Comment · Tue, November 2, 2021 · ND Owner
Super satisfied customer, just one small nitpick
Original post in this thread
xanthippusd · 33 points
I love ND products. I am a repeat customer and will remain so. The only little nitpick I can find that I think you guys can improve upon is that I picked up the 200 mg caffeine/100 mg theanine caps and half of the cap is coloured with Red #40 and #3. C'mon guys, using azo dyes in supplements? A lot of us avoid that shit even if they aren't yet linked to negative health outcomes. I will finish my bottle since you guys nailed the doses and I'm not \too\ worried, but I will seek an alternative for my next caffeine supp purchase unless you stop using azo dyes in the caps.
\*edited to say that this is also a great reminder of 'buyer beware' - ND has been SO good with not including sketchy ingredients in the vast majority of their products that I got overconfident and bought these without even reading the ingredients as I would with almost any other brand. That is of course my careless mistake.
What they were answering
xanthippusd · 1 points
Really appreciate the detailed response. However, my post stems more from my subscription to the precautionary principle and my environmental outlook. As I mentioned in the OP and you confirmed, there is no convincing evidence linking azo dyes to any negative health outcomes yet. But I personally, and many others, approach this kind of thing from a "if it doesn't need to be there, why am I consuming it?" lens. For one, I don't want to read fifty years from now that I have some increased risk of whatever from eating FDA-approved dyes in my twenties or thirties. I'm not saying that this is going to be the case. I'm not a scientist nor am I studying azo dyes. I'm just saying that my worldview doesn't much care for the slight possibility of risk in this context.
Second of all, azo dyes, from my perspective, are helping to perpetuate hydrocarbon-based energy sources. Azo dyes are a byproduct of petroleum refining and our widespread dependence on oil. They don't need to be in our foods and we ought to stop buying and consuming them to accelerate the coming energy transition. At this point it's an ethical issue in addition to a potential undetected health risk and I don't want N.D. on the wrong side of history. And yes folks, I am aware of embodied energy - I know that my N.D. products and foodstuffs were shipped to me with trucks, shipping containers, planes and giant ships and all…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
I get that standpoint, and I agree with it from a larger food perspective. Using large amount of dyes in foods people eat daily doesn't make a whole lot of sense in many cases. However, I have also spoken to people in the food industry about the issue, too. They tell me that if they don't use some of these ingredients to make the foods more palatable, then people don't buy the food and it increases food waste. Food waste is a massive problem with the world right now, and uses infinitely more energy, oil, and manpower than the dye production. Think of all the carbon that was released making the foods, transporting the foods, then released during decomposition after being thrown out. Sometimes our best-intentioned actions actually make the problems worse. Sitting and talking with these guys in the food industry really opened my eyes to the complexity of things. They said that if they don't have some red coloring in the meat they sell, people don't buy it and they have to scrap it. Imagine the carbon and methane released to raise that cow, feed it, butcher it, transport it, all for it to just be thrown out in the end because people didn't buy it because it was "too gray." So sometimes it can sound nice and make us feel better to take a hard line stance on something, but our actions are actually leading to a worsening of things in the long run. It's mostly carmine dyes in meats, not azo. However, it is a good example of where seemingly "unnecessary" ingredients are actually better in the long run.
Regarding these capsules, we are talking insanely low amounts. From a oil perspective, our plastic bottles are orders of magnitude more than any dye we could ever use. So then someone says: "Use glass!" We did that when I started the company. The shipping weights were so much more, which led to both the cost and carbon emissions from transport being insanely higher. Not to mention all the broken jars during shipping that required reships and wasted product. Plus, we had to use plastic bubble wrap to wrap every glass jar to protect them, which used more plastic and increased the labor per unit. Are we on the wrong side of history because we use plastic bottles? I'd love not to, but what other reasonable choice do we have? If oil used in the dye production is the real sticking point, our bottles are the real culprit. I know the color might not seem absolutely necessary. However, we sell that product in two different ratios. Having customers be able to tell the difference between the one with 100mg caffeine and the one with 200mg caffeine is a benefit. I can certainly look into possibly using different dyes. However, we have already had someone in this very thread freak out over the natural red dye that used to be in another product of ours. So moving to other dyes is going to upset other people. If we remove the color altogether, we are going to piss off tons of people that are used to being able to tell the difference between the two versions. No matter the change we make, we are going to piss someone off. It's a guarantee. The dye used here is in such infinitesimal amounts. If we move to another dye we will have to use a lot more of the dye to get the same color, plus we will have to deal with the people claiming to have bad reactions to that dye. I can certainly look into it, but having customers be able to tell the difference in the capsule they are holding is useful. It's not like we are putting the dyes to make them prettier. It's a useful addition to ensure customers don't mix up their caffeine amounts.