Our plant-based zinc is water-extracted from certified organic guava leaves, and this means that it's naturally bound to plant proteins and amino acids. Plant-based zinc naturally exists in three forms: ionic, chelated, and protein matrix. Ionic is a zinc ion with an unstable charge that likes to bind to other things like water, improving its bioavailability; chelated is zinc bound to another substance like an amino acid, another mineral or other molecule; protein matrix is zinc bound to multiple amino acids.