Years ago, I had a roommate who worked out every day and would also consume Dionysian amounts of Entenmann’s cake. My kind of guy. We got along, in part, because of a shared conviction that the pursuit of physical fitness didn’t preclude putting away vast quantities of processed sugar. Not to brag, but in my prime I could eat an entire family size package of Chips Ahoy as a post-run snack. The glories of youth.
But you get older and, you’d like to think, wiser. When I recently saw my former roommate, he mentioned that he’d started taking the popular daily supplement powder AG1 as a form of nutritional insurance. He is not alone; the brand was valued at $1.2 billion in 2022 and has been dubbed a “unicorn” in an overcrowded supplement market.
Part of this success can be attributed to seductive messaging: the AG1 website tells us that it is a “science-driven supplement that supports physical health and mental performance” and is “designed to replace multiple supplements by providing a comprehensive blend of nutrients in…
