Lupin vs Wheat Heat Packs: Why Mine Don't Smell

Walk into any chemist in Australia and the heat packs on the shelf are filled with wheat. It's cheap, it works, and it's been the way it's done for forty years.

I fill mine with Australian lupin seed instead. People usually notice about ten seconds after the first time they heat one, and it's nearly always the same reaction: it doesn't smell.

Here's what actually differs, and the one thing I'd want you to know before you buy.

What's in a wheat bag

Whole wheat grain, and that's it. Heat it up and the grain lets go of its own moisture and oils, and that's where both the warmth and that baked-bread smell come from.

That smell is the thing I hear about most. Some people find it comforting. Plenty of people can't stand it, especially in bed or in an office, and it gets stronger as a pack gets older.

What lupin is

Lupins are a legume, closer to a bean than a grain. Australia grows most of the world's crop, nearly all of it in Western Australia, where it goes in as a rotation crop and puts nitrogen back into the soil.

The seed is round, hard and low in oil. That last bit is the whole trick, really. Less oil means far less to smell when you warm it up.

The four things you'll notice

The smell

This is the reason I started using it in the first place. A lupin pack heated for two and a half minutes smells of the fabric, not of the filling. It's why my neck packs get taken to work and used in bed, which isn't something most people do with a wheat bag.

No wheat dust

Wheat grain rubs against itself every time a pack gets moved, and fine dust works its way out through the weave. Most people never notice. If you're coeliac, or gluten sensitive, or there's a wheat allergy in the house, that dust ends up on your skin and in the air near your face, and it matters.

Lupin has no gluten in it and doesn't shed anything like that. I've had coeliac customers buying from me for over a decade for exactly this reason.

How it holds heat

I'm going to be careful here, because a lot of heat pack advertising makes claims nobody has actually measured. I haven't run a laboratory test. What I can tell you is what customers have told me consistently for fourteen years: a lupin pack feels like it stays usefully warm longer than the wheat bag they had before.

My best guess as to why is the shape of the seed. Round smooth seeds pack together with less air between them than knobbly wheat grain, and a denser pack has more warmth stored up to give back.

The feel of it

Round seed flows. A lupin pack drapes over a shoulder and settles into the shape of you in a way that firmer wheat grain never quite manages. It's a small thing, but you notice it every single time.

The one catch, and I'd rather say it plainly

Lupin is a recognised food allergen. In Australia it's had to be declared on food labels since 2018. Most people have never heard of a lupin allergy and it isn't common, but it's real. It's also more likely in people who are allergic to peanuts, because the two are related legumes and there's some cross-reactivity between them.

What that means in practice:

• If you have a diagnosed peanut allergy, please talk to your doctor before buying a lupin pack.
• If you already know you react to lupin, buy a wheat bag instead. I'd genuinely rather lose the sale.
• The filling stays inside a sewn cotton bag and nobody's eating it, so it's a very different situation to food. But if the inner bag ever tears, retire the pack rather than mending it at home.

For everybody else this is a non-issue, and I think it's a good trade: you're swapping a common intolerance, gluten, for a rare allergy.

What about cherry stones, rice and barley?

You'll see all three around. Rice packs are the cheapest to make and the quickest to break down, and they smell like rice. Barley is much like wheat, gentler on the nose but still gluten. Cherry stones hold heat beautifully, but they're firm and lumpy rather than something that moulds to you, and they're usually imported.

None of them are wrong. They just make different trades.

Which one to start with

Everything I make is lupin filled, double sided with a designer cotton print on one face and soft corduroy on the other, and sewn to order here in Brisbane.

• Not sure at all? The Original. It curls around a neck, sits on a stomach, sorts out growing pains, and the cover comes off for washing.
• Neck and shoulders: the Medium is my best seller. I've written up the differences between the shapes if you want to compare.
• Period pain: the Original or the Back Strap. There's more in heat packs for period pain.
• Children: the Mini at 600g, or one of the Aussie Furry Friends.

Whichever you end up with, get the heating right from day one. It's the single biggest thing that decides how long a pack lasts, and I've put the times for every size in how long to heat a heat pack.

Have a look at what I've got, or find me in person on the where to buy page.