Vegadelight is Fake: it is not vegan Vitamin D3

Vegadelight is fake: it is not vegan Vitamin D3 as the supplier claims

Hi, I'm Kaz and I was recently evaluating Vegadelight for a new product development. The supplier, Nutraland, claims Vegadelight is Vitamin D3 made from lichen. I'm a food tech and also a vegan of 20 years. Luckily I came across comments on a Facebook group suggesting that Vegadelight might not be genuine. I looked into it and I'm glad I did. It is fake. No question. I want to share what I found out... 

Background reference
Much of what you need to know stems from this very useful report, which Nutraland would never want you to see. The report was published by the Vegadelight manufacturer following a statutory Chinese Government demand. You can go ahead and use Google translate from the original. If you are contemplating using Vegadelight, I really recommend you do so.

Let me summarize what I found out.....

1. Vegadelight is not Vitamin D3 from lichen
The report makes a series of revelations that allow this conclusion.

Composition
Vegadelight Oil was tested for its composition. Just like Nutraland says in its paperwork, the Oil is predominantly Olive Oil. That's what the test shows too. There's also a clear peak showing Vitamin D3 and a very small amount of some other stuff. It smells pretty bad I should add! Now, if this was genuinely from lichen, the composition would look completely different: there would be several identifiable compounds and all of the usual fatty acids and other oil fractions found in the lichen. This would be easy to see against the known composition of Olive Oil. If the Vitamin D3 was from the lichen, the oil would need to contain everything else that came with it from the lichen. It does not. It is very high Olive Oil, neat D3 (which can only have been artificially added) and a very, very small amount of something messy. That could well be some kind of natural oily extract but the math just doesn't add up (I'll come back onto math shortly....!).

Vegadelight Oil versus Vegadelight Powder: no comparison
This is almost laughable. OK, Vegadelight Powder is a spray-dried form of Vegadelight Oil right? That makes sense: you take the lichen oil containing D3 and dry it onto the substrate powder. Therefore you'd expect the composition of the oil in Vegadelight Powder to look identical to the composition of the oil in Vegadelight Oil right? Well, it doesn't. It's totally different. Even taking Olive Oil into consideration (i.e. if they tried to claim that in Vegadelight Oil they don't use or need Olive as a carrier). There is just no correlation. How can that be? Well, it can't be. Unless the starting oil is completely different, for which there is no explanation.

So what is Vegadelight really?
It is Olive Oil with neat D3 added. The source of that neat D3 must be animal. They probably added a small amount of something else to try and complicate the composition. Any Analytical Chemists out there - try it for yourself. The answer is in the peaks!

Vegadelight Powder isn't made using Vegadelight Oil. So the starting material is different. There's nothing more to say really. If it was genuine, there would be correlation, but there isn't.


2. Unique calculations

Nutraland's lichen extract contains more than 100% Vitamin D3
The report gives a brilliant piece of math. It tells us that 2% lichen extract is mixed with 98% Olive Oil to produce Vegadelight Oil, which is 1 million iu per grm. OK, firstly 1 million iu per grm equates to 2.5%. Therefore Nutraland's lichen extract contains over 100% Vitamin D3. Amazing right? Could that just be a mistake in the report? Sadly not. They keep repeating the same ridiculous answer throughout, even giving production volumes. The next bit is my favourite....

They can produce 12,000 kgrm of lichen extract with 3,000 kgrm of lichen raw material
More amazing math. So let me get this straight..... they can get 4 times more lichen extract than the starting amount of lichen. So 3kg of lichen contains 12kg of oil? This is a new world of math! Again, you think it could be a one-off error in the report? Sorry but you'd be mistaken. Check it out for yourself.

3. The manufacturing site cannot produce Vegadelight
So we know the composition of Vegadelight doesn't make sense, and we know the calculations used by the manufacturer don't make any mathematical sense. Surely nothing else could be a problem, right? Read on....

Lack of capability at the manufacturing site
The report tells us all of the equipment and raw ingredients used on the site. Nutraland openly tells on its website how Ethanol is used during the extraction of its lichen D3, but guess what...? No Ethanol is used on the manufacturing site. The site can't handle ethanol and has no solvent handling. When it comes to the lichen extraction, guess what else...? There's no suitable extraction equipment on site either. Nutraland claims to get the Powder from the same manufacturer, and indeed the manufacturer claims to produce it at the site, but guess what else...? There's no powder production or spray drying equipment or infrastructure on the site either! That probably goes some way to explaining why the Vegadelight Powder is completely different in oil composition to the Vegadelight oil: they are produced in different locations, no doubt with totally different starting materials!

Same process and equipment used for Vegadelight as for a Paper additive and Lemon Peel extract
If you look at the disclosures about the methods and equipment used at the facility to prepare a Lemon Peel extract and a Special Paper Additive, you will find they are remarkably similar (i.e. identical) to the process used to make Vegadelight Vitamin D3. Have a read for yourself. It is funny if nothing else!

Lichen "growing up"
This one made one of my Uni friends (who happens to have studied lichens for many years) really laugh. The manufacturer claims to take some lichen, which it buys in 25kg bags, and put it in a light room for 10 days to "grow up.". Now firstly, the room referenced in the report is very small, yet can somehow handle 3,000kgrm lichen per year and make it "grow up.". Secondly, what does that even mean? Lichens take around 10 years to grow, so it would be an amazing scientific discovery if they were somehow able to make it "grow up" further in 10 days. This is particularly amazing as the 25kg of lichens must be dry, or they would be microbially contaminated and need to be supplied in some kind of feed media. No growing equipment, feed media or lighting equipment is listed by the manufacturer, which now probably comes as no surprise. Given they also claim this 3,000kgrm (whether grown up or not grown up) multiply itself into 4 times more lichen extract (12,000kgrm), I think we can conclude this whole "growing up" thing is from the same parallel universe of fantasy.


Made in China
I'm just gonna come out and speak openly on this. I've had good experiences with Chinese companies, and bad experiences, so I don't want to generalize. The bad experiences typically involve literally facing a "Chinese wall" when it comes to trying to get the bottom of things. Things start well, you get half a response to questions, half a story when you need more information, and then when you ask too many questions the shutters come down. That's exactly the situation here.

Nutraland has an office in USA but is a Chinese company. It takes some digging to find out where Vegadelight is actually supposed to be manufactured, which is in Guangzhou, China. Take a look at the address and see if you think the place has the capability of doing anything of this kind! Nutraland's Kosher certificate (which you can get online) gave me all of the manufacturing detail I needed.


Foot note
I've written this summary to share my experiences here. I'm sick of companies trying to get capitalize on veganism with BS. In United States, raw ingredient adulteration is a huge problem that I come across all the time in my job. We need to share, educate, and where relevant expose. If you've read this far, I hope the post helps you, but don't just take my word for any of this. Everything referenced above is available in the public domain. Try researching it for yourself.

Kaz