by Eric Brand

Many granule users are unclear about issues of excipients (fillers) in granules. Since most English product labels provide little information about excipients, there is a widespread lack of transparency and a lot of general misinformation. With regard to fillers, it is important to note that the fillers used vary widely. In Taiwan, starch is the most common filler. In mainland China, dextrin is the most common filler.

Based on online discussion group forums, we can see that many people assume that corn starch is used in all Taiwanese granules. This is erroneous. Some companies use corn starch, others use non-GMO potato starch, while still others do not disclose their starch source. Taiwanese concentration ratios vary widely; typically most medicinals achieve a 3:1 to 5:1 concentration ratio. Starch is present in quantities of approximately 35-50%.

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In Taiwan and Japan, granules are taken directly by pouring the powder into the mouth. If no starch was present, this is very unpleasant because the flavor is very strong and the powder is very sticky in the mouth. By contrast, in mainland China and Singapore, patients dissolve the granules in hot water. These markets thus prefer a more concentrated product that comes out more like a water decoction, with greater solubility.

Dextrin is used in China because it is highly water soluble. It is a hypoallergenic product that is the world's most common pharmaceutical excipient. The Chinese products made with dextrin are more water-soluble, so they dissolve better than the Taiwanese products. Dextrin also helps to form a larger kernel of granule (ke li) that is denser by volume. Ke li can achieve relatively high concentrations without clumping in comparison to fine powder (xi fen) made with a starch excipient. Extracts without excipients will clump together if stored in open bottles for any length of time, so some degree of excipient is required for most products. Although they are less water-soluble, the fine powders commonly seen in Taiwan generally have a stronger fragrance because the essential oils are added back only at the very end stage of forming the granules.

Pure extract powder with no excipients is called qing gao fen in Chinese. This is packed into gelcaps (as in Blue Poppy's herbs) or is packaged in single-dose foil packs. If the product is formed into a large granule kernel, it needs to have some amount of dextrin (it appears that some manufacturers do not disclose this). Blue Poppy’s capsule products do not contain any dextrin, starch, or fillers of any type.

Foil packs have minimal excipients because they don't need to endure exposure to air and humidity. Single-dose foil packets represent the most common form of granule packaging in mainland China, but they are rarely used in the West because they generate a significant amount of packaging waste when used for single herbs. Many practitioners favor more “green” technology, so they prefer to avoid the waste of a dozen little bags per day.

Foil packs are generally made with relatively pure extract powder, and vary widely in their concentration ratios. Mainland Chinese granules sold in 100g bottles have dextrin added to dilute the concentration of most herbs to 5:1, allowing for ease of calculation and greater shelf-life. A common misconception is that concentrations above 5:1 can only be achieved with other solvents like hexane or alcohol, this is absolutely not true. Many products can achieve very high concentration ratios with only water as a solvent; from what I can tell, this misinformation appears to be spread by unethical or simply ill-informed commercial interests.

In Taiwan, dextrin is not allowed for use in granules on the domestic market unless the manufacturer applies for a "new drug application." Because dextrin is not naturally occurring, it falls under this new drug law, which requires human safety trials
and is prohibitively expensive. So we don't see dextrin-filler products on the Taiwanese domestic market. The same law also requires that only water is used as a solvent, unless historical texts show that alcohol was used in a given preparation. In mainland China, most producers also use only water as the solvent. There are a few exceptions for items like ru xiang and mo yao, which don't dissolve in water and were traditionally taken in wine; such products often use alcohol in their extraction in both mainland China and Taiwan alike.

I hope that over time more producers will favor increased transparency in their product labels. It is unfortunate that most granule products on the U.S. market provide only a fraction of the information that their labels provide when the same product is sold in Asia. Blue Poppy is proud to be one of the only Western companies that provides complete transparency and full-disclosure to our customers. When you purchase our capsule products, you can rest assured that no fillers, allergens, dyes, or other additives are present. The only exception is that some of our products require a trace amount of rice flour for ease of encapsulation; rice flour is chosen because it is hypoallergenic and it is only added in trace amounts after we receive pure, excipient-free, highly concentrated extracts from our manufacturer.