“Contains Triterpenoids”. Red reishi

It's because we were not confident in the lab testing methods for the triterpenoids. Our competitors were literally using a fake dry lab for their numbers. We sent fake samples with claims to see what they would do, and sure enough they gave us COAs saying exactly what we "wanted" them to say. The lab just asks you for what % you expect, you pay them, then they give you a COA that states slightly over that number. We even sent yeast labeled as a mushroom, and they gave a passing COA for that, too. It's a total fraud! We do NOT make claims on our products till I can verify and validate them in the lab. I trust nobody these days. I would rather keep claims off our products than tell people we have 4% of something that later turns out to not be true. Sure, we lose business because of that. People go buy the "totally 8% triterpenoid" extract from our competitors tested at a fraudulent dry lab. However, I would rather that than for people to lose trust in me because I made a claim that later turned out to not be true.

When we first got into mushrooms, I admitted that I was not an expert on them. This is why we partnered with Nammex on them to start. I didn't feel comfortable putting my name behind something that I didn't fully understand the quality control and lab testing side of. So at first all our mushrooms were made by Nammex. They did claim triterpenoids at the time, so we did as well. They had COAs from a lab "proving" that, so we used those claims. Well as time went on and I started probing for more data and verification, cracks started to form in my confidence. It turns out that this lab that was being used to prove the triterpenoid number for Nammex was this fake dry lab. I didn't know it at the time, nor did I have the evidence, but I had my suspicions. Nammex lowered their triterpenoid claims twice, then we moved to "contains triterpenoids" when I started questioning the numbers. We have kept it there ever since because of lab testing limitations. Till recently, Alkemist didn't test for triterpenoids in reishi. You had to go to these sketchy labs that later turned out to be total frauds. Alkemist finally runs that test, though. So we have samples of all our reishi extracts over there now; even extracts we don't sell as standalones. The issue with Alkemist's methods are that they are not using calibration curves from all the ganoderic acid standards. So while we have been waiting for them to give us their results, we have been building our own methods that actually do use all the ganoderic acid reference standards for calibration. I figured we would want to see what Alkemist gives as results on top of ours, so we should have both in the next week or two.

Regarding our beta-glucan standardizations, we set those years ago back before Megazyme updated their methods. In reality our mushrooms have much higher beta-glucans than we claim on the label. Our most recent batch of 8:1 reishi actually has 50% beta-glucans. We still have the spec set at 20% because of the method differences, but the new methods we have that use longer sample preps with sulfuric acid instead of hydrochloric acid more accurately measure the beta-glucans. This is because the original methods from Megazyme using HCL didn't fully acid hydrolyze the beta-glucans in the samples. The H2SO4 sonicated for longer actually now fully acid hydrolyzes the sample, which gives much more accurate numbers. We have just waited to update our specs for now. We are doing a massive mushroom project that will really upend the analytical side of the mushroom industry soon, so we have just kept specs the same for now. However, our extracts have a lot more than they seem to by the numbers. We have some even newer methods in development now that will even more accurately break down the beta-glucans in mushroom samples, so some cool stuff is ahead!

TL;DR- Many of the triterpenoid claims from our competitors are coming from a fraudulent dry lab. The numbers are not just inaccurate, they are completely fraudulent. Other more reputable labs have only recently started offering testing for the ganoderic acids, but we feel the methods are not as accurate as they should be, so we have our own in development. I'll release both numbers when we have them in a week or two. Our extracts have a lot more actives than we are claiming, but I want to do a total revamp of the mushrooms all at once, so I have kept them the same for now. I always want to make sure we never have less than we claim on the label, so sometimes we intentionally leave our claims lower than they are, till we finish our lab validations and I am 100% sure I can put my name behind them. You will never get a product from us that has less than we claim on the label. I make sure of that. I'd rather you think we were less potent than think we are liars. We are in the process of completely revamping our mushroom products based on the R&D and lab work we have been doing over the past few years. When that is complete, you are going to see much more accurate numbers on our products, with a lot of science to back it up.