HPMC is vegan and vegetarian friendly. Nobody really wants to swallow a capsule made from boiled cow bones if they have a choice, so gelatin capsules have become unpopular with educated consumers. HPMC has no natural taste, smell or colour, although many capsules will have colours added. Most people find HPMC easy to swallow. It also dissolves in the stomach quite quickly, often in just 5-10 minutes. Bovine gelatin capsules take longer to dissolve at more like 20 minutes. Tablets can take hours to dissolve completely. This makes HPMC capsules an ideal delivery method for most supplements, where we want the powdered vitamin or mineral content to arrive quickly and comfortably into the users stomach.