I've been wanting to take some sort of powder with green goodness in it, plus antioxidants, omega fats, probiotics, and ideally protein all in one.

Vega One seems to have it all in some quantity but is crazy expensive! As a much cheaper alternative I was thinking of mixing my truenutrition.com mix

with this green superfood powder

This seems to cover almost everything in Vega except the probiotics, for WAY less. A daily serving of Vega One with 15g protein is something like $4/day! This combo is closer to $1 for a daily serving with 25g protein.

Any other ideas for creating the ultimate vegan supplement mix on the cheap?

I haven't looked into this for a while, but Now Foods made a Vega knockoff back when there was only one formulation. I remember seeing it at Natural Grocer.

I don't know if it has everything you're looking for, but Plant Fusion is pretty awesome.  It's about $24/lb at Wheatsville.

Or just eat broccoli. If you need it in powder form, you can dehydrate it and use a coffee grinder, food processor, or blender on it I suppose. It would probably be more "powerful" and cheaper than the "green" products out there.

- Steve

Jeff?? Come on.  Fruits, vegetables, blender.  You know this.

Thanks guys.

@ Wes & Megan Thanks for the recommendations!

@ Steve & Ben Yeah, yeah But I want to do both. Not sold on a totally raw-80/10/10-fruitarian diet yet, but definitely plan to get a Vitamix soon and do smoothies with whole greens daily.

I know most superfood claims may be BS, but some things like DHA are better gotten in extracts. And I'd rather have all my bases covered with this stuff, and protein, as noted by Jack Norris

Yeah, I hear ya. You want to cover your bases.

I don't go out of my way to do much nutritionally, yet I think my bases are covered pretty well. The most work I put into it is to take protein powder shakes, and that's only because I'm doing weightlifting. The rest of what I do is pretty minimal effort. In the morning, I take a DEVA one-a-day multivitamin. In the afternoon, I take a vitamin D2 supplement (Veglife Supreme Vegan D 2000IU). In the evening, I take a B-Complex supplement (a pill) and a DHA supplement (either DEVA or Ovega).

By the way, there's not a lot of evidence supporting the role of chlorophyll as a supplement. I won't say it's worthless, but probably nothing you want to be spending your money on.

There's a ton of nonsense online about so-called super foods. Please ignore them. They use words like, "powerful" or "energetic" to describe foods. It's all just "magical thinking". The web is swamped with these web sites. It's modern day alchemy, voodoo, witchcraft, whatever. Total nonsense. You won't be any better off eating them. Oh, maybe you'll lose some weight... in the wallet.

Jack Norris himself doesn't supplement with any of these "super" foods and "green powders" and such. I don't think. I recall him discussing what he takes, and it's surprisingly little.

Why I mentioned broccoli is this: Wheat Grass is bogus. I believe it was popularized by Ann Wigmore as an anti-cancer and general curative. If I recall correctly, she saw her pet dogs eating grass when they were sick, and they got better, so she figured grass must be a curative. Trouble is, maybe she didn't realize that dogs eat grass so that they can throw-up more easily. Throwing up will help the dogs remove toxic stuff from their stomachs. Dogs basically eat all kinds of things, often stuff that's not good for them. So they need a way to throw-up. My dogs throw up all the time because they ate something bad. Anyway, she also came across passages in the Bible which talked about grass curing people. And then she promoted wheat grass juicing - which by the way isn't the same as eating wheat grass. Also, she touted the fact that it was full of chlorophyll, but broccoli has more chlorophyll than wheat grass and is a food for humans, unlike wheat grass. That was why I said you should eat broccoli instead.

I don't recommend raw foods diet either. If that's what you want to do, do it. But there's no reason you couldn't be just as healthy with a non-raw-foods diet. Some nutrients you get more of when you cook the food also. And the raw-food "movement" often seems to go overboard on a lot of things, like telling vegans not to worry about supplementing with B12. Nothing wrong with raw foods, mind you. But there is something wrong when a significant number of raw-foods movement people are actively trying dissuade people from taking B12.

- Steve

The stuff Now Foods makes is called Tru Food Vegan:
http://www.amazon.com/Now-Foods-Whole-Vegan-2-2-Pound/dp/B00276BKBS
It's pretty much the same as Vega One, only at about half the price. I've had both and they taste similar and have the same nutritional specs (the serving sizes are different, so it may not be apparent.)

Plant Fusion (aka Nitro Fusion) is a protein supplement. It tastes good, but won't get you all the vitamins Vega One or Tru Food has.  

BTW, you don't need a $400 blender to make good smoothies. My $40 Osterizer does a great job.

Thanks for the tips Steve.

Thanks Erick--I found that Tru Food stuff online.

jeff, if you do go with vega one, it's typically much cheaper at sprouts than whole foods, especially if you buy the larger container (i think it's 30 oz).

also, whole foods does have a coupon in their whole deal flyer this month for $5.00 off, which actually brings it down to sprouts prices for the smaller container.

  

Cool, thanks Jen!

There are many healthy food recipes for vegans I've found in TheSeedExperience. Maybe you can try one of those too.

There's also this deal for 50% off vega online.  It's free shipping for $100 or more...so we could do an order together if people are interested.

http://shop.myvega.com/sequel-estore-us/On-Promotion-us?utm_campaign=vnews-72012&utm_medium=email&utm_source=banner&utm_content=banner0

It's while supplies last, so let me know ASAP if you're interested.

I ordered two of the Now Foods 2.2lb tubs for under $50 with free shipping on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods-Tru-Food-Supplement-Natural/dp/B005P0W3BO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1343184241&sr=8-3&keywords=now+foods+tru+food

Only a few left at that price.

Hey Jeff,

What was your opinion of the Now Foods supplement vs the Vega One?  For after my surgery, I am going to grab a couple of tubs to keep at work or for when the effort of using the blender is too much.  I also have seen Garden of Life Raw Meal as another comparison, but don't know if anyone has tried that.

Rob

I had used Vega in my smoothies for a while and decided to try the Now Foods version because of price. I thought the texture of the Now Foods version was a lot more grainy even after running it through a vitamix and had a weird after taste compared to Vega. So, I sucked it up and went back Vega.

If you've never tried Vega before, though, the Now Foods version would probably be just fine.

Yeah, I still haven't tried Vega One but I actually crave the vitaminy flavor of Now Foods Tru Food Vegan Berry flavor. I am quite happy with it but I've heard others say they prefer Vega. I'm content to pay 1/2 the price and leave the Vega alone for now, but may try it eventually.