Nootropics Depot Using Red 40?

It's in the capsule shell, so you can differentiate between the higher and lower doses of caffeine. Color-coding the high dose caffeine version was more of a safety consideration, so people wouldn't mix up their doses. As Emiel said, the fears around it are really being overblown, just like the fears about magnesium stearate. Moreover, any real concern of its use is in food where you consume a lot of it; particularly children. That means cereals, drinks, and candy, where you are consuming tons of the dye in a day. There is less than 0.2mg of it in the capsules. The EFSA showed it was perfectly safe up to 525mg per day for the average human. That means you would need to consume 2,625 capsules of the 200mg caffeine/L-theanine in a day to have it be an issue. You would be long dead from the caffeine around capsule 25. It's a non-issue in this scenario, just like magnesium stearate is a non-issue. You'll get more magnesium and stearic acid in a piece of salmon or chicken.

For reference, here are tested levels in some common foods/drinks:

* A bowl of Trix cereal has 36.4mg
* Skittles have 33.3mg per serving
* Kraft Macaroni & Cheese contains 17.6mg per serving
* Keebler Cheese & Peanut Butter Crackers has 14.4mg
* Powerade has 22.1 mg
* Sunny D Orange Strawberry had 41.5 mg
* Kool-Aid Burst Cherry has 52.3 mg

This is where most of the concern arose from. A child could easily be consuming 100-200mg per day, every day, based on their diet. That's where parents started to get concerned. Again, the caffeine/L-theanine capsules only have 0.2mg. It accounts for 0.04%-0.19% of established safety limits across all age groups (meaning it is at 0.04% of the limit for adults, and 0.19% the limit for children). It's a rounding error compared to the dyes used in foods. As Emiel said, we formulated this product years ago, way before the current bad press happened. We made the scientific determination that being able to tell the lower and higher dose of caffeine apart from each other, to prevent the very real risk of caffeine toxicity, was worth adding it into the capsules; especially because there is no scientific data showing it is an issue at anywhere near the doses found in the capsules. We have always tried to follow the science no matter what, even when following that science makes it harder on us. It's much easier to just avoid these things than try to explain the science to people. This is especially true when you account for the fact that we can only really explain the science to people who are a bit more sophisticated, and want to listen to us explain our position. Most people just quietly move on and don't even give you a chance to explain. So sticking to our position based on the scientific evidence hurts us more than anything, as nuance is not really a part of public discourse these days.

That being said, the situation has changed a bit recently. We are reconsidering some of our long-held stances on certain issues. We want to listen to what our customers want, not just try to explain what stance we think they should have. We already made the decision months ago to shift our formulation process, and how we assess our stance on things in relation to our products. We are moving away from using magnesium stearate and silicon dioxide, not because we are convinced that the science says they have risks, but because we know enough customers are asking for it to warrant it. As much as I like to take hard line stances based on the science alone, sometimes you have to just admit defeat, and acquiesce to the prevailing winds of the day. Remember, I personally use our products, and I give them to my family and friends. I would never make products with ingredients I thought were unsafe for consumption at the levels they would be taken. I want the best products for myself and my family above all else, along with wanting it for all of you. However, I know fighting losing battles just distracts us from trying to advance the lab testing and quality control standards of this industry, so I am softening my stances on things outside our core mission. Perhaps I am just becoming less stubborn as I age. That's also possible... LOL. So we are in the process of transitioning to all plant-based excipients. Similarly, we already made the decision to phase out dyes like Red 40 last year. So we were moving to clear capsules as we sold through the old inventory of colored ones. Then with the recent surge in discussion around it earlier this year, we decided to just bite the bullet and dispose of our existing capsules all at once.

Here is our dumpster back in June.

We scrapped $40,000 in capsules just to call it a day and move on. We are getting squeezed with increasing costs and tariffs, so making decisions like this where we just take losses can be tough to make, especially in the current environment. However, I always tried to be conservative with things, and not over-leverage our financial position. This means I can make these difficult decisions to take losses when I feel they are appropriate. So all products are currently being put into clear veggie capsules, and we are just selling through the existing manufactured inventory of finished goods. The same goes for magnesium stearate and silicon dioxide. After existing capsules are sold through, any new batches are going to use completely different excipients. Again, this is not because I think there is any real issue. I wouldn't put things into my own body if I did. However, we are listening to our customers, and this is clearly what people want, so that's what we are doing. Gotta give the people what they want! Also, to be perfectly honest, I am looking forward to not having to explain the science to people anymore. I have plenty of other cool science to explain to people, without having to play defense on the other ingredients we use in product formulation. That's what I am really passionate about anyway, not defending the scientific bases for why magnesium stearate is the best flow agent out there.