Measurement glossary
This site publishes figures that are worked out rather than copied from the pack. Each one below says what it measures, how it is calculated and where it is used, so it can be quoted correctly.
Cost per 5 g serving
A tub of creatine priced by the dose people actually take, rather than by the serving count the brand chose.
Creatine tubs are sold by weight and marketed by serving count, and brands pick the serving size themselves. We divide the tub weight by 5 g, the dose used in most creatine research, then divide the price by that number. It is the only figure that lets two tubs of the same compound be compared.
Implied serving
The serving size a pack is really counting, worked out by dividing its weight by the serving count it prints.
A kilogram sold as 333 servings is counting 3 g. On the creatine shelf, 15 of the 33 tubs that print a serving count imply a serving under 5 g, with a median of 3.3 g. The implied serving is not a criticism, it is arithmetic: it tells you which number the front of the pack is using.
Cost per 10 billion CFU
A probiotic priced by the thing it advertises, so a big number in a small pack stops looking generous.
CFU means colony forming units, a count of live organisms at the time of testing. We divide the price by the number of capsules, then by the CFU each capsule carries, and express it per 10 billion. It makes packs comparable; it does not say the organisms do anything.
Strain identity
A bacterium named down to its strain number, not just its genus and species.
Bifidobacterium longum 35624 is a complete identity. Bifidobacterium longum alone is a species containing many strains that behave differently, and research is done on strains. Of the 45 probiotic packs we can read, 2 give the strain number.
Cost per 20 g protein
Whey priced by the protein it contains rather than by the weight of the powder.
Powders differ in how much of the tub is actually protein, and the kilo price hides that. We multiply the protein per serving by the serving count to get the protein in the tub, then price 20 g of it. On this shelf that figure spans a 5.8 times difference. Where a tub does not state its serving count we cannot do the sum and it is left out rather than estimated.
Against the label reference
How many times a stated strength is the reference intake printed on the label.
The percentage figures on the back of a pack are calculated against a reference intake, which for biotin is 50 mcg. Dividing the stated strength by that reference gives a multiplier, and the median on the biotin shelf is 200 times. The multiplier is arithmetic, not a verdict: whether more is better is a separate question and one the packs do not answer.
Figure on the front
A milligram number that may describe an equivalence rather than the contents of the capsule.
Apple cider vinegar capsules commonly print figures in the thousands of milligrams. A capsule cannot hold several grams, so those numbers are equivalences to liquid vinegar. Listings rarely say which they mean and we cannot tell from outside, so the column is labelled as what it is rather than presented as a dose.
Shelf
One category compared in one unit, so a bag is only ever set against a bag.
When a category sells things in different units, comparing them produces a nonsense ranking. A shelf is the subset that shares a unit. Where a category has more than one, the largest group is ranked and the rest are listed separately on the page.
Read from the label
A figure taken from the wording of the listing itself, never from a brand claim about value.
Pack weights, serving counts, CFU counts, capsule counts, strengths and strain names are read from the listing text. Where a figure is not stated we leave the field empty rather than estimate it, and the page says so. Label data is recorded for 338 products, and every published figure is checked against that record by an automated gate before the site goes out.
Every figure here is derived from the listing wording and the price we track, both of which change. Quote a figure together with the page it came from. How we rank · Corrections