Why “Five a Day” has a new recipe

Last Updated on 20th February 2024 by Caroline Haye

Possibly the best super-green food for vitiligo yet

Have you had success using super-green foods as part of a vitiligo recovery or maintenance programme? If so, you are in good company. Chances are, you may have tried a number of different brands, or else mixed your own juice or shakes. But, if you use the same pre-blended brand as me, you might wonder why “Five a Day” has a new recipe all of a sudden. Well, in this post, I am going to explain how this came about… And why I think that the updated product could be the best combination of green ingredients for vitiligo yet.

Green foods, past and present

The fact that green vegetables are good for us is hardly news. We have been including them in our diet since neolithic times, although the varieties available back then would have looked and tasted a lot different from those we eat today. Cabbage, for example, started out as a wild plant food. It was eaten by our hunter-gatherer ancestors long before humankind started to cultivate it some thousand years or more ago. The ancient Romans regarded it as a luxury food and used it for a wide range of medicinal purposes, from treating headaches to preventing hangovers. And the popularity of cabbage dishes like coleslaw, kimchi and sauerkraut today is a sign of its enduring reputation as both a tasty and functional food.

Having said that, green veggies have (unfairly, in my opinion) suffered a bad rap for generations. Especially when you compare them to other, more tempting foods. Not everyone finds vegetables as appetising as fruit… or chocolate cake. Parents through the ages have had to nag their children to eat their greens. And some adults only include them in their own diet because they know they should. Not because they actively enjoy them.

Whether we choose to eat a healthy diet or not, we are certainly more knowledgeable about nutrition today than ever before. And science has duly stamped its official seal of approval onto the simple wisdom of our forefathers by exhorting us all to “eat our five a day” if we want to achieve and maintain good health. This is obviously positive, if rather unambitious, advice. But at least it’s a starting point. In reality, eating five servings of fruit and veg a day is probably barely enough to keep the average person in averagely good condition. And nowhere near enough for those of us who are looking for therapeutic effects from our food… Which is where supplementation comes in.

The rise of “super” foods

When health food shops and juice bars first came on the scene around the middle of last century, their vitamin-rich drinks mainly featured fruit juices. This was largely because of their high levels of vitamin C and naturally tempting sweetness. But vegetable-based juices and shakes have really come into their own since then, delivering even broader nutritional benefits on a fraction of the sugar content. So now you are as likely to ask for a kale and cucumber smoothie in a juice bar as a banana and pineapple one… Especially as the addition of a little Stevia, vanilla, coconut nectar or kiwi fruit can turn an otherwise evil-looking concoction into green heaven in a glass.

If you juice your own vegetables you’ll know that all that shopping, washing, chopping and extracting can be time consuming. But at least you have the advantage of getting a fresh product at the end of it… As long as the produce itself was fresh to start with (and preferably organic). But you don’t always end up with whole food goodness in your glass because some of the fibre and pulp are left behind. And that means you can be missing out on powerful components of the whole food, like phytonutrients and prebiotics. This is why, in the interests of nutritional integrity as well as convenience, freeze-dried powders have become a popular choice.

Previous “Five a Day” Recipes

The first green food powder supplement I ever tried was a blend of approximately 15 ingredients, prominently featuring spirulina, chlorella, barleygrass and wheatgrass. Although it made no claims as a vitiligo treatment, it became an important part of the nutritional routine that led to my re-pigmentation. It has undergone a couple of reformulations since then, changing its name to Five a Day and then to Five a Day+V (indicating its vegan credentials). And throughout this time – ten years so far – I have taken at east one dose daily. And I have continued to reap a wide range of perceived health benefits. The most obvious of these, I’m happy to say, has been the long-term maintenance of my vitiligo recovery.

The newest “Five a Day”: a classic green recipe

The newest version of Five a Day+V nearly didn’t see the light of day. Instead of undergoing another relatively minor reformulation, it was actually due to be replaced by another product called SuperGreen Berry Blend. (Here is the link if you want to compare ingredients). This is a significantly different combination of greens, herbs and other adaptogenic foods… A really well formulated blend for someone in “normal” health, but containing several ingredients that are so far unproven as suitable for people with vitiligo or other autoimmune conditions.

On hearing about this I contacted Xenca, the makers of both products, and flagged up a possible issue. Namely, that the immune-boosting herbs in their Berry Blend might over-stimulate the immune system in some individuals with autoimmune disorders. No one actually knows if this would be the case. But I’m happy to say that Xenca were really receptive to the feedback. Especially as they are aware a lot of their customers use Five a Day+V as part of an anti-vitiligo protocol. So they agreed to resume production of a classic green food recipe in addition to their new herbal / berry variation.

They even invited me to give my input and “approval” to the formulation of the new Five a Day+V in order to ensure it would be the best classic green food possible… Not just for general health but also from a vitiligo perspective. The result of this is that the number of ingredients has been reduced in favour of higher percentages of the most nutrient-dense and antioxidant-rich foods. Of course, the reformulation and production of the product took time. So this is the reason why Five a Day was recently unavailable for several weeks but is now back… with a new look, nicer taste (vanilla, sweetened with a little Stevia) and more powerful recipe. Like the previous formulation, the new one is gluten-free, GM-free and vegan-friendly.

“Super” food labels only tell you part of the story

There has been a gradual trend over the past few years towards adding more and more “super” ingredients to whole food blends. In some instances I get the impression that this is driven as much by fashion as by nutritional science. Some health food aficionados like to try whichever functional foods are currently in vogue. Not that that is a bad thing. I’m all for experimenting. After all, that’s how I came across the supplements that helped me reverse my vitiligo.

But I have learned that the best “super” food products may not be the ones with the most ingredients. Sometimes less is more. As with cooking, it’s more about the quality, ratio and nutritional value of the ingredients. And, when it comes to these, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In other words, you can read the label and do some online research but you only find out how good something is by using it.

Real food versus vitamin supplements

The reason that these whole food blend labels only tell part of the story is because they are not like other nutritional supplements. They are actually food products. So they only list the names of the foods that go into the product… Just as the label on the proverbial pudding I referred to above would only list whole ingredients. In other words, the individual vitamins, minerals, proteins, antioxidants etc. aren’t listed separately because they are part of the foods themselves.

If the individual nutrients in Five a Day were listed individually, it would be a very long list indeed… Because so-called “super” foods like spirulina, kale, etc. contain an eye-watering array of nutrients and phytonutrients. (In fact, it is likely that scientists have not successfully identified all of them even now. And not all of their health benefits are fully understood either.) So getting the most densely nutritious green ingredients in sufficient therapeutic quantity and quality is what really counts. That is what makes the difference when it comes to these kinds of products.

The ingredients and their therapeutic value for vitiligo

The green foods that make up the new Five a Day+V recipe are as follows. Spirulina, barley grass, wheatgrass, chlorella, broccoli, white cabbage and kale. (I have listed some of the nutritional content and health benefits of these half way down The Vitiligo Therapy That Worked.) These greens were chosen for their exceptionally high levels of nutrients and phytonutrients across the nutritional spectrum. This means that the recipe provides a really comprehensive range of nutritional benefits. And it includes those vitamins, minerals and amino acids that are important for skin health and melanin production. But, even more crucially for vitiligo, these foods have potent antioxidant properties… Meaning that they reduce hydrogen peroxide levels, a proven mechanism for fighting vitiligo. On top of that, the recipe contains a specific ratio of added antioxidants. Cysteine and vitamin C (to “turbo-charge” this antioxidant activity) all provide additional protection against oxidative stress.

So what’s the new “Five a Day” like?

I have been using the updated Five a Day powder for several weeks now. (It comes in capsule form too for those who prefer that option. But I really love the new taste, so I’m just mixing the powder in filtered water.) The look and texture are closer to the original product I first took ten years ago… Which is not surprising since the key ingredients are the same. But it smells and tastes much nicer… Less like grass cuttings and more like something you might actually look forward to drinking.

I have also noticed that this recipe seems to pack more of a “punch”. Previous versions of Five a Day were potent too. But this one gives me a more powerful and almost immediate energy boost. And, as for its effect on vitiligo, it’s obviously too early to make comparisons with its predecessors. But it certainly has all the right credentials. In fact, the quality and formulation of its ingredients give me reason to think it will be the best one yet.

[Five a Day is available from Vitiligo Store in powder and capsule options on this link:

Tip for first-time super-green food users and those of you with a sensitive digestive system… I recommend you start by taking just a quarter or a half teaspoon per day for the first few days, and increase to a full teaspoonful once or twice a day after that. Five a Day has a beneficial cleansing effect, which can take some individuals by surprise if they aren’t used to eating lots of veggies 😉 ]