Guide

Does Banyan Easy Digest work? A 45 to 55 percent alcohol bitters extract, and what its herbs show

Easy Digest is a liquid, not a tablet: a 1 fl oz amber dropper bottle of Banyan Botanicals’ digestive bitters, nine herbs drawn into water and organic grain alcohol at a stated strength of 1:2. It is the one product in Banyan’s digest line that is not sold by dosha, and its herb list reads as much like a European bitters formula as an Ayurvedic one. This page covers the panel, the alcohol, the trials in the forms the herbs were tested in, and a rating that exists on one page only.

A 1:2 extract in grain alcohol

The nine herbs, in the order the panel prints them: coriander seed, fennel seed, anise seed, licorice root, cardamom seed, peppermint leaf, celery seed, gentian root and ginger rhizome, all marked organic. US rules put blend components in descending order of weight, so coriander is the heaviest and ginger the lightest, with no ratio to read. A strength of 1:2 means 1 g of dried herb to every 2 mL of extract, which fits the 500 mg of herb weight in a 1 mL serving. Split evenly, that is about 56 mg of each herb per serving, our arithmetic and not a label figure. Banyan’s Pitta Digest label prints Latin names for several of the same common names, but this bottle does not, so the species of anise, peppermint and gentian is something we could not confirm.

The bottle prints a Banyan address in Albuquerque and certification by Organic Certifiers. It prints no country of manufacture in the photos we read, unlike the tablets in the line.

The alcohol, in numbers

At 45 to 55 percent, a 1 mL serving holds 0.45 to 0.55 mL of ethanol, about 0.36 to 0.43 g, and the three servings the bottle allows come to roughly 1.1 to 1.3 g in a day. Banyan’s page says the product is not for use in pregnancy or lactation, and the bottle repeats the pregnancy line. One reviewer notes that people who avoid alcohol altogether may not want it. The drops go into water or juice, which dilutes them in the glass but does not change the amount.

Not sold by dosha, and not a classical formula

Vata Digest and Pitta Digest are each tied to a dosha, Ayurveda’s constitutional categories. Easy Digest is not. Banyan calls it a fast-acting blend of herbs traditionally used to support the digestive process, taken before meals to stoke the appetite and kindle the digestive fire (agni), or after eating for a comfortable post-meal experience. Its energetics line classes the blend as pungent, sweet and bitter in taste, slightly heating in action and sweet after digestion, balancing for vata and kapha and possibly aggravating pitta in excess. Those are the tradition’s categories, not measurements. Banyan names no classical formula and prints no Sanskrit names, so there is no traditional recipe to hold it against. See the Ayurveda section for how the system sorts herbs.

The European bitters parallel

Strip the dosha language and the herb list is a familiar one. Gentian and peppermint are bitter and aromatic plants; fennel, anise, coriander, cardamom and celery seed are carminative seeds; ginger and licorice complete the set. That mix is a familiar one from European digestive bitters, which are alcohol-based liquids taken in small amounts around a meal. Banyan does not make that comparison itself, and its framing is Ayurvedic, so we draw it as a parallel and not a lineage. For gentian we found studies of its bitter taste on appetite and on gastric blood flow (PMIDs 27829482 and 24802704), which are not trials in dyspepsia, and no human dyspepsia trial of cardamom or gentian extracts.

The trials, by the form each herb was tested in

PubMed holds no entry for Easy Digest, and Banyan as an author affiliation alongside Ayurveda returned nothing. The herbs have trials, mostly of oils or standardized extracts, and we found none of a 1:2 alcohol extract like this one.

• Peppermint. A meta-analysis of 10 trials and 1,030 people with IBS found peppermint oil left fewer people without improvement in global symptoms (relative risk 0.65, 95% CI 0.43 to 0.98, number needed to treat 4), with more adverse events than placebo (relative risk 1.57); the authors rate the evidence very low in quality. These were capsules of the oil, not leaf extract (PMID 35942669). The IBgard guide covers a peppermint oil product in detail.
• Anise. In 120 people with IBS, three enteric-coated anise oil capsules a day for 4 weeks left 75% symptom-free against 35% on placebo and 52.5% on a peppermint oil product, by intention to treat (PMID 27815079).
• Licorice. GutGard, a standardized extract, at 75 mg twice a day for 30 days lowered functional dyspepsia scores against placebo (P ≤ 0.05) (PMID 21747893).
• Ginger. In 11 people with functional dyspepsia, 1.2 g of ginger moved gastric half-emptying from 16.1 to 12.3 minutes without changing symptoms (PMID 21218090).
• Fennel, coriander and celery seed. Curcumin plus fennel oil cut IBS severity 50.05% against 26.12% on placebo in 121 people (PMID 27308645); the Carmint coriander blend helped pain and bloating in 32 people with IBS (PMID 16868824); celery plus ajwain beat placebo and omeprazole in 150 people with dyspepsia (PMID 29299438).

The Cochrane review of non-Chinese herbal medicines for functional dyspepsia (41 trials, 4,477 people, 27 herbs) reports peppermint plus caraway oil as probably giving a large improvement at 4 weeks (two studies, 210 people, moderate certainty; caraway is not in this bottle), licorice at one study of 50 people and anise at one study of 107, the latter at low certainty (PMID 37323050).

Safety: licorice, alcohol and the metals surveys

The label says not to use it during pregnancy and asks nursing mothers, people on medications and people with a medical condition to consult a practitioner. Licorice is one of the nine herbs, and NCCIH ties its glycyrrhizin to serious effects at small amounts in people with high blood pressure or heart or kidney conditions; the licorice share of the blend is unprinted. Peppermint carried more adverse events than placebo in the IBS trials above, as an oil.

On metals, Banyan says its herbs and products are tested at independent labs for arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury and meet ANSI 173 and AHPA guidelines; no lab, limits, results or certificate for this bottle turned up. A 2008 survey of 193 Ayurvedic medicines bought online found detectable lead, mercury or arsenic in 20.7% (Saper et al., JAMA, 2008). The extract lists no mineral or metal ingredient, and the survey describes the class, not this bottle.

In the US it is a dietary supplement under DSHEA (1994); the state licenses no Ayurvedic practitioners. In India Ayurveda has a BAMS degree and the AYUSH ministry. A buyer can check the common names (printed), the Supplement Facts panel (present) and a batch certificate (none found). Are Ayurvedic supplements safe has the wider record.

Drops, timing and price

The bottle: 30 drops in water or juice, one to three times a day, shaken well. The page: 30 drops in water two to three times a day, before or after meals. We could not tell which is current. A bottle costs $16.99 for 30 servings, $0.57 each, which is $0.57 to $1.70 a day on the bottle’s range and $1.13 to $1.70 on the page’s. Ayurveda.com’s store and Blue Sky Vitamin list the same price; we found no Amazon listing. Banyan offers AutoShip and a 90-day return, with return shipping paid by the customer.

One rating, hosted by the brand

Banyan’s Judge.me widget shows 4.94 from 34 reviews; of the 32 readable, 30 are five-star and 2 four-star, none lower. Nothing independent sits beside that, and the widget notes that reviews mentioning symptoms or medical conditions are not published. Reviewers praise the taste (“warming and flavorful”), a small bottle that travels, and comfort after meals. The two complaints are a licorice flavor one reviewer found hard to take, softened by lemon, and the alcohol. We read no billing or cancellation complaints.

Who Easy Digest is for, and the neighbors in the line

• Someone who prefers a liquid taken by the drop to a tablet, and is content with alcohol as the solvent.
• Someone who likes bitters before meals and wants an extract of carminative seeds with gentian.
• Someone choosing within the line: Vata Digest is a warming tablet and Pitta Digest a cooling one, each sold by dosha.

The product page is Banyan Botanicals Easy Digest.

The products in this catalog

Common questions

Sources

• Banyan Botanicals: Easy Digest liquid extract product page (Supplement Facts, directions, energetics, price, Judge.me reviews), bottle panel photographs, and refund policy. banyanbotanicals.com
• Cochrane review, non-Chinese herbal medicines for functional dyspepsia (41 trials, 4,477 people). PMID 37323050. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37323050
• Meta-analysis of peppermint oil in IBS, 10 randomized trials, 1,030 people. PMID 35942669. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35942669
• Trial of enteric-coated anise oil in 120 people with IBS. PMID 27815079. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27815079
• Trial of GutGard licorice extract in functional dyspepsia, PMID 21747893; ginger crossover trial in 11 people, PMID 21218090. 21747893; 21218090
• Curcumin plus fennel oil in 121 people with IBS (PMID 27308645); Carmint in 32 people with IBS (PMID 16868824); celery plus ajwain in 150 people (PMID 29299438). 27308645; 16868824; 29299438
• Gentian bitter-taste studies on appetite and gastric blood flow. PMIDs 27829482 and 24802704. 27829482; 24802704
• NCCIH: licorice root, safety of glycyrrhizin. nccih.nih.gov/health/licorice-root
• Saper RB, Phillips RS, Sehgal A, et al. “Lead, mercury, and arsenic in US- and Indian-manufactured Ayurvedic medicines sold via the Internet.” JAMA, 2008. PMID 18728265. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18728265; Ministry of Ayush, India. ayush.gov.in
• Ayurveda.com store listing for Banyan Easy Digest (price). store.ayurveda.com