Rick Wendt · Pensacola, Florida

Forty years buying supplements. Thirty years inside the business. Here's what I'd tell you not to buy.

I don't tell you what a supplement does to your body. I tell you whether it's worth the money — including the ones I sell.

I'm an Herbalife Independent Distributor. Some links on this site earn me a commission. I'll tell you every time, and I'll tell you when to keep your money.

Who this is for

You

You've got five or more bottles in the cabinet and you can't defend half of them.

You've been buying for years on podcast recommendations, a friend's advice, and whatever was on sale.

You want somebody to tell you what you can stop buying.

Not you

You take one multivitamin and you're happy with it. Keep your money.

You want to hear that a supplement will fix something. I don't do that, and you should be careful with anyone who does.

You want the strongest version of everything. I'm the wrong guy.

Things I tell people not to buy

A standing list. It grows. Nothing comes off it because it stopped being convenient.

What thirty years inside the business taught me

  • Don't assume the label is the bottle. What's printed on a supplement label is a statement of what's supposed to be in there. It is not a measurement of what is. Independent testing turns up products off their stated amounts on a regular basis — sometimes short, sometimes over. There is no seal on the front of the package that tells you which one you're holding. I've been in this business three decades and I frequently can't tell by looking either. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you certainty they don't have.
  • Don't buy on the ingredient name alone. Two products can list the same ingredient, at the same amount, and be built from materially different raw material. Grades vary. Forms vary. Sourcing varies enormously — and none of that has to change a single word on the label. It's the biggest gap between two products that look identical on the shelf, it's invisible to the buyer, and most of the time it's invisible to me too. That's the honest version, and it's the reason a price difference between two "identical" products isn't automatically somebody gouging you.

What forty years of buying taught me

  • Anything with a proprietary blend that won't print the dose. If they won't tell you how much is in there, it's because the answer would embarrass them.
  • Any subscription you can't cancel in about thirty seconds. The difficulty of cancelling is a design decision, and it tells you what the company thinks the product is worth.
  • A second bottle of something you already own. Read the labels of what's in your cabinet right now. Half the shelf is usually two or three ingredients wearing different hats.
  • Anything sold at the end of a long video with no price on the screen. The length of the pitch is inversely proportional to the strength of the product.
  • "Clinically studied" when the study was on one ingredient and not the product. This is the most common sleight of hand in the industry and almost nobody checks.
  • Anything you can't say the reason for out loud. If the honest answer is "I read something once," that's a bottle you can stop replacing.
  • A supplement bought to fix something sleep would fix. I have wasted more money on this than on anything else on this list.

I sell supplements. I still keep this list, and the products I sell are eligible for it. That's the entire point of the site.

The writing

Bioniq GO Review: I Published All 23 of My Own Doses, and Who Shouldn't Buy It

I bought it, screenshotted the whole formula panel, and published every number. Includes the part where I take apart my own best argument for it, and the purchase term that isn't on any customer-facing page.

Send me your formula panel

If you've taken a personalized supplement assessment — any of them — screenshot the panel and send it to me. I'm collecting them.

I want to know how much the numbers actually move between people, because the marketing says "personalized" and I'd like to see the evidence. I'll tell you how to take yours so you don't waste it, and I'll publish what the panels show. No charge, and if I don't think it's for you, I'll tell you that too.

You'll get the panel findings and new articles. Nothing else. Unsubscribe in one click — see the list above.

Why me

I'm a buyer first. Forty years of it — seriously and expensively, across more brands than I want to admit in writing. Thirty of those years I've also spent inside the industry, which means I've seen how the sourcing works, how the pricing gets set, and how a label gets written and by whom.

I'm not a doctor, a dietitian, or a nutritionist, and I won't pretend to be one. I don't tell you what a supplement does inside your body. I tell you whether it's worth the money — which is the question I've actually spent four decades answering, mostly by getting it wrong first and paying for it.

I sell supplements now. That's a reason to be skeptical of me, and I'd rather you read it in the first paragraph than find it in the footer. The only argument I've got is the writing. Read enough of it and you'll notice how often I'm talking you out of a purchase.

Questions, or a panel to send? Get in touch.