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Guides: how to read a supplement label without taking it on trust
Two guides written for anybody comparing supplements, not only for people looking at Burntide. The first explains how a proprietary blend works and what a blend total does and does not tell you. The second is a nine-point checklist for a gummy supplement, with Burntide scored against it and two points failed.
Plus the three companion guide volumes the manufacturer produced, summarised honestly on their own page.
The two guides in this reading room
Proprietary blends: reading a label that does not print its amounts
What a blend total is, why United States labelling rules allow one, what the descending-order rule actually tells you, and the four things you can still work out from a label with one figure on it.
Includes the ceiling method, a worked example on a 525 mg blend, and the three questions worth asking a seller who will not publish a split.
Choosing a gummy supplement: a nine-point checklist
Nine checks you can run on any gummy supplement in about five minutes, from the serving weight to what the second ingredient list says. Then the same nine applied to Burntide, with a score and two failures printed.
The failures are the reason the other seven are worth reading.
Why a seller publishes a checklist its own product fails
Supplement writing in this category divides into two kinds. The first tells you what a product does. The second tells you how to find out for yourself, and it is much rarer, because it is not obviously in a seller’s interest to write.
These two guides are the second kind. Somebody who reads the checklist and applies it to a competitor’s jar has been given something useful and may well buy nothing. That is an acceptable outcome, and it is also the only way a commercial website earns any right to be believed on the pages where it does sell something.
Both guides cite real research and government sources inline, both name the places where the evidence is thin, and both say what this label fails. The checklist scores Burntide seven out of nine, and prints the two it fails at the same size as the seven it passes.
Three sources to read before any supplement page
Neither guide is a substitute for reading the label in front of you, and neither is medical advice. What they do is give you a method, so that a label stops being a wall of unfamiliar words and becomes a document with a small number of checkable claims on it.
Three neutral sources are worth having open alongside either guide, and all three are free:
- The FDA Dietary Supplement Labeling Guide, which is the rulebook every Supplement Facts panel is written against. It is long and it is searchable.
- The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements consumer page, which is the shortest honest summary of what supplements are and are not.
- MedlinePlus on dietary supplements, which is written for patients and is the right link to send to a relative.
None of those three is selling anything, which is exactly why they are the ones to read first.
The three companion guide volumes
The manufacturer produced three companion guide volumes to accompany Burntide. They are summarised on their own page, with a plain statement of what this desk does and does not know about them.
The short version, stated here so that nobody reaches that page expecting an offer: the supplier's material behind this website lists no bonuses and no bonus prices. This website therefore makes no claim that anything is included with an order, does not price the volumes, and does not use them as a reason to buy. What ships with an order is decided at the checkout, not here.
The covers are real Burntide artwork and the volumes are described from what that artwork and the pack state. That is the whole of what this desk holds about them.
Reading a Supplement Facts panel in five minutes
Before either guide, the ten-line version. A Supplement Facts panel is a short, rigidly structured document and it repays five minutes of attention more than anything else on a jar.
The serving size line tells you what one serving is and, on a gummy, how much it weighs. Every other number on the panel is per serving, so if you take two, every number doubles.
The servings per container line tells you how long a jar lasts. Multiply it by the serving and you have the whole jar, which is the number to compare against a price.
The nutrient rows carry a name, an amount and a per cent Daily Value. A Daily Value is a reference intake for a whole day, so a percentage is the share of a day this serving supplies. A row reading 0% is not an error; it means the amount is small against that reference.
A dagger beside a row means no Daily Value has been established for it. It is not a warning and it says nothing about effectiveness.
A bold row with a weight and an indented list under it is a proprietary blend, and the first guide below is about exactly that.
Other Ingredients, printed under the box rather than inside it, is everything that is not an active. It is in descending order of weight and on a gummy it is usually most of the product.
The suggested use and caution paragraphs are the only two places a label tells you what to do and what to be careful about. They are worth reading before the front of the jar rather than after.
Eight supplement phrases, translated
| What the marketing says | What it means | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| Clinically studied ingredients | An ingredient in this product has been studied somewhere, by somebody, at some dose | That this product was studied, or that it contains the studied dose |
| Doctor formulated | The manufacturer says a clinician was involved in the formulation | That any named, checkable clinician endorses it, unless one is named |
| FDA-registered facility | The plant has told the FDA it exists and can be inspected | Approval, certification, or that an inspection has happened |
| GMP certified | The facility follows process rules on cleanliness and record-keeping | Anything at all about whether the formula works |
| Natural | Nothing, legally. The word has no definition for supplements | That the ingredients are unprocessed |
| Proprietary blend | A group of ingredients declared as one total weight | That any single ingredient is present at a useful amount |
| Supports healthy X | A structure and function claim, which is what a supplement may say | That it treats, prevents or improves anything |
| Money-back guarantee | A purchase policy: you may return the product | Evidence that the product does anything |
Eight phrases that appear on almost every jar in this category, including this one. None of them is dishonest and none of them means what a hurried reader takes it to mean, which is why the middle column is worth more than the marketing.
The FDA's consumer questions and answers covers the regulatory half of that table, and the labelling guide covers the rest.
What these guides do not do
Three things these guides deliberately do not do, stated so nobody reads them expecting something they will not find.
They do not tell you what to take. That is a question for a pharmacist or a doctor who knows what else you are taking, and no website is a substitute for it. What these guides do is help you read what is in front of you.
They do not rank products. A ranking from a seller is an advertisement whatever it is called. The checklist is offered instead, so that you can rank them yourself using criteria you can see.
They do not settle whether any supplement works. Only a controlled trial on the finished product does that, and almost nothing in this category has had one, including Burntide. The checklist says so in its closing section.
What is left is narrow and useful: a method for telling whether you are being told the truth about what you are buying. That is worth having, it costs five minutes a jar, and it works on any label in any shop.
Every page, every journal post, the bottle facts and the ingredients go through review by Dr. Wendy Scinta, MD before they ship. We write these pages from the Burntide Supplement Facts panel photographed on the jar and from the distributor’s own paperwork. Every amount you read here is one the label prints. Apple cider vinegar and the BHB salts have no amount of their own, because they share one 525 mg blend figure, and we print “not published” for those rather than estimating a split. Research is cited by author, year and PubMed record, at the amounts the researchers used. Where a piece of the manufacturer’s own artwork reaches further than the panel does, this desk marks it on the page rather than reprinting it. Corrections are made on the page itself and the review date moves forward. Write to [email protected]. Last reviewed September 2026 by Dr. Wendy Scinta, MD.
More Burntide label reading
Order Burntide on the official website
Read the checklist first. It scores this product seven out of nine.
Price and pack sizes are shown on the checkout page
Order Burntide On The Official WebsiteOne gummy a day · 30 per jar · 60-day money-back guarantee · lot BUR-26/BU-8141