Comment · Sat, November 14, 2020 · ND Owner
I compared the capsule weight consistency between ND and a competitor. The results won't shock you.
Original post in this thread
umbrella_term · 24 points
I weighed 10 capsules of Intellimeds' 400 mg phenibut and the inconsistency surprised me. The weights in milligrams were: 663, 667, 673, 685, 709, 716, 718, 732, 741, 752. Big differences! Average weight 705.6mg, standard deviation 31.9 mg. One of their capsules weighs ~123 mg, meaning the content weights were between 540 mg and 629. I assume some is filler and flow agent, but there's no info about it on their product site. If it's pure phenibut, the doses are dangerously mislabeled.
Then I remembered I had some of ND's 500mg yeast extract capsules and weighed ten of those. The numbers are much more consistent: 603, 608, 610, 613, 618, 620, 624, 626, 627, 636; average 618.5 mg, standard deviation 10.11 mg. An empty capsule weighs exactly 100 mg, meaning I got a slight bonus on each, and that's certainly not a problem with something as safe as yeast extract.
What they were answering
umbrella_term · 1 points
many people just use bovine gelatin because it is way cheaper
Are gelatin capsules worse somehow, or just not vegetarian-friendly?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
Not vegetarian friendly and they have some calories in them, so not as good for people that are fasting. It's not a ton, but will add up if you are taking a lot of supplements. They are just much much cheaper to use. A bovine gelatin capsule is like 5 times less than a veggie cellulose capsule. Then sometimes we have to use a thicker veggie cellulose capsule for certain things, because the normal ones break. This is usually for things run on the auto encapsulator that are pushing the limit of the capsule capacity. The auto machine creates a hard slug of the powder, then shoves it into the capsule. If there is not much give in the specific powder, it can crack the normal thickness veggie caps. In those instances we have to use a slightly thicker capsule. It can get pretty complex. If you ever look at a super cheap capsule product out there, 99% of the time they are bovine gelatin caps.