What to look for on an energy drink label

The front is where the words with no fixed meaning live. Clean, natural, performance, advanced, blend. None of these are defined terms, and none of them commit the manufacturer to anything. A few words on the front are regulated, but the reliable information is on the back, in small type, in a legally specified format. That format is the useful part: it makes products genuinely comparable in a way the branding never will.

1. 1

   The caffeine declaration

   In the UK, a drink whose caffeine content is above a set threshold has to state the amount in milligrams per 100 ml and carry a warning that it is not recommended for children or for pregnant or breastfeeding women. Note that the figure is per 100 ml, so you have to multiply it by the can size to get the amount you will actually drink. Caffeine from guarana, green tea extract or green coffee extract counts the same as caffeine listed under its own name.

2. 2

   The sugar line

   Sugars appear on the nutrition panel under carbohydrate, given per 100 ml and often per container as well. Per 100 ml is the number for comparing products; per container is the number that matters to you. Traffic-light colour coding, where a product carries it, is a fast way to read the same information.

3. 3

   The ingredients list

   This is a ranking by weight, heaviest first. In a canned drink water is almost always first, and after that the order tells you a great deal. Anything appearing after the flavourings and preservatives is present in a small amount. Where an ingredient is emphasised on the front of the pack, its percentage often has to be given in the list.

4. 4

   The serving size

   Check what the numbers refer to before you compare anything. Most single cans are labelled per 100 ml and per can, which is straightforward, but larger cans and bottles sometimes present figures for a serving that is smaller than the container. Two products can look very different purely because of how the panel is divided up.

These phrases are not interchangeable. In UK and EU rules they are defined nutrition claims with specific conditions attached, and the important practical distinction is that no added sugar permits naturally occurring sugars, so a juice-based drink can carry it while still containing a meaningful amount of sugar. Sugar-free is the stricter of the two.

If sugar has been removed, something usually replaces it. Sweeteners are listed in the ingredients like anything else, and there is no need to be alarmed by them, but if you prefer to avoid a particular one the ingredients list is where you will find out.

This is where energy drinks and focus drinks differ most from each other, and where labels are least helpful. Points to check:

• Is an amount given at all? A name in the ingredients list with no quantity tells you the ingredient is present, and nothing more.
• Extract or whole powder, and at what concentration? An extract ratio changes the meaning of the weight completely.
• Is it inside a proprietary blend? A single combined weight for several ingredients hides the split between them, and the cheapest one is usually doing most of the lifting.
• Where does it sit in the order? Functional ingredients listed after the preservatives are present in very small amounts.
• Are vitamins given with a percentage reference intake? That is the standard way to judge whether an amount is meaningful.

UK and EU rules only allow health claims that appear on an authorised list, with the approved wording, and only where the product contains enough of the relevant nutrient to qualify. This is why labels reach for the same phrases: statements such as contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue or contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism exist as authorised wordings for particular vitamins, which is why you see them repeated across very different products.

Claims for botanical and herbal ingredients sit in a long-running unresolved category, so brands generally describe those ingredients (where they come from, what tradition uses them for) rather than claim an effect. Reading it that way is useful: careful language usually means the rules are being followed, and confident language about curing, treating or preventing anything means they are not.

• Caffeine in mg per 100 ml, multiplied by the can size. Is the whole-can figure one you are happy with, on top of everything else you will drink today?
• Sugar per container, not per 100 ml.
• What appears in the first three or four ingredients.
• Whether functional ingredients carry a stated amount or only a name.
• Whether the nutrition panel is per can or per smaller serving.
• Whether the warning statement is present, which tells you immediately that it is a high-caffeine product.

That takes about twenty seconds once you know where to look, and it will tell you more than any amount of front-of-pack copy, including ours.