This is one of the most common questions and there seems to be a lot of confusion so we would like to clear this up. Mother nature provides us with these wonderful herbs and Superfoods and because these are natural foods and not sprayed with synthetic chemicals and pesticides and they are not made in a lab (like synthetic vitamins and drugs) there will be natural differences from harvest to harvest and batch to batch. Variance from batch to batch can be caused by many factors, including the time of year it was harvested, farming techniques, the climate (especially rainfall), how quickly it was dried and milled into a powder after it was harvested, the drying temperature/technique, how fine the powder is milled, soil conditions and quality, time of year, how much moisture still remains in the dried powder (yes, dry powder still contains some moisture), how fresh it is, how it was stored after it was milled into a powder and various other factors. Beyond that powders will drastically vary if they are whole food powders, juice powders, or extract powders, each of which may be freeze-dried, low temperature dried, or high temperature dried (see question 3 below for more details).
Alfalfa is a great example. We carry an alfalfa juice powder and a whole food, alfalfa powder, each of which is 100% pure and low temperature dried. Alfalfa is usually grown and harvested 3 times a year and each season the taste, smell, color, and texture are slightly different due to multiple factors mentioned above. Both types of alfalfa are still 100% pure and dense in nutrients, but they will appear different depending on which harvest they come from.
Another example is our premium Maca vs. our regular Maca. Both types come from the same Maca root, but there is a significant difference in smell and taste. The premium Maca is harvested and immediately ground into a pulp without being dried first, while it is still fresh. The regular Maca is first dried and then ground into a powder. Because both types of Maca are dried in a different way the smell and taste are much different between the two types.
Milk thistle is a powder that we carry in both extract and whole food powder form. Both powders look and taste totally different and the extract powder is water soluble while the whole food powder will not totally dissolve in water. Both powders are excellent quality, but they taste and look totally different from each other even though they are both 100% pure with nothing else added.
Over the years we have seen thousands of different batches of different powders from all over the world. We are very familiar with the variance of each powder so you can rest assured that even if the powder looks different from what you are expecting we will not sell any product unless it meets our high-quality standards and has passed laboratory testing.
