Zoe Daily30+ supplement: is it worth it and can you make your own instead?

Nutrition brand Zoe, known for its nutrition app and digestive health test, also sells a 'Daily30+' food supplement, which can be sprinkled over your meals.

Zoe claims that this plant-based mix supports a more diverse diet and your wider gut health and energy levels. 

But at £39 a pop for a month's supply (approx £1.30 per day), is it worth forking out for?

We take a look at what you get for your money, why diversity matters in your diet, and get tips from our nutrition expert, Shefalee Loth, on budget ways to make tasty, gut-boosting mixes at home.

Eat well, live better and stay healthy: 

What is Zoe Daily30+ and what is it meant to do?

The Daily30+ supplement is a mix of nuts, seeds, grains, herbs, spices and mushrooms.

It's a wholefood supplement, rather than a tablet, that you sprinkle on food, and is aimed at supporting gut health, improving digestion and increasing energy.

It has a nutty, savoury taste that lends itself to being added as a topper to dishes such as salads, soups and other meals.

Zoe says a 15g scoop daily will 'help you reach the optimal amount of fibre and plant diversity for a healthier and balanced diet'.

The Daily30+ mix contains the following:

Seeds: Nuts:Legumes and wholegrains:Fruits & vegetables: Seaweed: Herbs and spices:Mushrooms: £39 for a 500g pouch (£7.80 per 100g, 30-day supply on a monthly subscription). If you buy the four-month bundle, it works out cheaper – currently £133 (4 x 500g packs, £6.65 per 100g) and you get a tin, scoop and travel pouch.If 

How is Zoe Daily30+ meant to help your gut?

Other benefits include increased fibre and other beneficial nutrients in your diet.

Is it worth it?

At £39 for a 30-day supply, it's not a cheap option, but it's also not a simple one to make yourself.

Buying all 30 ingredients separately would be a big initial outlay if you were trying to recreate it at home, plus it's impossible to know exactly how much of each of them you'd need to replicate the supplement for both dosage and taste. And some ingredients, such as some of the mushrooms included – lion's mane, chaga and tremella, for example – can be quite pricey. 

The pack has the ingredients listed in size order: some of the priciest ingredients (such as the fancy mushrooms) come last and are likely to be included in relatively small amounts compared with the more everyday seeds and nuts near the top of the list.

The Zoe formulation provides prebiotic fibre, plant protein, omega 3 and polyunsaturated fatty acids as well as plant polyphenols. It's also naturally high in copper, which contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism and is a natural source of calcium.

These are all good things and, obviously, a key plus point with this particular product is that Zoe has the scientific study to back up its benefits. That isn't cheap to do, so you're probably partly paying for the 'science' bit.

However, Which? nutritionist Shefalee Loth advises that the principle of adding a more diverse mix of plant foods to your meals is achievable in other ways and has widely accepted benefits. So, if the price is a sticking point for you, there are cheaper alternatives that will still be beneficial.

There are a few other booster-style mixes on the market, which are less expensive (see more below), or you can do your own DIY mix. 

The benefit of this is that you could make tailored sweet and savoury ones, to increase your options. You could add some dried fruit, nuts and some spices such as cinnamon and ginger to your sweet mix, and focus on more savoury herbs, grains and seeds for your savoury mix.

Shefalee suggests aiming for a combination of: 

Prebiotics: Omega 3 ALAs: Plant protein: Nuts and seeds: Polyphenols: 

What to use your booster mixes on

Sprinkle on top of porridge, cereal or yoghurt as well as savoury meals and salads. You could also add it to sandwich fillings.

Other gut-boosting mixes you can buy

There are cheaper ready-made alternatives available too. Many of these will still give you a good mix of extra dietary diversity, so it's worth experimenting to see which you like best (or changing it up regularly for extra diversity).

M&S Good Gut 35+ Gut Booster Mega Mixm, sorghum and millet.It has more nut varieties than Zoe's Daily30+, including cashew, peanut, macadamia and pistachio, and more cereals such as oats and millet, but less breadth in terms of types of food. There are fewer mushrooms, herbs, spices and extras such as chicory inulin, buckthorn and seaweed.Zoe's mix also has more fibre per 100g (23g vs 15.4g). But the M&S mix is still an excellent option if you want to pack in plenty of variety. 

Other seed mixes you'll find in supermarkets tend to be much more limited, with three or four types of seeds, such as:

Linwoods Milled Flaxseed, Sunflower, Pumpkin & Chia Seeds & Goji BerriesSainsbury's Seed MixTesco 4 Seed Mix

All will add some extra diversity, fibre and beneficial nutrients to your daily diet though, so it's worth experimenting to see what works best for you. 

It's also worth remembering that if you have any gut health conditions, it's best to check with a health professional before making significant changes to your diet as, for example, too much fibre can exacerbate some conditions.

: our expert nutritionist and more than 200 Which? members give their verdictMeet our nutrition expertShefalee Loth, Which? principal researcher and nutritionist

source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/whats-in-zoes-30-supplement-and-can-you-make-your-own-aK2zC0p6ek60