When sick, doctors often give capsules along with some medicines. You too may have eaten many capsules, but do you know what substance they are made from? Very few people know this. In fact, even capsule manufacturing companies do not provide any information about this on their packets, meaning this fact is kept hidden. Recently this information became public when Union Minister Maneka Gandhi spoke to the Health Ministry in this regard. Till now, a large number of people only believe that the capsule shell is made of plastic but the truth is something else. Let us now tell you about this in detail.
The shell of the capsule is made of a substance called gelatin. You will be surprised to know that it is an animal product, that is, this substance is extracted from the dead bodies of animals. Apart from this, it is made from collagen. Let us tell you that gelatin is a fibrous substance which is present in the tendons, bones and cartilage of dead animals like cow, buffalo etc. This substance is extracted from these places only. For this reason, most of the companies making them do not write on their boxes whether they have used gelatin in the capsule shell or not. You will be surprised to know that today about 98 percent of the companies are using gelatin only to make capsule shells. Gelatin is extracted by boiling animal bones, tissues and skin. Union Minister Maneka Gandhi recently asked the Health Ministry to ban the use of gelatin in capsules and suggested that companies manufacture capsules using tree leaves.