They don't have to tell you what's in it

Real Health · Part 3

You pick up a supplement, flip it over, and read the ingredient list. You assume that's everything that's in it. It isn't — and in many cases, the law doesn't require them to tell you the rest.

Here's how they can sell it so cheap.

What fillers actually are

Fillers, binders and bulking agents are inactive ingredients added to supplements during manufacturing. They have nothing to do with your health. They exist to make the product easier and cheaper to produce — helping ingredients flow through machinery, hold their shape in a capsule, or simply bulk out the product so it looks like you're getting more than you are.

Common fillers include magnesium stearate, silicon dioxide, microcrystalline cellulose, talc, and maltodextrin. Some are relatively inert. Others have been shown to interfere with nutrient absorption or cause digestive irritation. None of them should be in a supplement that's supposed to improve your health.

The part that should make you angry

For TGA-listed products in Australia, fillers and excipients are not required to appear on the ingredient label in the same way active ingredients are. This means a capsule could be 40-50% filler — bulking agents, flow agents, anti-caking compounds — and you'd have no way of knowing from the label alone.

This is how a $13 Ashwagandha at the pharmacy is possible. Take a small amount of low-grade root extract, add a significant amount of cheap filler, press it into a capsule, and sell it at a price that looks too good to be true — because it is.

The simple rule

If a supplement doesn't explicitly say "no fillers", "100% pure" or list only the whole food ingredient on the label — it almost certainly contains fillers. Brands that don't use them make it a central part of their marketing, because it's genuinely rare and genuinely difficult to manufacture without them.

Every Forest Super Foods product contains one ingredient. The whole food itself — organically grown, freeze-dried and encapsulated. No flow agents. No binders. No bulking agents. Nothing your body doesn't need.

"One of the first things I look for when evaluating a supplement is whether it discloses everything in the capsule — not just the active ingredient. Most brands won't, because they can't afford to. The fillers are how the margins work."
— Ange Gioffre, Clinical Nutritionist

Next in the Real Health series: the problem with extracts — and why "10x concentrated" might actually mean 10x less effective.