Amare Happy Juice- A Dietitian Review
With a unique blend of compounds aimed at enhancing the gut-brain axis, Amare Happy Juice drink mixes have taken the internet by storm and claim to help boost your overall mood. But is it really something to smile about? Let’s do a happy juice review and find out!
As a dietitian, I’m often asked about emerging nutrition topics or new products on the shelves. When I review questions, one thing that I have really noticed is that many of these trends and products are beginning to focus (and market themselves) on health BEYOND nutrition.
The reality is, especially in the United States, expectations for food and drink have shifted. Many people want their food to do more than just nourish and want to choose foods that benefit their health beyond nutrition. This has led to a rapid growth in functional foods.
Functional foods are foods that contain nutrients or compounds that can have health benefits beyond nutrition. In reality, most foods are “functional” and impact our body and health in more ways than simply providing calories.
Protein provides amino acid building blocks for immunity and muscle.
Food provides us with vitamins and minerals which can impact eye health, brain health, and more.
Berries provide us with antioxidants, compounds that can lower your risk for disease.
Despite the fact that food itself functions as more than just calories, the products specifically marketed as “functional foods” continue to gain interest.
Yet interest in functional products continues to grow, including functional beverages. One front runner product that claims to help you “smile from the inside out” is Amare Happy Juice which seems to be all over everyones feed. But will it boost your mood the way it claims?
Hey, I’m Lauren! I’m a registered dietitian and I’m here to help you pick through fact vs fiction so that you can buy the best foods, supplements, and products for you. At the end of the day, I don’t really care WHAT you buy but about WHY you buy what you buy. That “why” should be based on facts.
In todays deep dive, we are going to focus on Happy Juice, it’s claims, and whether or not it really is as effective as the internet makes it seem (disclaimer, it’s probably not.) Insert sad smiley face.
Let’s start with the company… Amare Global:
Now, the focus of today’s blog is on Amare Happy Juice, but I think it’s important to note a few things about Amare Global itself because this could explain why it feels like you are seeing Happy Juice on EVERY social media feed you have access to.
Amare global is a company that creates a variety of products and programs specifically aimed at optimizing mental wellness. These products claim to promote mental wellness by enhancing mental fitness, physical performance, stress resilience, confidence, and more.
There are many offerings through Amare Global that I can absolutely get behind. They have a variety of mindfulness programs, exercise examples, and even some nutrition plans that are straight forward and will likely have positive impacts on health.
As a health professional, I think it’s fantastic to find habits, foods, and maybe even products that support mental wellness. Now, let’s get to the potentially not so fine and dandy part of Amare Global… and that is their marketing, sales, and science (we’ll get to the science part of it later in this blog.)
For sales, Amare global aims to “connect like minded individuals” to promote and sell their products. Simply put, Amare Global is an MLM or “Multi Level Marketing company” that recruits people who then recruit people who all make commission when you buy the products they promote.
As much as this may make some people upset, MLM companies can often experience blurred lines between honest and not so honest marketing. While I’m sure there are PLENTY of people who promote these products because they absolutely love them, it’s something to consider before you purchase.
Here’s my take on it- Sometimes the beauty and allure of MLM’s marketing tactics can be much more effective than the actual product they are selling.
As someone who works with brands online, I can definitely get behind promoting companies and products that you really stand behind but I tend to draw the line at MLM’s… mostly because:
Their products tend to be lacking in sufficient scientific evidence for the claims they carry.
Their marketing tactics can be a bit aggressive (hence, why this product has taken over everyones social media feeds) and as I mentioned earlier, the line can get blurred between honest marketing and not so honest marketing.
I find that many of the individuals who end up selling the products for commission do not disclose the commission relationship sufficiently and tend to fall short on supporting their claims with science or doing their own research on the products.
So anyway, thats a bit about the company and some things to consider off the bat. While they have tons of products and offerings, we are going to focus in on their most viral product at the moment: Amare Happy Juice.
What is Amare Happy Juice?
Happy juice by Amare Global is a powdered drink mix formulated to mix into 16 to 20 oz of water. It comes in a variety of flavors and is offered in packages of two products that are designed to work synergistically (aka, make each other better): Mentabiotics and AmareEDGE+.
In addition to the two products sold in the package, the website also gives the option to “boost your happy” by adding the Energy+ supplement upon check out. This product is designed to boost energy levels and enhance the effectiveness of Mentabiotics and AmareEDGE+.
By addressing gut health, mental signals, and overall energy levels, these three products are designed to be mixed together for the ultimate smile inducing drink… but let’s take a look at some of the ingredients, research, and a few red flags to consider.
Ingredients
Now that we have discussed what happy juice is supposed to do, let’s take a look at the three products I mentioned and see what’s in them:
What is it: a drink mix that focuses on promoting mental health by supporting gut health. It contains a blend of probiotics, prebiotics, phytobiotics, and “digestive performance ingredients” that it claims will support mental wellness through the gut-brain axis.
What’s in it?: Here is what you can find on the label of the original Mentabiotics:
Proprietary probiotic blend: the probiotics contained are specific strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. It is claims that these three probiotic strains can result in a positive mood, stress resilience, and promote gut health.
Proprietary prebiotic blend: A blend of prebiotics like iso-malto oligosaccharides, galactic-oligo-saccharides, and galactomannan fibre. Prebiotics feed gut bacteria and this proprietary blend is designed to complement the proprietary probiotic blend also in this product.
Phytobiotics- this is what Amare global calls phytonutrients, which are plant extracts that can have disease fighting properties. This product contains various extracts from plants, plant seeds, and plant bark.
Digestive performance ingredients: Including L-Glutamine and different plant extracts like those from Ginger and Artichoke leaf.
Will it do what it claims?: Hard to say because their blends are proprietary meaning we don’t actually know how much of each ingredient is actually present. The reality is dose matters, and while some of these ingredients may result in health benefits at certain doses we simply don’t have that information.
That said, this product DOES contain many health promoting ingredients like probiotics and prebiotics but remember that these are all nutrients that you can get in from a balanced diet with targeted food choices (like fermented foods) as well.
What is it: A complementary product that has many claims surrounding mental health and motivation through its inclusion of plant derived “nootropics.” This product is offered in a variety of flavors and one of the three flavors is a caffeine source as well.
What are the ingredients: These products contain mango leaf extract, lychee fruit extract, and a palm fruit bioactive complex. They each also contain a “mind and body” proprietary blend with lions mane, citicholine, and then the mango flavor has a natural caffeine source.
Will it do what it claims?: The topic of nootropics is one that has really started to gain traction in the research field, and the reality is that we need more human studies. Currently, much of the evidence consists of in-vivo or animal studies, which is the standard starting point but we need dosing for people!
As far as the lychee fruit, mango leaf extract, and palm fruit extract claims go… I’m not convinced that those are a product benefit or a “more plants in the diet” benefit. We both agree that it’s beneficial to eat more plants, I’m just not so sure they need to be powdered in a drink mix.
Lions mane, basically a medicinal mushroom, does show promise in-vivo, animal, and a few human studies to be potentially neuroprotective and act as an antioxidant. Optimal dosage is still being studied, so it’s tough to say if the level of lions mane in this product would have health benefits.
*I’m calling this out here: they seem to have updated their “technical” or science sheet from this option with research to this option that is the one that is currently available on their website. Previously written reviews had access to the cited studies.
Where did the research go? I, for one, cannot find it. If you stumble upon it, please send me way and I would be happy to review.
Any way, let’s get to the product:
What is it: Depends on which flavor you buy. The Pomegranate Lime flavor is a caffeine supplement. with 55mg of plant-based caffeine. The Dragon Fruit flavor is caffeine free but claims to still increase energy levels.
What are the ingredients: Again, ingredients vary based on the flavor that you buy.
Matcha pomegranate lime: pomegranate extract, guayusa, matcha extract, a caffeine extract and the proprietary digestive blend.
Dragon fruit: chicory root inulin, glycine, pomegranate juice extract, and rooibos tea extract as well as the proprietary digestive blend.
Will it do what it claims?: Caffeine increases energy levels, so yes, you will probably experience higher amounts of energy for a time. That said, coffee and tea also have caffeine… so I guess it comes down to how much you want to pay for your boost of energy throughout the day.
They also claim that the antioxidant will enhance concentration. Antioxidants are linked with a variety of health benefits including reduced risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and protection against cognitive decline… but increase concentration? That I did not see.
Now let’s get to the really hard part to assess…. and that is “is there actually science to back up their claims?”
Their claims and the research…:
I’m going to have to be completely honest here, I spent over two hours on the Amare Global website simply looking for their supporting research… and I never found any. While they have “science” pages linked for most of their products, those science pages did not include actual studies, just claims.
There were two other well written reviews that I that referenced some of the previously disclosed research:
Amare Review:: Can you optimize your gut-brain axis and lose weight?
In fact, I reached out to the dietitian friend of mine who had written the above review on this company in 2021 (read it here) where she was able to reference the research they included on the website at that to support their products and claims. I thought to myself, am I missing something?
But no, she also could not find any of the research. Research that was abundantly clear in years prior. It seems that since her review in 2021, the research has either been removed or moved to an incredibly difficult place to find on the website.
To me, this is not only weird to see but a MASSIVE red flag, especially from a “wellness” company. If you make robust health claims on your products, you better have research to back it up and that research should be very easy to find and access.
That makes this section incredibly difficult to condense, so I’m going to keep it high level instead. Let’s take a look at some of the general Amare Global Happy Juice claims and see where the research stands:
Optimizing the gut-brain axis: This is the biggest tag line across the entire Amare website but unfortunately, it’s too broad. While it’s clear that there is absolutely a connection between the two, what's still being studied is the best way optimize this connection.
The gut brain axis refers to the communication between different systems in your body and it’s a communication that researchers are focusing in on. The brain impacts your gut and everything that stems from your gut while your gut feeds back to your brain and impacts mood, signals, and more.
One thing we do know is that optimizing the gut microbiotia (or the bacteria that live in your gut) is essential for healthy gut activity from better digestion to stronger immunity.
So, do we even know what that means to optimize the gut-brain axis? At this point, no we don’t and the process to get to “optimized” would be highly individual. This will continue to evolve in research, we just aren’t there yet so I wouldn’t spend my money on products that claim to be.
Boost gut health: The mentabiotics product does contain gut health supporting nutrients like probiotics and prebiotics. Both lactobacillus and bifidobacterium are bacterial strains that have strong evidence that associate them with various health benefits.
However, even the in depth reviews that have been done on these probiotic strains say that we need more information to determine effective doses and safety of probiotic use, and researchers recognize that marketing of probiotic supplements is beyond the current state of the research.
To me, the Happy Juice gut health and gut-health axis claims would fall into this concern identified by researchers. The reality is that gut health is incredibly individual and varies with age, sex, health factors, and even down to the type of bacteria that live in the gut. One product may not fit all.
Most importantly, we do not have any dosing information for this product because they are proprietary blends so while the ingredients themselves may show tons of promise in their association with health benefits, that doesn’t necessarily mean this product will as well.
Supporting optimal mental wellness: Do some of these ingredients show positive impact on hormones? Sure. But again, and similar to my review on basically every other claim they make… we don’t know how much of these ingredients you are actually consuming with the products.
Here’s my advice: Diet, exercise, stress management techniques, sleep health, and professional support like counseling are going to be significantly more effective in managing mood than a drink mix will be.
At the end of the day, these products have way more health claims than they should likely carry. Even if they did have readily available research on their website, this research would likely be done on active ingredients found in the product instead of on the effectiveness of the product itself.
We have research on lactobacillus and gut health.
We have research on the health benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables.
We don’t have research on the health benefits from regular consumption of Happy Juice products.
Again, how you spend your money is absolutely your choice and you personally may love these products, but based on my review it would not be a product line I recommend for the price it’s at.
Pro’s and Con’s of drinking Happy Juice:
Now that we have taken a look at the research, or lack there of, let’s summarize a few pro’s that I have identified for Happy Juice as well as a few con’s for you to consider:
Benefits or Pro’s:
Convenient: A simple drink mix designed to easily blend into your water, this product is incredibly convenient to take and comes in a variety of flavors.
Could introduce nutrients you may be missing: These products to offer health promoting nutrients like probiotics, prebiotics, phytonutrients, and more. While I think there are better ways to get these nutrients in the diet (like food), this could be a simple starting point.
Research is emerging: One take away that you should have from this review is that this is very much an emerging area of research. I think the Happy Juice health claims are far exceeding research to support them, but this area of research WILL continue to grow.
YOU MAY LOVE IT!: I don’t see anything inherently risky with any of the ingredients, I just don’t think the product itself matches the health claims. If you love the flavors of these drinks, then that’s great! Consult your doctor to make sure there are no potential medication interactions.
Con’s or risks to consider:
Lack of sufficient evidence: As I mentioned, I had a really tough time using their website to see actual research studies in support of their active ingredients. Note, these studies would be done on the ingredients themselves, they have no studies on the PRODUCTS themselves.
This is another important point to consider. While food commodities have made health claims or we may be able to draw a connection between probiotics and gut health, there are no clinical studies on Amare Global Happy Juice drink powder and consumer mental health.
Proprietary blend: This is certainly not uncommon in the supplement industry, many companies don’t want to disclose their exact formulas. While they do show us what ingredients are in the product, they do not show us how much of each ingredient.
When a supplement carries specific health claims, it would be helpful to know how much active ingredient is actually present to see if it would actually elicit a health response.
Think of it this way, we all talk about how rich in fiber chia seeds are and how great fiber is for your overall health. However, if you only eat one single chia seed every day… you likely will not experience the benefits of an increased fiber intake. Dose matters. Catch my drift?
Here’s why this matters- Some of the ingredients in the products may be linked to health benefits. But if research starts to show those help benefits occurring when someone consumes 7 grams of the active ingredient per day but this product contains less than 1 gram? Something to consider.
Expensive: These packages come with a high price tag, and their return policy seems to be easier for single items than for those purchased within a bundle. For the nutrients they offer, food would be a much more affordable source of the same nutrients.
Company marketing tactics: I’m including this in the con’s even though some will say I shouldn’t. As mentioned above, I do support sharing products that you really enjoy… but I think it’s important to consider marketing tactics and influencer compensation at play.
Lack of third party testing: Amare Global does appear to have a rigorous process in place to test for safety of their products but it seems to be done in house. I prefer to see third party testing through an independent facility done on supplements and powders like these.
The takeaway:
While the marketing on this product may make you feel all happy… I do think the claims are over inflated for where the science and the products themselves currently are. In fact, unless I am just absolutely missing all of their research, the website itself doesn’t provide any concrete evidence either.
To be clear, a colleague and myself BOTH looked at their website in search of the supporting science and both found none. Even the “science” pages they provide on each of their products have no actual science on them…. this to me is the biggest red flag. If you find something, please send it to me!
Of course, how you spend your money is entirely up to you. To me, the concerns surrounding the products, claims, lack of supporting evidence and marketing for Amare Happy Juice makes it a product I would not recommend spending that amount of money on.
The research on nutrition and mood continues to evolve and emerge. Even our understanding of the gut-brain axis and the connection and communication that happens there is fairly new. What we know is that optimizing gut health is a great first step to take… and you can do that without supplements.
There is emerging research on diets as a whole as well as specific nutrients like omega 3 and probiotics that show promise in enhancing mental health, but more studies are needed to determine therapeutic doses of each nutrient. Simply put, we are just too new into this area for companies to stake their claim.
We know that habits impact our gut and mental health so it’s important to focus on overall habits instead of simply creating a habit to mix a powder into your water and hope for life-changing results. Instead, I recommend you start by focusing on nutrition, sleep, exercise, and stress management.
Liked this review? You may also like:
Here are a few other in depth reviews that I have done on popular products or trends:
*These blogs may contain affiliate links. Any purchase made through my links gives me a small commission and supports Lauren Twigge Nutrition. While I am a registered dietitian, I am not your registered dietitian and these blogs should not be treated as medical advice, simply as supplemental information. All opinion pieces are my own and you can make your own decisions on products.
Hey! I’m Lauren
I’m a Registered Dietitian and busy toddler mom committed to bringing you delicious, nutritious, and easy-to-make recipes!