Best Ceylon Cinnamon

“Cinnamon” on a jar can be more than one tree. Ceylon cinnamon, also called true cinnamon, is Cinnamomum verum (older name Cinnamomum zeylanicum). The common grocery bark is usually cassia, including Cinnamomum cassia and related species. They taste different. They are not interchangeable on coumarin.

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), in its 2006 health assessment of high cinnamon intakes, wrote that unlike cassia, Ceylon cinnamon hardly contains any coumarin. Measurements in cinnamon capsules, which BfR attributed to cassia, were about 2,100 to 4,400 mg of coumarin per kilogram of powder. In Ceylon cinnamon, coumarin was found only in traces or below the measurement limit. BfR also notes that the two can be distinguished chemically: Ceylon contains eugenol and benzyl benzoate, and at most traces of coumarin.

A quill’s shape is a clue grocers use and a poor lab test. The photograph on this page shows cinnamon bark and powder. We did not authenticate the species. Read the Latin name on the package.

Coumarin can damage the liver. BfR’s FAQ says animal experiments, and use as a drug in sensitive people, showed that risk. BfR and the European Food Safety Authority use the same tolerable daily intake: 0.1 mg of coumarin per kilogram of body weight per day. BfR’s example is a 60 kg adult, for whom that is 6 mg a day, over a lifetime. The FAQ says exceeding that value in the short run does not pose a health risk. Gram-level daily use of cassia, which is what some capsule directions have suggested, is a different exposure than a sprinkle on food.

BfR’s practical point for capsules: if the powder is cassia, the coumarin intake can pass the tolerable intake at the amounts on some labels. One option BfR names is replacing cassia with Ceylon. It also says it was not established that Ceylon would have the same effect some sellers were claiming for cassia. This page does not repeat those claims. Cinnamon is not a treatment.

A label that says “Ceylon” without Cinnamomum verum, or that says only “cinnamon,” does not tell you the coumarin side of this. A certificate that reports coumarin, or that identifies the species, is the document. “True cinnamon” as a marketing line is not that document.

The documented issue in the BfR file is coumarin and the liver, and it attaches to cassia far more than to Ceylon. Ceylon is not a free pass: a supplement can still be mislabeled, and any concentrated botanical can disagree with a medicine. We are not quoting a side-effect percentage for Ceylon capsules. We did not open a trial that reported one in a way we could cite here.

People with liver disease, and anyone taking several grams of cinnamon powder a day, should treat the coumarin math as a reason to ask a clinician and to check which species is in the bottle. That is exposure advice from the risk assessments above, not a claim that cinnamon improves blood sugar.