L-ornithine/aspartate very different taste

I usually bought this one https://seriousnutritionsolutions.com/product/l-ornithine-l-aspartate/
but shipping costs are pretty high for europe so i tried this one instead https://ostrovit.com/en/products/ostrovit-l-ornithine-l-aspartate-200-g-26148.html#

They both say they only have one ingredient but they taste completly different, how is that possible?

I checked ostrovit non commercial reviews and didnt see any issue, every customer seemed satisfied and the brand has many other products in health/fitness so it seems legit.

I know that the first one "works" for it's intended use but for the second one i didnt pay too much attention or rather i take so many other stuff at the same time and didnt specifically took only that one to see if it was potent as well, i guess i could do that but the taste was so different that i just stopped taking it to avoid any risk, do you think it's safe and the taste difference could be due to something like the manufacturing process but then it's still odd that it's listed as only one ingredient and taste very different, so maybe a difference in purity of the product?

I agree with Dude, there's no way to know.

You could send it to a lab but that's not worth it for one tub, financially speaking.

The spec sheet says it should taste "slightly acidic", but you can't really rely on that.

I do use oregano oil by Ostrovit and it seems to work.

Hey GeorgeBod, generally speaking, it's actually not just traces of contaminants from previous production.

The actual synthesis of the supplement itself can include the products that Dude listed.

At which point, if one of them doesn't reach a full chemical bond to the aspartate it may very well affect taste (and allergies).

Also keep in mind, that there are people who have found some absurd items in their supplements. I myself, have found 0.25 inch scrap metal in a bag of powder from BulkSupplements.com

I was fortunate enough that it hadn't pulverized or I would have only noticed it in the taste. My point is, these things do happen and the cleaning process isn't always a great as we'd like to think.

i think that list is just a standard disclaimer - if they put that on the packaging they cannot be sued by anyone who has an allergy to milk, fish, nuts etc having anaphylactic shock

i don't think it means that any of the ingredients are necessarily derived from any of these sources - but something else in their facility or supply chain might be - so they use this disclaimer - its will be the same one on everything from that facility usually.

to my mind the fact that one supplement doesn't taste of anything is a bit of a flag that something is up.

a quick google says that LOLA rapidly dissociated into its constituent amino acids in water - l-ornithine and l-aspartate - and aspartate is known to have an acidic/sour taste

so its hard to account for the fact that one product does not have any sour taste at all

i have come across something similar - when a product advertised as magnesium citrate actually turned out to be magnesium tri citrate - a different chemical with less magnesium in it and much harder to dissolve - but it wasn't a contamination as such - more a problem with the description being a bit vague. i don't know if something similar is possible with LOLA.

i wonder if it possible for one product to be a mix of l-ornithine and l-aspartate powders - rather than the combined salt of both - but i would still expect that to taste sour .....odd

i dont think i would take it till i understood more
the manufacturer may be able to shed some light if you email them

Garzie said...
i don't think it means that any of the ingredients are necessarily derived from any of these sources

Gentle note here... It's true that it can mean contamination from within the facility but as I said above this is not always the case.

Take L-ornithine for example, the majority is derived from a process involving glucose, which is produced industrially from starch, a common allergen as it can come from a variety of sources.

Recently manufacturers have also been trying to extract L-ornithine from a method that involves algae, which is another allergen.

Manufacturers are also constantly changing their methods to get more yield, more sustainability etc. So it's not always safe to say that it's just from cross-contamination within the facility where it's made.

Edit: GeorgeBod I accidentally skipped over your question, I hope the above answers it as well.