This post series on botanical ingredient adulteration is inspired by the excellent work coming out of the Botanical Adulterants Prevention Program (BAPP) by the American Botanical Council (ABC), continuing today with:
➡️ Pomegranate (Punica granatum), which is consumed as a food and is also widely used in traditional and modern wellness products. Its fruit has been studied for a range of activities, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cardiometabolic, with much of the interest centered on polyphenols such as punicalagins, punicalins, anthocyanins, and ellagic acid. In Ayurvedic medicine, multiple parts of the plant, including the fruit, bark, leaves, flowers, roots, and seeds, have traditional uses, but most commercial products and most of the BAPP discussion focus on the fruit, juice, rind/peel, arils, and fruit extracts.
On the dietary supplement market, pomegranate appears in capsules, tablets, powders, and blended formulas. Most pomegranate supplements are made from dehydrated juice concentrate or solvent extracts of the fruit and/or fruit parts (especially the rind, arils, and pulp) often after juice has been mechanically pressed. Pomegranate seed oil, notable for its punicic-acid content, is also sold and is increasingly used in cosmetic and “cosmeceutical” applications.
For companies, confirming identity is not optional; it’s a legal and ethical duty under cGMPs to verify that each incoming botanical is the right species, the right plant part, and meets agreed quality specs. Brands and manufacturers should be leaning on resources like the BAPP adulteration bulletins and implementing fit-for-purpose analytical methods, rather than relying on nonspecific tests that can miss plant-part adulteration.
Adulteration, in the regulatory sense, means a product is unsafe or of inferior quality because it fails to meet legal standards for purity, strength, or composition (including contamination).
Economic adulteration is emphasized in these posts: intentional substitution, dilution, or undeclared additions that misrepresent a botanical’s true identity or quality compared to what the label and consumer would reasonably expect. Accidental adulteration is also present in some species.
For more detailed information on adulterants in botanicals, see the BAPP publications, which are freely available on their website. To see the full downloadable PDF post, go to it on LinkedIN:
Pomegranate Common Adulterants-
