BCAA's are made of Human hair and Duck feathers???

[An Inconvenient Bro]

Wouldn't it be very easy for you to just post proof that use Ajin so we don't need to ever discuss this again?

hmm.. what would you like to see? COA's? I could post those but then the next attack would likely be in the form of wanting batch records or something like that.

As for the "unwritten rule" about somehow needing to put their tm on my label and marketing literature. Aji is technically a competitor and they have a bcaa product if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to give some thought to the actual wisdom of promoting their line on my label
What's even funnier about their salesman saying he doesn't sell XF is that not only do I not buy my raws direct but Aji aminos are available not just from them, distributors handle them as well

[An Inconvenient Bro]

Come one Dave, you've been a member here for how many years? You know what's needed.


A spoon pic with a big sack of Ajinomoto aminos, a tub of ICE and your choice of smartas$ comments on a piece of paper.

that would have to be an extra big spoon!!

[oodaloop]

Since this was a circus, about ducks, here's a pic of a duck at the circus. What do I get?

[firstandgoal]

Anyone who buys Bulk BCAA or other companies not using the good stuff are drinking this


Grade F unwashed Chinese Pubes hair

[oodaloop]

I don't buy it. No one is harvesting Chinese hair for BCAA production.

[firstandgoal]

I don't buy it. No one is harvesting Chinese hair for BCAA production.

Says oodaloop who owns one of the supp companies that harvests chinese pubes hair

[oodaloop]

Says oodaloop who owns one of the supp companies that harvests chinese pubes hair

I wish, I wouldn't be a broke ass mother****er, if that were the case, lol. Seriously, though, what are the logistics of hair harvesting? How do you get all the mom and pop barbers to get with that program? It just sounds silly, though I guess anything is possible in china.

[GetRippedInc]

If you want really quality BCAA's they need to come from a good source....







None better than from a real athlete! Tim Tebow Amino Acids....coming to a store near you

[firstandgoal]

I wish, I wouldn't be a broke ass mother****er, if that were the case, lol. Seriously, though, what are the logistics of hair harvesting? How do you get all the mom and pop barbers to get with that program? It just sounds silly, though I guess anything is possible in china.

What if we just eat our own HAIR? will that still give us the aminos we need?

[oodaloop]

Possibly, but a single hair in my mouth drives me nuts. I'll stick to haircaa's.

[Proposturalized]

brb adding hair to my pwo shakes...

and ducks

[Killshot1]

Alright so BCAA's come from hair and ducks, Taurine comes from bull sperm. What about the rest of the aminos? We need a comprehensive list of where each amino comes from on the forums, there is too much information scattered on the web.

Beta alanine comes from Ethiopian babies butts, i bet you didn't know that. did ya?

[Killshot1]

What if we just eat our own HAIR? will that still give us the aminos we need?

and fiber (;

[rangerkid2187]

I think OP misread an article stating our hair is made up of BCAAs.

[quank]

Possibly, but a single hair in my mouth drives me nuts.

how do you manage to get hair in your mouth?







Edit: nevermind, don't answer that.

[oodaloop]

how do you manage to get hair in your mouth?







Edit: nevermind, don't answer that.

Doing martial arts, or, uh, marital arts.

[ramrumram]

Guys, this is common that they buy fallen hair home to home in many places of India. There is a monthly collection van with announcement shouts "will give 50Rs (roughly 0.8 USD) for 50 gms of hair". They send it to nearby pharma factories for processing and exporting barrels of powders which stinks. Never knew this was BCAA until I started joining gym.

[poison]

Guys, this is common that they buy fallen hair home to home in many places of India. There is a monthly collection van with announcement shouts "will give 50Rs (roughly 0.8 USD) for 50 gms of hair". They send it to nearby pharma factories for processing and exporting barrels of powders which stinks. Never knew this was BCAA until I started joining gym.

Oh please. If hair is being used, and that's a big if, they're using hair from livestock, not humans. It's ridiculous to think otherwise.

[x-ray vision]

Oh please. If hair is being used, and that's a big if, they're using hair from livestock, not humans. It's ridiculous to think otherwise.

There are a quite a few reputable sources claiming it's true. A sample:

Did you know that not all BCAA (branched chain amino acids) supplements are created equal? Not from the ratio, or additional ingredient standpoint... but from the actual QUALITY of the aminos themselves. There are several different ways to produce amino acids, and the most common method is a very harsh acid extraction of animal products including duck feathers and human hair. This process, which involves hydrolysis for several hours using high heat and strong acids, creates amino acid hydrolysates that must then be filtered, dried, and refined to make them fit for human consumption. This is the most popular way to produce amino acids due to the abundance of raw materials, lower cost and ease of manufacturing. This process may produce a product that is contaminated with allergens.

http://www.labrada.com/store/BCAA-Power.html

Did you know that most BCAAs in the market are made from human hair, duck feathers and animal skin/hair! Yikes!

What! Did I just read that right? Are you trying to tell me that my pre-workout supplement, the one I so willingly chugged this morning before I killed it in the gym, was derived from hair salon clippings and the stuff they cram into my pillows?

Unfortunately, the answer is most likely, yes.

The use of these materials in branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) has been purposefully hidden by the supplement industry for a long time. Why have they been keeping it a secret from you, the consumer, all of this time? It’s all about dollars and cents, really. Most people view duck feathers, animal skin and human hair as byproducts, and would usually send them straight to the dump. However, the supplement industry seems to think it’s more important to make some raw materials from them! Hundreds of years ago, healers and doctors discovered that these materials are naturally high in keratin. Keratin, in simplest form, is a fibrous protein and is responsible for our hair and skin sticking together and not just falling apart. Keratin is essentially pure protein. By using certain acids and solvents, you can easily yield proteins and amino acids from keratin. Currently, most of these BCAAs are coming out of China, and that’s why it important to know where and how your supplements are manufactured.

Fear not, though. There are a few companies out there that offer a higher quality and more costly alternative – fermented vegan BCAAs. These are usually manufactured in Japan or Korea and are derived mainly from corn. The high demand for BCAAs has caused manufacturers to streamline their process over the last few years, which has made this alternative much more appealing as costs have gone down greatly. In the past, they were about 4 times more expensive than traditional Chinese BCAAs.

So who cares? I love me some hair and feathers in my shakes….

Ultimately the choice is yours, but here at True Nutrition, the little things always matter. Besides the fact that the raw materials used to make these free-form amino acids is so much more sustainable than human or animal skin/hair/feathers, the process is also much gentler, because the harsh chemicals used to treat skin-related keratin aren’t used. We also feel that fermented vegan BCAAs, or any fermented aminos for that matter, also taste much better. Although they do have a slightly more sour taste than regular aminos, for our vegan/vegetarian customers, the choice is clear.

https://truenutrition.com/blog/bcaa-dark-side/

DUCK FEATHERS & HUMAN HAIR

So if you’re adding in some BCAA or taking a regular pre workout, you are likely to be chugging down some human hair on a daily basis. Just like eating natural whole foods, it’s important to take in NATURAL supplements, that your body is designed to process. Many doctors and functional medicine practitioners agree, anything synthetic has a higher chance of being rejected/excreted from the body whereas natural, fermented products are digested without issue. This is one reason KAGED MUSCLE uses natural, fermented BCAA and Glutamine only, thus decreasing any risk of intolerances, allergens or negative consequences of artificial products. All fermented products are made from 100% natural vegetable Sunflower Lecithin.

https://www.kagedmuscle.com/blogs/sc...you-didnt-know

[poison]

You're calling product copy a 'reputable source'?


Hahahahahhaaa


It's just not efficient to collect human hair. It is efficient to collect duck/chicken feathers from fowl processing plants, because defeathering provides a lot of waste product in one location. Same for bovine sources and hair. No one is driving around in an ice cream van, trolling neighborhoods for hair clippings over his loudspeaker. I mean sure, maybe someone is, but he's a moron, and I doubt there's a large scale operation doing that.

Regardless, aminos are aminos. Human hair is weird, but fur and feathers? If you eat hot dogs, you shouldn't get squeamish over some fur....

[x-ray vision]

You're calling product copy a 'reputable source'?


Hahahahahhaaa

Oh brother. Hahaha? Grow up. I'm calling truenutrition and Labrada reputable sources, yes. You can look for more instead of claiming you know what's efficient and what you doubt. I provided at least a little evidence. I'm not making any claims one way or another.

[Mike McCandless]

Pretty sure I'm the only one on this board and likely one of the only ones in the industry that has been to almost every bcaa factory in china. Plenty of idiots spouting things off about the source of their ingredients when they have no clue as they simply buy from an american distributor who's buying it off varying lots from china based on price.

All of these goofs claiming vegan bcaa's have NEVER done a test to actually prove it's vegan. They just say it because a supplier told them so. Right now, fermentation is cheaper so most of the material out there is corn based. However, there are times when that is not the case. These companies have zero clue when they are getting fermented vs hydrolysis material. Typical industry bull where talking heads say things with no clue as to what is actually going on.

[poison]

Well, ajinomoto IS vegan, as far as I know, but outside that you're probably right.

[lucia316]

Great thread bump!!

[x-ray vision]

I contacted a few supplement companies that are making the claim regarding human hair. I have received several responses.

From Pitbull Labs:

In addition to aminos, L-Cystenine derived from human hair is also used in foods such as bread.


http://www.vrg.org/blog/2011/03/09/l...hers-hog-hair/

Pretty lame evidence.


More:

Hey again, [x-ray vision]! Doug has pointed to a few articles which you may reference below:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...O;2-O/abstract
http://www.vrg.org/blog/2011/03/09/l...hers-hog-hair/
http://aem.asm.org/content/64/5/1607.full.pdf

Thanks again, and please let us know if you have any additional questions or requests!

-Carl
Carl Manes
Customer Service Manager, True Nutrition
760-433-5376
760-433-5379 (F)

I contacted Carl to let him know that I don't think those links are the evidence that Doug seems to think it is. I'll post back what he writes in return.

Also:

Thank you so much for the message! I have provided another atrciles for you to check out below as well as some references from the Food Journal of Science to check out:

https://www.kagedmuscle.com/blogs/sc...you-didnt-know

REFERENCES
Kim, Dong-Hee, Seok-Hwan Kim, Woo-Seok Jeong, and Ha-Yan Lee. “Effect of BCAA Intake during Endurance Exercises on Fatigue Substances, Muscle Damage Substances, and Energy Metabolism Substances.” The Journal of Exercise Nutrition and Biochemistry J. Exerc. Nutr, Biochem. 17, no. 4 (2013): 169-80.

Huang, Jingyu, Philip N. Nkrumah, Gloria Appiah-Sefah, and Shijiang Tang. “Authentication of Pure L-Leucine Products Manufactured in China by Discriminating between Plant and Animal Sources Using Nitrogen Stable Isotope Technique.” Journal of Food Science 78, no. 3 (2013): H490-4.

Please let me know if you have any other questions! Thank you for being a part of Team Kaged Muscle!

Nolan
Kaged Muscle Support
Sign-Up for our Daily Newsletter!

I let Nolan know that the study doesn't say what he thinks it does.

Another:

Thanks for contacting us and for your question regarding the source of
amino acids in supplements.

As we state on our website most amino acid products on the market use a
combination of human hair AND bird feathers as their primary source.
In heavily populated areas of the world such as India and China human hair
is sold to raw material suppliers for the production of amino acids.
Another source of human hair is the prison system in these parts of the
world as well in which the prisoners hair is always being shaved and then
the hair is being sold.

It’s an inconvenient truth but it’s a fact, even when we were formulating
Hi5 we asked raw material suppliers if we bought synthetic BCAA’s could
they exclusively come from duck feathers instead of human hair and they all
said no, all synthetic aminos come from a combination of feathers and
human hair since they just feed whatever source material they currently
have in stock into the chemical bath to break down the substance and
release the aminos.

Hope this helps answer your question.

Matthew Elieff
SALES MANAGER
Magnum Nutraceuticals
OFFICE: 604.541.7411
TF: 1.888.6.MAGNUM
WWW.HARDMAGNUM.COM <http://hardmagnum.com/>

Not exactly hard evidence, but pretty good. I wrote back asking for the letters or any other evidence, and I was told that he no longer has the email conversations as they were from years ago.

[x-ray vision]

From Labrada:

Hi [x-ray vision],

Please see the note below from our VP of Research & Development.

Thank you,
Deanna Tew

Please tell him that actually, human hair has been commonly used for various applications such as making dough conditioner in bread. Many more people eat bread than consume BCAA supplements, so the supply is not the issue. He can research it carefully, but here is one link to get him started:

http://www.albalagh.net/halal/col2.shtml

So, after writing that I am aware of claims on the internet, I am linked to another claim...from a Muslim religious site. Alrighty.

[lockhrt999]

If they are paying $1 for 50 grams of human hair then how come BCAA which is supposed to be made from hair costs less than hair themselve. I always thought BCAA were made synthetically in the lab. Free flow stuff. Aren't we capable of making aminos in the lab nowadays?

It's true that they collect human hair in India but that's for making wigs. It's the biggest industry of the wig making.

[NEBinAK]

If they are paying $1 for 50 grams of human hair then how come BCAA which is supposed to be made from hair costs less than hair themselve. I always thought BCAA were made synthetically in the lab. Free flow stuff. Aren't we capable of making aminos in the lab nowadays?

It's true that they collect human hair in India but that's for making wigs. It's the biggest industry of the wig making.

Was just about to say, people pay huuuuuge amounts for real human hair wigs, they do indeed harvest human hair in some countries but it's to make wigs and weaves.

[Mike McCandless]

Well, ajinomoto IS vegan, as far as I know, but outside that you're probably right.

They haven't made bcaa's in forever. I asked when they were going to sue companies for claiming the use when they're telling me they haven't made it in years. Understand their office is 20 min from and I was the largest buyer of bcaa's in the world for years. Anyone that could possibly bcaa's contacted us constantly.

[TheFugitive]

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