With massive thanks to Carolyn, we have discovered that the Viridian Bromelain is processed using corn maltodextrin, despite the company telling me twice that it didn’t! I am gnashing my teeth about it, but we are used to getting wrong information from manufacturers who don’t really understand how their products are made, aren’t we?
It’s such a shame because Viridian is a good and ethical supplement company and I was pleased to be able to recommend one of their products.
Here’s the reply I got when I checked. Again.
“We do not add any fillers or binders to the final ingredients list, but there are certain ingredients which are processed by our raw material suppliers using elements such as maltodextrin. We have eliminated as much as is possible from our range of ingredients and continue to be vigilant.
With regards specifically to the Bromelain, for many years we sourced our material and were told that there were no additives whatsoever, then the allergens directive came into force and raw material suppliers were forced to reveal some of the hidden ingredients. We shifted a number of suppliers at this point.
Our bromelain being a liquid/sticky material was processed with a cassava source of maltodextrin, but most recently processed with a corn-derived maltodextrin. The natural products sector is a small player in many of these raw material markets and we carry little weight when it comes to insisting on certain processes.
The maltodextrin is used to create a dry, flowing powder which can be encapsulated. It would be impossible to create a pure bromelain capsule supplement as it would be too sticky to flow into capsules.
We do offer a 100% money-back guarantee on all our products and I am very happy to give a full refund to you.”
Not so easy for them, either, it seems, and I appreciate their honesty.
So, if you are currently taking this as part of the TGF protocol and are corn allergic, you can stop and ask Viridian for a refund. Contact Aimee Benbow via Aimee@viridian-nutrition.com who gave the above reply.
Meantime, Carolyn and I may have come up with an alternative product to assist digestion. This area of the protocol is proving by far the most difficult. Keep your eyes peeled as I am going to ask Carolyn to give us the results of her brilliant searching shortly, if she will. Carolyn, fancy giving us an expert response on this as you have done a lot of the recent legwork? Viridian, fancy helping us develop a safe absorption support product – papaya maybe?
Thank you for this extremely important information. I will be passing it on to my email list. It appears that all things can be done properly but it is not the intent of those in control to do anything properly. Cassava is now on the list of one of the most genetically modified crops along with papaya. Please post a source for bromelain when you have found a pure one.
Thanks for commenting, Patrick. It is a difficult one. Because of the way bromelain is manufactured, it is very unlikely that we will find any difference with others. Interesting about cassava and GM; I didn’t know that; I suppose not surprising if you think it is a major third world crop.
Hi Miki,
The pattern that I saw was that genetic engineering had its roots in plants (sorry for the reality of that one) and is heavily used in animals where there is a captive audience (I’m on a roll) of meat eaters who will consume anything. Since animal foods were basically covered in that regard then the way to trap vegetarians and vegans was to manipulate soy which was one of the earliest diversions from a safe protein source. In the world of health supplements many are now Third World products. Try finding bromelain that is not Made In China. If they were putting Melamine in the dog and baby food then there might be ‘Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine’ (a very old song). I see the co-opting of proteolytic enzymes to be the same pattern as creating monopoly in the meat market (can’t stop the word games). So, papaya would have to be modified as well because they wouldn’t allow an alternative to bromelain to exist. Cassava is a source of Vitamin C that is not corn based, so they had to GE that too so that a range of supplements are under that control as well (B-vitamins are fermented in vats of GE bacteria or yeast). Therefore, even if you avoided GMO corn maltodextrin and most commercial Vitamin C that is made from corn, you would still be able to get ‘organically grown’ GMO cassava maltodextrin. Hurts the mind. Thing about maltodextrin from corn is, that if it has any ability to agglutinate Type O blood, then the fibrinolysin effect of the enzymes that are manufactured with that as an additive are rendered neutral or useless. At this point it is just about enough to make a person chew on organically grown pineapple leaves. The other alternative would to start up your own supplement company.
Believe me, Patrick, I think of doing that regularly!
Here’s the tricky bit:
If there weren’t GMO microbes forming biofilms in our small intestines then we wouldn’t have malabsorption problems and wouldn’t need water and fat-soluble vitamins. If our lymph systems weren’t clogged with those same organisms and having it gelled solid with aluminum then we wouldn’t need enzymes to break up the static matrix. Try finding a vitamin or other supplement without lymph clogging Stearates that not only sequester the supposed nutrient, but then gum up the works like grease in a sink drain. I have spent hours looking for supplements that have nothing but…the supplement in them. Fascinating economics when adding an un-needed extra component actually costs less than the ones that don’t have that component. I see that you have done all of the hard work in two volumes yourself. Very impressive.
Thanks Patrick. Took almost a year and it goes on every day, but glad I have done it!
Hi Miki and Glutenaughts,
Here’s how it works: You all posted on proteolytic enzymes and the heinous way that the Greycoats (alternative medicine) offers something absolutely necessary to reverse or support what the Whitecoats (medicine/industry) has damaged —- butt —- they put that one thing in there that neutralizes or poisons the substance needed. Case in point: Bromelain and Corn Maltodextrin. That got me so mad that I sourced out all of the bromelain I could but it was all white powder forms and some actually labeled the corn maltodextrin. Since we lost http://www.scroogle.org search engine the search returns have been severely restricted — an information bottleneck. Although the goal of the internet is Artificial Intelligence the public version of it is that of a retarded child. So I had to rethink my search terms. I arrived at Raw Bromelain Powder and also Raw Papaya Powder.
Now if pure bromelain is a brown sticky substance that needs a flow agent then you know by default that ANYTHING WHITE will be adulterated. That was my first clue. Next I looked at the GDU (gelatin dissolving units) of the commercial varieties [what doesn’t come from China or India?] and they all started around 1500 GDU. A low number in the 100s would indicate that it has not been concentrated. An industry rep told me that the ONLY way to concentrate and standardize this stuff is to put a flow agent in it. That was my second clue that the flow agents work in tandem with the standardization to get to incredible 2400 GDUs. You know it HAS to be artificial at those values.
I did not find a suitable bromelain at this time but I am still looking. The large fruit corporations WILL NOT EVEN TALK WITH YOU. You would think that their sales department might consider opening up niche markets or at least have a referral process in hand, but I got a distinct impression that I was too close to the Holy Grail and that they didn’t want any of their secrets out.
Today I put a small amount of Green Papaya Powder in some water and tried it with a meal.
http://www.znaturalfoods.com/Green-Papaya-Powder-1-lb?cPath=20
The Certificate of Analysis they sent me showed it is prepared with cassava maltodextrin. Typically if I consume any kind of sugar the lower bowel reacts instantaneously that is supposed to be a bad bile system and if there is odorless gas it would be yeast overgrowth (from the bad bile system). I had no reaction whatsoever from the maltodextrin and although I cannot report miracles after the first day, the enzymes seemed to help and made me feel a tiny bit energized. The pH and temperature ranges of activity of bromelain and papaya are very different so that is why I want to use them both. A word of caution that Papaya is a fruit that contains LATEX when it is immature so if that is of concern or danger for anyone then stay tuned for TBA on bromelain.
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It is impossible to say if each Glutenaught will find this useful but because you all set me out on the search and I hammered the square peg into the round hole, I wanted to share with you the results of my efforts. Thanks for pushing me beyond giving up.
Well, Glutenaughts,
I had a funny feeling about posting so soon after the first trial but I guess we have to learn our lessons from the Three Stooges. The Boys were in the car with their newlyweds and they asked Curly to read the roadsign to tell them where they were.
Goslow.
Goslow? That’s Go Slow, silly.
So I took a whomping dose of green papaya powder and Low! and Behold! the beanpole that I am had foot and ankle swelling for the first time in my long and notorious existence.
Now, everyone would default to bladder and kidney involvement and they wouldn’t be too far off, but I have been at this insanity far too long to default to the obvious.
The reason that the digestive enzymes made me feel a bit better is that proteolytic enzymes have a cleansing effect on the muck inside the lymph. So the lymphatics in my head and neck felt a bit of relief. But the thing of it is that if the portal system of the Liver is not open (port closed for high tide) then there ain’t nowhere for the fluid and waste to go but down. Backed up bile sludge will back up the lymph and gelled lymph will back up the liver. Will the Egg-shaped Chicken please stand up? Although I will still be addressing the kidneys and bladder as if they were under duress (after all the Ham Bone is connected to the Tail Bone) I will focus on opening up the biliary system while taking minute amounts of the digestive enzymes days apart.
I had just read a blurb on Dr. Schulze’s take on why herbs don’t work. Low potency, low dose, irradiation, etc. You see, I had taken just about every commercial enzyme formula made WITH NO RESULTS! So, this told me that a simple offering not encapsulated in cellulose that feeds candida cell walls; not parsed out in tiny soundbites; not rendered neutered by neutrons; and then marked up in price so that you have to hire your children into Third World Sweatshops; actually works. I like simple food-based remedies not ‘proprietary blends’ of things that from reading the labels might do more harm than good. It was a very painful, hard lesson to learn but then that’s why you keep me around so I can make the mistakes before you do.
Thank you! I knew corn had to be in Bromelain! I breakout in hives everytime I took it. Thanks for the info but now i’m at a loss,what can help me now?
Hi Angela, glad to help. Yes, is a shame about bromelain. Enzymes and digestive stuff are a bit of a nightmare for us. I wrote the Stomach Acid and Enzyme Factsheet to try and give you some ideas and that includes non-supplement ways of increasing digestion ability so that is probably your best bet – that’s what I do! The factsheet comes as part of the Barrier Plan pack if you have that.
I need bromelain tablet with maltodextrine for weight loss. Could you suggest me from where to buy such tablets
No idea, sorry – we spend our days trying to find them WITHOUT that! Put in a search at http://www.naturaldispensary.co.uk for ‘Bromelain’ and look through each product – there should be one.