Move over vitamin pills, it’s all about sprinkles now, thanks to the new Zoe Daily30+ that feeds your gut bugs and claims to make you less hungry. We tried it ahead of the launch
How would you feel about taking a daily supplement that wasn’t a pill, powder or liquid, rather a sprinkle of nutrients to garnish your lunch or dinner? (We’re not talking cupcake sprinkles here – sorry – this is a strictly savoury offering.) This is the premise of personalized diet programme Zoe’s big new launch. The company grandly claims to have invented a whole new category of supplements. In fairness, they have.
Zoe - the personalized diet programme followed by over 100,000 Brits (you’ve likely seen the brand’s distinctive yellow continuous glucose monitor on many an arm at the gym) - is making its second foray onto our supermarket shelves, with the launch of a whole-food, plant-based supplement called Daily 30+ on 17 July.
One sole scoop of Daily 30+ contains 32 (count ‘em!) plants, including fruit, vegetables, herbs, seeds and functional mushrooms, and promises to “add nutritional diversity and increase fibre intake”. Basically it’ll turbo-charge the health credentials of your avocado on toast or stir fry. It follows the M&S Food x Zoe Gut Shot kefir health drink, which arrived to great fanfare in January.
ProfessorTim Spector and Dr Federica Amati, photography by Tom Griffiths
Zoe’s philosophy – that tweaking your diet to optimize your gut microbiome is the most powerful tool to improve health – has become increasingly high profile since the diet app’s launch in 2022. There have been 200,000 people on the waiting list at times, Davina McCall is now a brand ambassador and founder Professor Tim Spector has even been interviewed for Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.
So should we be excited by this new Zoe launch, which comes with a rather chic yellow tin and scoop (it’ll sit nicely in the kitchen next to your AG Greens tin - read more about the best greens powders). It’s an intriguing move for a company that promotes a diet rich in a variety of plants, rather than gimmicky short-cuts to health - which is often the criticism levelled at supplements. I was among the first journalists to try Daily30+. Here’s my verdict.
What is the Zoe Daily30+ supplement?
The crunchy mix of fruit, vegetables, mushrooms, herb, spices, seeds, nuts, legumes and whole grains, which looks a bit like granola, has been created to “help people increase their plant and fibre intake in a delicious and easy way, particularly those who are time-poor,” says nutritional scientist Dr Federica Amati, who helped design the product alongside Indi, the Get The Gloss Award-winning supplements brand.
Zoe encourages people to aim to eat at least 30 types of plants each week, to improve gut health, but you can hit that target with this supplement sprinkle in just one day. Does that mean we don’t actually need to seek out a wide variety of different plants each week and can just take this instead, I wonder? It’s a hard no from Dr Federica: “It’s not a replacement for a healthy diet and should not substitute the diversity of plants you are aiming for across the day or week. It provides an additional boost to your plant diversity.”
Zoe Daily 30+
What’s in the Zoe Daily30+ supplement?
It might be quicker to list what isn’t in it, to be honest. Zoe has made a point of including some ingredients that you might not pick up on your usual supermarket shop, says Dr Federica, to help boost diet diversity. Here’s the line-up:
- 8 fruits and vegetables: carrot flakes, red beetroot flakes, garlic, chicory root inulin, onion, garlic, baobab fruit pulp, buckthorn.
- 8 functional mushrooms: white mushroom, chaga, lion’s mane, shiitake, maitake, tremella, reishi, cordyceps.
- 5 herbs and spices: thyme, parsley, turmeric, cumin, rosemary.
- 6 seeds: flaxseed, grape seed, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds.
- 3 nuts: almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts.
- 2 legumes and whole grains: red lentil flakes, puffed quinoa.
- plus: nutritional yeast flakes, a good source of B vitamins with a moreish umami taste.
What are the health benefits?
One daily scoop (15g) leads to “improvements in digestive health, energy, gut microbiome composition and a reduction in hunger”, according to Dr Sarah Berry, Zoe’s chief scientist. The results come from Zoe’s own randomized control tests of the Daily30+.
What sets it apart is that it uses real, minimally processed whole foods, rather than the synthetic junk in many supplements (some protein powders, for example).
As for fibre, which is what our gut bugs love to feed on, a 15g scoop provides 5g. The NHS recommends we take of 30g per day – this is noteworthy as 90 percent of Brits are fibre deficient, according to a survey commissioned by Public Health England. One serving also contains 4g of fat, 3g of protein, and 63 calories.
How does it compare to your multivitamin supplement?
The Daily30+ contains B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, selenium and omega 3, all between 5 and 18 percent of recommended daily amounts. These are lower percentages than your average multivitamin, with a smaller range in the mix (there’s no vitamin C, for example). But the fact the Daily30+ is made from actual foods means that the nutrients within it are likely to be more bioavailable than if you take a vitamin pill: “We’ve made this product from whole foods to retain the food matrix as much as possible,” says Dr Federica. The food matrix is “how the physical and chemical properties of whole foods affect how our bodies break down and use the nutrients locked up inside them”. Put simply, your body should absorb more of the good stuff and you should feel fuller for longer.
How do you use it?
Unless you have very weird tastebuds, you don’t want to sprinkle this on your porridge or Greek yogurt – ingredients like turmeric and garlic make it a savoury meal option. Zoe says it can “elevate the flavour profile” and add crunch to lentil or bean-based dishes, or omelettes and scrambled eggs. It’s designed to be enjoyed as part of your meal, rather than hidden within in it.
How much does Zoe Daily30+ cost?
Waitrose will be stocking a single-serve snack pack for £2.25, with a 7-day introductory pack £10 (that’s £1.43 per day).
If you buy via zoe.com, a one-month pouch is £39 (£1.30 per day), while a four-pack subscription is £133 (£1.11 per day). For Zoe members, who pay £25 to access the app, those prices go down to £33 and £113 respectively. You get a free tin and scoop with the online purchase.
Zoe Daily30+ supplement - my verdict
Kerry with the Zoe Daily 30+ supplement
My first thought is that it looks like a pimped-up version of those packs of salad-topper seed sprinkles, with a price tag to match. I’m a fussy foodie but it tastes much better than I expected – intensely savoury, with the herbs and garlic really coming through. I would happily eat it on its own as a snack.
I sprinkle it on my homemade poke bowl at dinner and it makes an already filling meal even more so. In fact, the sprinkle is so dense, I only add half a scoop. I feel smug in the knowledge that my dish, which already contained nine different plants, has now has hit 40. It’s taken an already healthy habit – seeking maximum plant diversity – to whole new levels.
My usual breakfast involves my own homemade sprinkle concoction with Greek yogurt and fresh fruit – I realise I do already eat most of the seeds and nuts in the Daily 30+ (quick, someone get me a halo). So I give that meal option a miss and have scrambled eggs instead. This is where the supplement really appeals to me – I find eggs dishes bland, so will often jazz them up with the Middle Eastern spice mix za’atar. The Daily30+ hits that same spot, adding texture, crunch and flavour.
What’s more, it’s my new favourite salad improver – I often make one for lunch but fail to include enough protein and fibre, so am not properly full. Then by 4pm I’m truffling out biscuits. But this addition gives a weedy or uninspiring salad some real heft.
While I’m very impressed with the taste and could easily incorporate the Daily30+ into my diet, as with any supplement, there is the question of cost. Can you only achieve optimum gut microbiome health if you can afford £39 per month? While the widening health gap between rich and poor is, of course, not Zoe’s fault, this does bother me so I put it to Dr Federica. “We believe the Daily30+ is good value for money but we recognize it’ll be out of reach for many people,” she acknowledges, while pointing out that it’s “not the only way to eat well”. She also flags up that Zoe has a wealth of free content – blogs, newsletters – available to all. Fair enough. I suggest you dip in a toe with the Waitrose Zoe Daily30+ snack pack and take it from there.