How to Read a Supplement Label: A Sweet Peach Walkthrough
A supplement label becomes easier to read when you take it in the order you will use it. Start with the serving, look through the dietary ingredients, then read the flavor ingredients and directions.
We will use our AP Nootropic Pre-Workout Sweet Peach panel as the example. It brings the amounts and ingredient names together in one place.
Start at the top: one serving
Our serving is one 22.75 g scoop, with 25 servings per container. The nutrition and ingredient amounts below that heading refer to that serving.
The panel states 15 calories, 4 g total carbohydrate and 2 g added sugars. Total carbohydrate and added sugars describe different parts of the nutrition information; they are not numbers to add together.
Read the dietary ingredients individually
You will find 3,000 mg each of L-arginine and L-citrulline, 2,500 mg beta-alanine, 2,000 mg maca root extract and 1,500 mg betaine. Other entries include L-tyrosine, taurine, ashwagandha, cordyceps and lion's mane, with their individual amounts.
The units matter: 1,000 mg equals 1 g. That conversion makes it easier to compare a study or another product that uses grams rather than milligrams.
Connect guarana with its caffeine
Our 1,000 mg guarana extract is standardized to 22% caffeine. Multiplying the extract weight by that concentration gives 220 mg caffeine. The caffeine is contained within the extract weight; it is not another 220 mg added to the guarana amount.
Read the flavor ingredients as well
Sweet Peach's Other Ingredients list includes cane sugar and stevia leaf extract for sweetness, natural peach flavor and crystallized lemon for flavor, and beet juice and beta-carotene for color. This list identifies ingredients whose individual quantities are not shown.
Finish with the serving, mixing and warning information on your container. Those instructions apply to the complete formula.
Open the Sweet Peach Supplement Facts to follow along, or visit AP Nootropic Pre-Workout for the product. A label walkthrough should leave you understanding the scoop you are preparing.
