The five most adulterated herbal ingredients in India

Every manufacturer in this industry knows which ingredients arrive with problems. Few publish the list, because it reads as an admission that the supply chain is unreliable.

It is unreliable, in specific and well-documented ways. Knowing which five ingredients to scrutinise, and which test catches each, is more useful than any certification logo.

This is written for brand owners specifying products and for buyers who want to know what to ask.

1. Shilajit, the worst, by a distance

What the problem is: large quantities of what is sold as shilajit contain little or none. Common substitutes and bulking agents include gum, resin, jaggery, clay and various dark viscous materials.

Why it matters beyond value for money: unpurified or adulterated material can carry heavy metals. The classical texts specify a purification step, shodhana, precisely because raw material straight from rock is not fit for consumption. Skipping it is not a cost saving; it is a safety failure.

What home tests catch: crude bulking. Dissolution in warm water will reveal clay or sediment. Taste will reveal jaggery.

What home tests do not catch: heavy metals. Which is the risk that actually matters. This is the single most important point in this article, the popular “how to identify real shilajit” videos test for the wrong thing.

The test that works: a heavy metals panel (lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium) on every lot, plus fulvic acid assay for standardisation. We re-test shilajit in house regardless of what the supplier certificate says.

What to demand: batch-level heavy metal reports with the batch number on them. A supplier who cannot produce this should be refused.

2. Curcumin, mislabelling rather than contamination

What the problem is: plain turmeric powder sold, priced and labelled as standardised curcumin extract.

Kitchen turmeric is roughly 2–5% curcuminoids. A standardised extract is 95%. That is a twenty- to fortyfold difference in the compound the customer is paying for.

A second, separate problem: synthetic curcumin, and in some documented cases synthetic dyes such as metanil yellow used to enhance colour in turmeric powder. Metanil yellow is a non-permitted colourant.

What catches it: a curcuminoid assay, straightforward HPLC. This is one of the easiest tests in this list to run and the one most likely to expose a cheap supplier.

What to demand: the stated curcuminoid percentage on the certificate of analysis, with a method stated. “Turmeric extract” with no percentage is a label that has told you nothing, and in our experience the omission is rarely accidental.

For brand owners: if you are paying extract prices, assay the first batch independently. It is inexpensive and it tells you immediately whether your supplier is honest.

3. Spirulina, a genuine toxicity risk

What the problem is: not substitution but contamination. Spirulina grown in open ponds or harvested from natural water bodies can be colonised by microcystin-producing cyanobacteria such as Microcystis.

Why it matters: microcystins are hepatotoxins. They damage the liver. Published surveys of retail spirulina products in multiple markets have found a proportion of samples exceeding recommended limits.

Why nobody mentions it: contaminated spirulina looks, smells and tastes identical to clean spirulina, the harm is slow rather than acute, and raising it is commercially awkward for anyone selling the category.

The test that works: a dedicated microcystin assay on every lot. A general heavy metals panel does not cover it. Spirulina also concentrates minerals from its growth medium, so a heavy metals panel is needed as well.

What to demand: controlled cultivation documentation and batch microcystin results. If a supplier has never heard of the test, that answers your question.

4. Ashwagandha, leaf passed off as root

What the problem is: classical preparations and most research use the root. Leaf material is cheaper and has a different constituent profile. Mixing leaf into what is sold as root powder or extract is routine at the cheaper end of the market.

A second issue: branded grade names such as KSM-66 printed on material that is not that grade. This is straightforward mislabelling and it happens because the name carries a price premium.

What catches it: HPTLC fingerprinting to confirm plant part and identity, plus withanolide assay for standardisation. Root and leaf produce distinguishable profiles.

What to demand: “root only” stated on the specification, a withanolide percentage, and, if a branded grade is claimed, the supplier’s authorisation documentation for that grade. Grade owners track their authorised buyers; the paperwork either exists or it does not.

5. Saffron, the oldest fraud in the list

What the problem is: saffron is among the most expensive agricultural products in the world, which makes it permanently attractive to adulterate. Common substitutions: dyed safflower petals, dyed corn silk, coloured plant fibres, and genuine saffron bulked with stigma material of no value. Added colourants and weighting agents also occur.

Why it matters for formulators: even at 0.5% in a cosmetic cream, saffron is a real cost line. If you are paying for it, you want it to be present.

What catches it: ISO 3632 testing, which measures crocin, picrocrocin and safranal, the colour, taste and aroma compounds, and is the established standard for saffron quality grading.

What to demand: ISO 3632 category and values on the certificate.

The ones that nearly made the list

Worth knowing about even if they did not make the top five.

Guggul and kutki, both species under conservation pressure, which drives substitution with related species. Botanical identity testing matters.

Giloy, Tinospora crispa substituted for Tinospora cordifolia. This is more than a quality issue: T. crispa has been more clearly associated with hepatotoxicity, and species confusion is one of the acknowledged weaknesses in the published giloy liver-injury case reports.

Honey, sugar syrup adulteration is extensively documented in India and standard tests have been shown to miss some modified syrups.

Protein powders, amino spiking, which is the same principle in a different category: inflating a nitrogen-based protein reading with cheap nitrogen-bearing amino acids. Covered separately.

The pattern worth noticing

Look at what these have in common.

The ingredients that get adulterated are the ones that are expensive, hard to identify visually, and bought on a name rather than on a verifiable specification.

Which gives you a general rule: the more an ingredient’s price depends on something you cannot see, the more you need a test rather than a certificate.

And the corollary: a standardisation percentage on a certificate of analysis, with a stated method, is worth more than any logo on a website. “GMP certified” describes how a plant operates. It does not tell you what arrived at the gate that morning.

What to actually do

If you are a brand owner:

1. Ask your manufacturer which ingredients they re-test in house rather than accepting the supplier certificate, and why those. The answer tells you a great deal.
2. Specify standardisation percentages in writing, not ingredient names alone.
3. Commission independent testing on your first batch from any new supplier, on whichever of these five is in your formulation. It is inexpensive relative to the exposure.
4. Ask what happens when a lot fails. A manufacturer with no answer has never rejected one.
5. For shilajit, protein and spirulina specifically, require batch-level reports and consider publishing them. In those categories it is genuinely effective marketing.

If you are a consumer:

Buy from brands that state standardisation percentages and will share batch reports. It is a narrow filter and it removes most of the problem.

The short version

Shilajit (heavy metals, and home tests miss them), curcumin (turmeric sold as extract), spirulina (microcystins), ashwagandha (leaf as root) and saffron (dyed substitutes). Each has a specific test that catches it, and a standardisation percentage on a certificate beats any certification logo.

The common thread: ingredients bought on a name rather than a measurable specification are the ones that get faked.

For the questions worth asking any manufacturer, see choosing a contract manufacturer. For our own testing position, raw material sourcing.