I want to tell you exactly why Claro Greens exists because it's not the kind of origin story you usually hear from a supplement brand.
I'm Abran. I'm 19 years old and I'm from Chicago. About a year ago I started taking my health seriously for the first time. More energy. Better focus. Stronger immune system. I wanted the kind of foundational daily nutrition that busy people struggle to get from food alone.
So I did what everyone does. I bought AG1.
Seventy nine dollars a month on subscription. One green powder. Endorsed by seemingly every podcast host and health creator I followed. It had to be worth it right.
I used it for two months. And during those two months something kept bothering me that I couldn't quite put into words at first.
The Moment I Started Asking Questions
It started when I tried to research the specific ingredients in AG1 to understand what I was actually consuming. I pulled up the label expecting to find clear dosage information for each ingredient. What I found instead was something called a proprietary blend.
If you're not familiar with proprietary blends here's what they mean in practice. The brand lists the ingredients inside the blend but not how much of each individual ingredient is present. They give you the total weight of the blend and a list of what's in it. But the individual amounts are hidden.
AG1 has multiple proprietary blends covering most of its key ingredients. So when you see spirulina on the label you have no idea if there's 50mg of it or 500mg of it. When you see ashwagandha listed you can't verify whether it's a functional dose or a token amount added for marketing purposes.
I kept asking myself why. If the formula is as good as the marketing says why hide the dosages. The only answers I could come up with were not reassuring.
Either the dosages are too low to be meaningful and the brand knows that. Or the formula is not as unique as the marketing implies and full transparency would reveal that competitors could easily match it. Neither answer made me feel good about paying $79 a month on subscription for something I couldn't fully evaluate.
At $948 a year I felt I deserved to know exactly what I was consuming. AG1 disagreed apparently.
What I Did Next
I spent the next several weeks learning everything I could about supplement manufacturing, ingredient sourcing, organic certification, and the actual cost structure of a greens powder. What I found was eye opening.
The cost to manufacture a premium organic greens powder at a professional GMP certified facility with fully transparent ingredient dosing is a fraction of what brands like AG1 charge. The markup between manufacturing cost and retail price in the premium greens category is substantial. Substantially more than what you'd expect if the price was driven primarily by ingredient quality.
The difference in price between AG1 and what I knew I could source was not justified by ingredient quality alone. It was justified by marketing spend. By celebrity contracts. By podcast sponsorships. By the kind of brand building that creates the perception of premium without necessarily delivering the substance of premium.
I decided to do something about it.
Building Claro Greens
I sourced a formula with 23 certified organic ingredients from a GMP certified manufacturer in the United States. Every single ingredient is listed with its exact milligram amount on the label and on our website. Nothing is hidden behind a proprietary blend. Nothing is obscured. You know exactly what you're getting and exactly how much of it.
I chose a heat stable probiotic called Bacillus Coagulans instead of the standard Lactobacillus strains that most greens powders use because I learned that Lactobacillus strains have poor viability at room temperature and in stomach acid. Bacillus Coagulans is a spore forming probiotic that survives the manufacturing process, survives room temperature storage, and survives your stomach acid to actually reach your gut alive.
I added organic ashwagandha because cortisol management is one of the most important and underrated aspects of daily wellness especially for people under chronic stress. I added organic matcha for clean focused energy through L-theanine instead of synthetic caffeine that spikes and crashes. I added organic turmeric for natural anti-inflammatory support.
And I priced it at $55 per month on subscription. Not because I had to. Because I wanted to. Because the person working hard and trying to take care of their health deserves access to a premium product without being charged $80 for the privilege of not knowing what's in it.
That's $660 a year versus AG1's $948. $288 back in your pocket every single year. For a product that hides nothing.
What Vital Blends Is
Vital Blends is the greens powder I wish had existed when I first started looking. Fully organic. Fully transparent. Genuinely premium ingredients at a price that doesn't require you to question whether it's worth it every month.
It's also a promise. Every product Claro Greens ever releases will list every ingredient with every dosage amount. No proprietary blends. No hiding. No trusting us without giving you every reason to.
I quit AG1 after two months because I couldn't justify paying $80 a month to a brand that wouldn't tell me what was in the product I was putting in my body every day. I built Claro Greens so you don't have to make that same calculation.
Try it risk free for 30 days at vitalblends.co. If it's not everything I've described here we'll refund every penny.
— Abran, Founder Claro Greens Chicago, Illinois