Genuine Hoodia

There appears to be a lot of confusion surrounding the Hoodia market as there are so many different retailers offering Hoodia in such diverse forms, we are often asked "what is Hoodia Extract" or "what is the difference between Hoodia extract & pure Hoodia" here we will try to explain the differences of each type of Hoodia as well as letting you know of all of the scams & dodgy review sites that litter the internet.

Hoodia Extract vs. Pure Hoodia

Hoodia extract is the concentrated form of Hoodia Gordonii which is created by mixing the raw Hoodia with a solvent such as alcohol or water; the solvent then drains out the core ingredients (P57).

After some time the Hoodia is strained off with the water evaporated to leave only the active ingredient (P57)

This means that 800mg of Hoodia extract (or the concentrate) is the high quality part of the plant that is used in your tablets, 800mg of pure unprocessed Hoodia will likely contain compounds that are not required (sometimes even the hard skin of the cactus)

Using extracts is common practice amongst supplement suppliers, much of the of pure orange juice sold in the UK is from concentrate; water is extracted from the juice so that it can be transported & preserved on it's way into the UK, the concentrated juice looks like a very thick syrup; drinking it would be a similar experience to drinking undiluted cordial.

Once the juice arrives in the UK the same quantity of water that was removed is re added, it is then packed and sold as pure orange juice.

Do not worry we do not add any of the surplus materials (or water) to our Hoodia, the active ingredient is turned into tablets in its concentrated form.

The simple fact is that most of the UK public are unaware of the concentration process, but more importantly they are unaware of how some cheeky Hoodia retailers play with the extract numbers to mislead customers; they do it like this...

When the Hoodia has been picked and processed, the supplying companies sell it to the manufacturers as 10:1, or more commonly 20:1 extract. That simply means that either 10 grams or 20 grams of unprocessed plant core is equal to 1 gram of processed Hoodia.

Many Hoodia suppliers put 50mg of Hoodia in to their tablets and claim that it is 1000mg. Really it is 1000mg of the unprocessed plant rather than the processed Hoodia Gordonii.

Read the quantities carefully

When something appears to be too good to be true, it almost always is; for example we recently noticed a product called Hoodia Gordonii Diet Extra, this Hoodia supplement was clearly advertised as being 1350mg per pill. (possibly suggesting it might be packed with Hoodia?)

Shown below is what we found when we checked the ingredients, we've also included the ingredients in our Hoodia for the sake of comparison...

Inactive ingredients include DiCalcium Phosphate; Cellulose; Magnesium Stearate; Stearic Acid; Silica & Vegetable Protein Coating

So 900mg of inactive ingredients, whilst these ingredients are harmless they are just the fillers to form the tablet & do not suppress your appetite in any way.

The most alarming thing in this list of ingredients is the amount of Hoodia; 50mg of Pure Hoodia in each tablet! it is advertised as pure Hoodia which suggests that this is not an extract, in real terms there could be as little as 1 milligram of Hoodia extract in this tablet or possibly 2 milligrams. Either way taking a whole bottle every day would not get near the recommended dosage.

Other ingredients include Prune & Grapefruit extracts, we have no idea why an appetite suppressant would contain such ingredients.

To cut a long story short it would be best to avoid strange blends or products with names such as Hoodia Max, Hoodia Plus, Unique Hoodia or Hoodia Extra. If you just want Hoodia stick with Just Hoodia (no pun intended)