take up valuable space in products where healthful ingredients could be added instead.
We also think that it is more than possible to achieve a great texture without the need for these - simply by giving the blends a good stir!
Why not add the superfoods to a capsule you can just swallow then? 💊
There are a few great reasons why we wouldn't make our superfood blends in a capsule format.
Firstly, this would really limit the amount of each ingredient we could provide per serving.
It would also mean introducing some unwanted ingredients such as preservatives, artificial ingredients, emulsifiers and a capsule. Again, this would leave less room for the good stuff which we do want in there!
As well as this, we think that our products can bring a combination of nutrition and natural flavourings.
And if the taste in plain water alone is not for you, our superfood blends are really versatile and can be added to healthy meals and drinks, or even taken shot-style for the same convenience as a capsule.
What you will find in our products 🌱
The only ingredients you'll find in our products are those which we have included for their specific health benefits - nothing else but 100% real superfoods.
That's why we proudly display every ingredient in our products on the packaging - front and centre, not hidden away on our website.
Each ingredient brings unique health benefits as well as a perfectly balanced taste, that's natural and flavoursome.
When you use the best quality natural ingredients, they are worlds ahead in terms of both nutrition and taste.
But taste is important to us too 💚
Whilst we will never add anything to our products which would improve their flavour at a cost to your health - taste is still important to us.
We believe the secret to nutritious products which taste good too is to utilise ingredients that have a naturally pleasant flavour - as well as bringing their own unique health benefits to the table.
It's all about balance too, for instance we know that greens taste of - well - greens! - so we add a little freeze-dried pineapple and naturally sweet baobab to Clean Greens, to help balance out the earthy flavour.
For all of our products (and when developing new products) we focus on getting the taste as good as it can be, only in a completely natural way.
Less is more ✅
Cutting out the unwanted extras means that our products contain fewer ingredients compared with others. So let's talk quality over quantity.
At first glance you might think that a shorter ingredients list means there is less goodness in the product - but in fact it is almost always the other way around.
An ingredients list as long as your arm will usually come with most if not all of the harmful things we like to avoid: artificial ingredients & hidden chemicals, bulking agents, added sugar or sweeteners - and synthetic ingredients.
And just as important, including the above extras means that you get a lower dose or amount of each superfood, which is less beneficial nutritionally.
So instead of being better value for money, those superfood blends with a list of 40+ ingredients are usually worse for your health as well as your pocket.
Our superfood blends contain everything your body loves and nothing which is unwanted, unnecessary or there to cut costs. So you can sip away with confidence, knowing that you're getting just the good stuff - and the maximum benefits of natures finest superfoods.
References
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32626902/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3847730/
- https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/enjoy-food/eating-with-diabetes/food-groups/sugar-and-diabetes
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6363527/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6835893/
