Label literacy
The Capsule Arithmetic That Exposes a Blend
You cannot see inside the capsule. You can still do the maths that tells you most of what is in it. 🧮
Key takeaways
- Two capsules hold roughly 800–1,200 mg of material in total.
- Add the researched doses of the top ingredients and compare.
- The result proves something must be a trace — not which.
- Liquids are even more constrained than capsules.
How much a capsule actually holds
Capsule sizes are standardised. A size 0 capsule — the most common for supplements — holds roughly 400–500 mg of typical botanical powder. A size 00 holds around 600–800 mg. Density varies: a fine extract packs more tightly than a coarse root powder.
So a two-capsule serving realistically carries somewhere between 800 mg and 1,200 mg of total material, and some of that is the capsule shell, flow agents and anti-caking excipients rather than active ingredient.
The sum that does the work 🧮
Now add up the researched doses of the ingredients you care about. For a lymphatic blend:
- Horse chestnut standardised extract — about 600 mg/day in trials
- Centella asiatica standardised triterpenes — 60–120 mg/day
- Olive leaf extract — 500–1,000 mg/day
- Ginger — 1,000–2,000 mg/day
- Echinacea — 300–900 mg/day
Those five alone, at researched levels, total somewhere north of 2,400 mg — already double what two capsules can hold, before the other six ingredients get a look in.
This does not prove any specific amount. It proves that something must be present in trace quantities, and probably most things. That is a conclusion you can reach from the label alone.
The question it gives you
The arithmetic converts a vague unease into a sharp question: which one or two ingredients is this formula actually built around?
A well-designed blend has an answer. It leads with two or three ingredients at meaningful doses and uses the rest as supporting cast, and a confident manufacturer says so on the label. A formula with eleven names and no numbers is declining to answer.
Descending weight order is the one clue you still get. The first two or three names carry most of the mass. If the ingredient you are buying the product for sits ninth of eleven, you are mostly buying the first two.
Liquids are worse 💧
The same logic applies harder to dropper products. A one-millilitre serving can only hold what stays dissolved or suspended in that millilitre — typically far less solid material than a capsule.
When you see a liquid supplement listing fifteen or twenty ingredients, including amino acids normally taken by the gram, the volume arithmetic tells you most are present in traces. Not because the manufacturer is dishonest, but because physics does not allow otherwise.
Rule of thumb: more than about eight ingredients in a single small serving should prompt the question above. Our 90-second label method folds this into a wider check. ✅