E-FONG™ Herb Granules Agents and Distributors in US

We have a full pharmacy of e-fong granules, and as soon as we run out I will replace them with bulk granules from KPC or someone else. They can be convenient for simple formulas, but become very cumbersome form larger ones. We sometimes have to give 12 packets or more per day. A week's worth sends them out with 84 packets. We bundle them into each day's dose; we use rubberbands for smaller formulas, but bigger formulas require their own bag for each day. The packages cannot be opened without scissors, and I think it's difficult for patients to have to cut open 12 packages (and throw out all the packaging). Plus, the dosages are standardized. Different herbs come in packages that are the equivalent of 3, 6, or 10 grams. If I want to prescribe 10 grams and the package provides 6, I either have to overdose or underdose. Also, the packets come in bags that are in bags and that's a lot of packaging. Sometimes I have to explain to the patients "you will use 2 packs if the Dang Gui, 1 pack of gan cao, 2 packs of gan jiang, 1 pack of Bai Shao, 1.5 packs of huang qi, 1 pack of ren shen, 2 packs of dan shen", etc and they can get overwhelmed. I think it will be a lot easier with a digital scale and bulk granules. then I can tell them to just take one or two scoopfuls every day.

But in answer to your question, these folks seem to carry them.

http://www.herbsdirectusa.com/efong.html

Jason Bussell
President - Illinois Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

With all due respect to Jason, I actually have the opposite experience with E Fong and the sachets. First, the sachets are easy to store in individual pull-out drawers that don't take up a great deal of clinic space. Second, I don't have any problems explaining how many of the individual herbs that patients have to take, because we put each day's dose of sachets into a ziploc plastic sandwich bag (which we have patient's recycle and bring back for formula refills). Then we put the week's worth of sandwich bags (either one sandwich bag per day, or one sandwich bag per two-days) into a paper lunch bag that the patients also recycle. We also have a pre-made cooking instruction sheet that is given to all patients the first time they prepare the herbs.

Then, the only thing the patient has to do when they get home is cut open the sachets (and it's fairly easy to cut open 4-5 at a time), poor the powder into a container like glass jar with a lid, add 4-5 ounces of hot water, and they are done. Then, we have them take a two-ounce shot in the morning, and a two ounce shot at night. Done. Also, if they really hate having to open the sachets every day, they can prepare 2-3 days of tea in advance.

The other very important thing to remember about these individually packaged herbs is that they are considerably more potent than KPC or other granules of that type. These herbs are made by cooking the herb as a decoction, then quickly sucking the moisture out of it an sealing it into these packets/sachets. The liquid herb is not sprayed onto a medium like starch or ground-up herbs to turn it back into a solid like other granulated herbs, i.e. KPC, and others. If the E-Fong granules were not individually packaged in sachets, they would glop up once exposed to ambient moisture in the air. I find the strength of these herbs unmatched by any other format except decoction.

Also, I tried using the bottled herb granule pharmacy method for a while, and found that it was a gigantic pain in the ... because there was so much time spent trying to calculate the conversion from raw herb to granules that it was interrupting my time with patients, and it was nearly impossible to train staff how to do it. We also ended up with powder dust all over the clinic from opening and pouring the herbs for formulas. This was a real problem for patients and staff with allergies and/or asthma problems. With the E-Fong herbs, I have staff filling formulas who have absolutely zero training in TCM, but all they have to do is follow my written prescription because the herbs are individually alphabetized.

E-Fong is not the only maker of this type of herbal preparation, and I find all of these types of herbs to be equally strong and convenient. Regarding the set-dosage issue per packet, I too have found that occasionally limiting, but I have heard from my distributor that E-Fong is getting ready to come out with 1.5 and 3.0 gram sachets to allow for more flexibility in adjusting dosages.

My clinic staff, my patients, and I have had a very positive experience with using the E-Fong type of herbs.

Ray Rubio

How does the cost of E-Fong compare to KPC or Evergreen powders? I get pretty good results with Evergreen but some formulas seem so ineffective. For example, Xiao Yao San hardly produces a result. I know because I can feel it for myself. (But Shu Gan Tang is wonderful) Secara's Xiao Yao Plus (tablet form) was more effective. Also Evergreen Yin Chiao doesn't seem to be as effective as Plum Flower's Yin Chiao tablets. But most other formulas are just fine. Cost is already a factor with Evergreen, about $13 per 100 grams of Classical formulas. What are the average costs for E-Fong and can anyone give a comparison between them and Evergreen?