Capsule vs. powder?

I always read people saying that powder form of supplements is better than capsule/tablet form, but why is this so? For example, I am shopping online for l-arginine, which has a very bad taste in powder form. What would be the benefits of getting powder form over capsule form for this specific case, as well as for other cases?

I’m guessing it has to do with absorption or something similar, but how MUCH better is absorption? If it is something like 10% more effective, than I would say getting capsule/tablet form is better, but if it’s much more than that than maybe getting powder is the better decision.

If anybody has any wisdom about this, please share :)

If I had to choose between L-Arginine capsules or powder, I’d choose neither. You can get more than plenty of an amount of L-Arginine through real foods and it’s innumerably better than chemically made L-Arginine in a laboratory. Powdered Vitamin C that never goes bad is nothing like a real orange. We might think that because technically it -is- vitamin C that it’ll have the exact same effect as eating an orange, but it just isn’t the same.

Anyway, nuts and seeds and liver have lots of L-Arginine. Please fill in the list of other L-Arginine rich foods. Nuts like brazil nuts, hazel nuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans are some of my personal favorites, always whole in the shell, mostly because they’re just fun to crack and eat. Part of the experience. Good to snack on throughout the day and they’re all the craze nowadays health-wise. So on top of getting L-Arginine, they do other healthy things for you as well, whatever the hell they may be. And they’re just fucking delicious. Better than forcing down powder anyway. Good luck.

Jack_27, I completely agree with you, and I plan to organize some kind of all-around diet sometime. However right now as a busy college student I don’t always have time to go shopping, prepare food, etc., so this is what I am looking for right now. Thanks for the information.

There is no difference in what you take It is simply more conmvenient to take capsules/ tablets than open a jar taka a spoonful and then swallow the powder followed by the job of clearing it from your mouth.

And it tastes prety awful too!

Thanks for the reply. I always read kfarrelldba saying that powder form is much better, he really likes to put down tablets lol.

I buy powders many times because I can get it far cheaper, but honestly some of this crap tastes so bad I wish I had it in capsules!

Sometimes tablets are compressed so hard that you may not be able to digest it properly. A good test is to put the tablet in a glass of water with about a tablespoon of vinegar to simulate stomach conditions. If it doesn’t break down in a couple hours, you may also have trouble digesting it.

I find I can handle tablets pretty good, but many times women have a harder time with it. For them I recommend capsules.