Garden of Life has long been an innovative nutritional supplement company, respected by retailers and trusted by consumers. Recently they have launched a line of Sport Performance products which both adhere to their long-standing vision and break new ground in the Sports Performance category. As they say, “From pre-workout and everywhere in between, Garden of Life has you covered. Here’s a breakdown of the hottest, cleanest products to ever hit the sports nutrition industry.”

There is a pre-workout product, a post-workout (recovery) product, and two protein powders, one whey and one vegan. With the exception of the whey protein powder, all products are vegan. All products are also gluten free and soy free. The entire line is Certified USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, and certified by NSF for Sport and Informed-Choice for Sport. These are pretty impressive credentials! The latter two guarantee that all supplements and ingredients are void of athletic banned substances and that the products have been regularly tested for prohibited substances.

Pre-Workout

Organic Plant-Based Energy + Focus, the pre-workout powder, was chosen to boost your workout intensity. This formula works in 3 main ways. 1) Boosting energy. A blend of organic nitrate-containing kale, spinach and beets combined with whole food methycobalamin helps to boost Nitric Oxide (NO) levels, promoting healthy blood flow (and thus oxygen) to muscles and supporting ATP energy. NO also helps your body to use stored glucose for an energy source. This product comes in a sugar-free version and an organic sugar-containing version for an extra glucose (energy) source. 2) Sharpening focus. Caffeine in a pre-workout lets you work out harder while reducing your body’s perception of fatigue and soreness. The caffeine in this blend comes from organic coffeeberry and along with the roughly 85 mg of caffeine it provides, a host of beneficial antioxidants like chlorogenic acid are also present. 3) Delays the onset of muscle soreness. High antioxidant Vitamin C-containing amla and baobab help to prevent free radical assault on tissues during exercise, thus preventing tissue soreness and muscle inflammation. This product is recommended to be taken 20 minutes prior to workout.

Recovery

Organic Plant-Based Recovery is recommended to be taken immediately after workout, within 15-30 minutes. This powder supports your body in two ways. 1) It speeds up muscle recovery, and 2) helps naturally reduce fatigue and soreness following exertion. Glucose is needed by muscles as an energy source to repair and build new tissue. Protein added to carbohydrates (glucose) gives a sustained release of energy for repair. An optimal ratio of carbs to protein (in grams) is 4:1. This product features carbohydrates sourced from organic orange juice and cane sugar. The protein is organic pea protein along with pea protein magnesium. Also rounding out this formula is a high-antioxidant fruit blend to assist with fighting inflammation and promoting tissue recovery. Organic Plant-Based Recovery comes in organic blackberry-lemonade flavor.

Organic Plant-Based Protein comes in vanilla and chocolate flavors and provides 30 grams of protein per serving along with 5 grams each of branch chain amino acids and glutamine/glutamic acid. This product is designed to refuel and repair muscles. The protein sources are organic pea protein, organic cranberry protein, and a blend of sprouted legumes which some people will recognize from Garden of Life’s other protein products. Included is an organic muscle recovery blend of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory fruits and turmeric. Last but not least is 2 billion CFU of Bifidobacterium lactis BI-04 for immune support during heavy exercise. These protein powders are sweetened with only organic stevia.

Certified Grass Fed Whey Protein is a special product. Almost all products labelled as “grass fed” are not sourced from cows fed exclusively on grass. Instead they may be only primarily or even partially fed on grass, with animal feed rounding out the animals’ diet due to weather or crowding issues. Garden of Life searched exhaustively for a source of truly grass fed whey and found it in the lush fields of Ireland. The unique, mild climate of Ireland provides nutritious grass year round for pasture and the cows are able to live outside grazing on the abundance of greenery. Garden of Life has found small, sustainable Irish farms* which offer 100% true grass-fed whey for this protein powder. This whey is also completely hormone free and antibiotic free, is undenatured, cold-processed, micro-filtered, and non-GMO. The cows are also guaranteed free from BSE (mad cow disease). One serving contains 24 grams of protein from whey isolate with some milk protein added to provide beneficial immunoglobulin compounds. This product is available in vanilla or chocolate and is recommended to be taken within one hour post workout for maximum benefits.

Garden of Life Sport has also launched some protein bars, featuring 20 grams of protein from plant sources. They are vegan, gluten free, and soy free.

*For those concerned about the carbon footprint of importing whey from Ireland, please see the Truly Grass Fed website (at the bottom under Product Questions) where they say: “Ireland is one of the lowest emitters of carbon in Europe and the world for milk production, and [Ireland’s] grass-based dairy system means that Truly Grass Fed milk can be produced and shipped to the US at 1.26kg CO2e compared to the FAO’s figure for milk production on a US dairy farm of 1.8kg CO2e.”

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