Burntide Official Website › Blog › How much of a gummy is the supplement

How Much Of A 2.5 g Gummy Is Actually The Supplement?

Reviewed by Dr. Wendy Scinta, MD

The arithmetic, in one line

The Burntide Supplement Facts panel prints a serving size of one gummy at 2.5 g per gummy, and below it a single Proprietary Blend at 525 mg. Those are the only two weights on the panel that describe the whole product rather than a trace mineral.

525 mg out of 2.5 g is 525 out of 2,500, which is 21 per cent. Rather more than a fifth of the gummy is the thing you are buying it for, and rather less than four fifths is not.

Almost nobody runs that division, because almost no label invites you to. It needs both the serving weight and an active total, and plenty of gummies print only one of the two. This one prints both, which is a point in its favour before anything else is said.

What the other four fifths are doing

Under the Supplement Facts box the label prints a second list headed Other Ingredients, in descending order of weight as the rules require. It reads: corn syrup, purified water, pure cane sugar, apple pectin, citric acid, sodium citrate, tapioca starch, natural flavors and beet root powder.

Every one of those is doing a job, and none of them is an active.

Read that table and the honest conclusion is that a gummy is a confectionery product with a supplement in it. That is a description rather than an accusation, and it is the first thing to understand about the whole format.

Why a gummy cannot hold much more than this

There is a physical ceiling and it is not a marketing decision.

A gummy sets because pectin forms a gel with sugar and acid at the right concentrations. Push too much powdered active into that matrix and three things go wrong at once: the gel stops setting reliably, the texture becomes gritty, and the taste becomes impossible to mask. Bitter and sour actives are the worst offenders, and dried vinegar and mineral salts are both.

Manufacturers therefore work backwards. They decide how much active the matrix will tolerate and how much taste can be covered, and the label prints whatever number survives. A blend around half a gram in a two-and-a-half-gram gummy is a typical answer to that problem, and it is why gummy versions of almost anything carry less than the capsule version.

The same arithmetic on a capsule

Run the identical division on a capsule and the answer is very different.

A capsule shell is a container rather than a matrix, so almost all of the filled weight can be active. That is the entire reason a capsule can carry a dose a gummy cannot, and it is worth knowing before you choose a format on taste alone.

It is also why a product sold in both formats will often have different amounts in each, and why comparing a gummy against a capsule by counting units rather than milligrams gives you the wrong answer.

What it means for the dose you actually get

On this label the blend is 525 mg for two named actives together, and it does not publish how that splits. Apple cider vinegar is listed first inside the blend, so under United States labelling rules it outweighs the three ketone salts combined.

Set that against the research. The twelve-week vinegar trial used 15 to 30 mL of liquid vinegar a day. The exogenous ketone work used drinks measured in grams. Both are far above what a 525 mg blend can supply, and the format is the reason.

That is the honest version of the trade. A gummy buys adherence, which is genuinely worth something, and it costs dose, which is also genuinely worth something. A review of obesity supplements makes the general point that dose is where most of this category falls down.

If you want the detail, the actives and amounts page takes each of the five named ingredients in turn, and the panel page reads every row.

Running this check on any jar in five minutes

The method needs nothing but the label and works on any gummy on any shelf.

• Find the serving weight. It is in the serving size line, usually in brackets: “1 gummy (2.5 g per gummy)”. If it is not there, the label will not let you do this check at all, which is itself informative.
• Add up the actives. Every amount inside the Supplement Facts box, including a blend total if there is one. Ignore the Other Ingredients line; none of it is active.
• Divide and convert. Actives in milligrams, serving in milligrams. One gram is 1,000 milligrams, and mixing the units is the only way to go wrong here.
• Read the answer as a share. Ten per cent is low, twenty is ordinary, thirty is good for a gummy.
• Then ask the real question. Not what share is active, but whether the absolute amount is anywhere near what the research used. That one needs a search engine and five more minutes.

The NIH consumer guidance on dietary supplements is the right place to start on that last step, and the proprietary blends guide on this website sets out a six-step version of it.

When a gummy is worth the trade anyway

Everything above argues that a gummy carries less active than a capsule. None of it argues that a gummy is pointless, and it is worth finishing on the other side of that.

A supplement you do not take has a dose of zero. Adherence is the single largest variable in whether any daily product does anything, and a chewable attached to a meal is much easier to keep up than a capsule in a cupboard. The Burntide review record bears that out: six of the eight reviewers on record describe the habit sticking rather than describing a result.

So the honest summary is that a gummy is the right format if the alternative is not taking anything, and the wrong format if you specifically want the amount the research used. On this label the second case is clear cut. 525 mg is what it is, and a bottle of liquid vinegar from a grocery shelf is a fraction of the price.

What a reader should take away is the method rather than the verdict. Two numbers, one division, five minutes, any jar.