Comment · Thu, October 27, 2022 · ND Owner
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Original post in this thread
NDSocialMedia · 54 points
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What they were answering
juantoconero · 18 points
Thanks for the explanation, I really do appreciate it. I know you've always been against proprietary blends, which is why I was surprised (and felt compelled to comment) on the label of this new C. I was also not aware that the specs on these mixes had an impact in labelling, so thanks again for clarifying. I'm happy to see that Ascorbyl Palmitate is the largest part of the mix, since I think it's the most interesting form. Though if you had a way to communicate this, I think it could be positive from a marketing/commercial viewpoint.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
No worries! Thanks for bringing it up. I might just put that list on the product page itself. We spent a shitload of time with the formulation, and had to develop an Excel sheet that calculated everything. Even we didn't realize how complex it would be till we got into the weeds on it. Some raw materials just naturally have more water in the crystal structures. Most of the time the water content is 5% or less, but some raw materials can be 10-15%. You have to really know your raw material specs, then design a sheet to calculate it all, to set your formulations correctly. It gets really difficult with ingredients that have RDIs, because we have to calculate what the RDI is based on the low end of the spec range of all the forms. I'll illustrate it a bit.
Calcium ascorbate an as-is basis assay spec of 98% to 100.5%. Calcium has a mass of 40.078 g/mol. The total mass of calcium ascorbate is 215.202 g/mol. This means the mass fraction of ascorbic acid in the material is 81%. However, if you go by the lower end of the assay spec, and the higher end of the water content spec, we actually have to formulate as if the mass fraction of ascorbic acid was 79.66%. This is because the water content spec is only <0.1%.
Magnesium ascorbate has an as-is basis spec of 82% ascorbic acid. Magnesium has a mass of 40.078 g/mol. The total mass of magnesium ascorbate is 215.202 g/mol. This means the mass fraction of ascorbic acid in the material is 81%. However, the water content spec here is <5%. If you go by the lower end of the assay spec, and the higher end of the water content spec, we actually have to formulate as if the mass fraction of ascorbic acid was 77.9%.
Then you have the manufacturing variance. We always build in a 5% overage to account for the tolerance of the manufacturing process. This means we actually have to use 183.75mg of calcium ascorbate instead of the 175mg to meet specs. The actual total fill weight comes out to 766.5mg after formulating for overages, with a total ascorbic acid content of 533.475mg on average. This is just what need to happen to ensure that every single capsule in every bottle now and going forward meets our claims for vitamin C and RDI.