Order is quantity
Ingredients are listed by descending weight. If the hero botanical on the front of the pack appears fifth on the back, the pack is mostly something else. This one habit filters out a large share of the market.
Watch for the split
A formulation can list sugar three ways — sucrose, glucose syrup, fruit concentrate — so no single one reaches the top of the list, even though together they dominate. Add the sweeteners up mentally before you judge the order.
E-numbers are not the enemy
E330 is citric acid. E296 is malic acid — a green apple. An E-number simply means a substance has been formally assessed and assigned a code. The absence of E-numbers on a label often just means the manufacturer wrote the common name instead.
Look for the boring admissions
The genuinely useful signal is whether a brand lists the unglamorous inputs — the maltodextrin, the anti-caking agent, the acidity regulator. A list containing only beautiful ingredients is a marketing document. We publish ours in full, including the boring parts, in the Ingredient Index.
ILAVYA products are food and beverage premixes, not medicines. Nothing in the Journal is medical advice. See the wellness disclaimer.
