Isn't citric acid made with black mold? Surely that's unhealthy?!Updated a month ago

LMNT's citric acid is manufactured using aspergillus niger, which is indeed a form of mold. And if that mold is growing just generally in one's home, that will absolutely be a huge problem. However, when used for fermentation, it's actually a super nifty tool — and to understand the how and why of using mold to create citric acid, we might need to first clear a mental hurdle around the assumption that "mold = always bad". (Spoiler: it's not always bad!)

Materials such as citric acid are processed in order to to remove all proteins and immunogenic elements. To put it simply: while mold is used in the process of creating citric acid, it is not present in the final product.

We have an article that dives deep into citric acid and how it's made.

You can also review this article on PubMed looking at the safety of aspergillus niger in general.

If you have any concerns with citric acid as an ingredient in LMNT, you can always opt for our Raw Unflavored drink mix (which has no citric acid), or use our homebrew guide to make your own electrolytes at home.