Methodology

How we score gear

This page exists so you can judge our work the way we judge products. It covers what the LeanScore is made of, what we look at in each department, the language we will and won't use about a product, and — first, because it matters most — what we do not do.

1. We do not test products hands-on

We do not test products hands-on. We compare labels, specifications and owner reviews. There is no LeanFed lab, no test kitchen, no panel. Nobody here drank forty protein shakes and ranked them. When you read that a powder mixes cleanly or a container leaks, that is a pattern across many owner reports, not our experience — and we say which it is.

We also do not invent reviewers. Every guide is written and edited under the brand name, LeanFed Editors. There is no fictional dietitian, no stock-photo “expert”, and no clinician's name used as decoration.

2. What we will and won't claim about a product

LeanFed is not medical advice, and nothing sold through this site treats, prevents, cures or reverses anything. The strongest claim we will make for a product is that it may help with convenience, comfort, intake or tracking. Concretely:

• Protein. There is no universal gram target. Most clinicians set one for the person in front of them — ask yours. Protein pairs with resistance training; neither replaces the other.
• Fiber. Food first. Supplements are introduced gradually and with fluid, and they are not a treatment for a medication side effect.
• Electrolytes. We label the use case and disclose sodium and potassium per serving, because kidney, heart, blood pressure and diabetes considerations are real and individual.
• Ginger and comfort products.“Comfort” is the word. We do not say anything “treats nausea”.
• Body-composition scales. They estimate and they trend. They do not measure muscle loss, and we will not describe them as if they do.
• Medication storage and travel.Quoted from the current FDA label for that specific product, with the label date. Never one temperature rule applied to every pen, and never “pack it against an ice pack” — labels forbid freezing.

Phrases you will never find here: “natural Ozempic”, “GLP-1 booster”, “fat burner”, “detox”, “must-take stack”. If a product is marketed that way, that is a mark against it, not a headline.

3. Red flags come before products

On any page that touches a symptom, the reasons to contact a clinician are placed aboveanything you could buy. Severe or persistent abdominal pain, vomiting you can't stay ahead of, signs of dehydration, allergic symptoms, a sudden change in vision, or symptoms that suggest a pancreas or gallbladder problem are not shopping problems. Dose, timing, side-effect severity and whether to continue are conversations with your prescriber. We never cover them.

4. The LeanScore, in full

Every pick carries a LeanScore from 0 to 100. It is deterministic, computed identically in every category, and blends exactly two published dimensions — there is no hidden weighting and no editorial thumb on the scale:

• Owner satisfaction — 72%.The product's real average customer rating, weighted up by review volume (a 4.7 across 2,000 ratings is more trustworthy than a 4.9 across 12), plus a programmatic read of what buyers consistently praise and complain about. Below 25 ratings we ignore the star average altogether and fall back to a neutral value — a 5.0 from two buyers is noise, and it must not be able to top a category.
• Value — 28%.Where the product sits on price within its own category, so an excellent-but-overpriced pick can't out-score an excellent-value one.

That is the whole formula: LeanScore = 0.72 × owner satisfaction + 0.28 × value. A score is not a nutrition rating, not a safety rating, and not a judgement about whether something suits your body.

Rank order follows the LeanScore. When we place a product above a higher-scoring one, the page says so and gives the reason in an editor's note — that is the only permitted override, and a build check fails if a rank-1 pick carries neither the top score nor a written justification.

We also hold products back. When a listing is real and well-liked but does not belong in a list ranked on that category's stated criterion, it is removed from the ranking and shown instead at the bottom of the page with the reason written out, so the omission is visible rather than silent.

5. What we look at, department by department

• Protein & Food. Protein per serving and per fluid ounce once mixed — the number that actually matters when a full glass is a lot — plus sugar, lactose, and third-party testing (NSF Certified for Sport, Informed Choice) where the manufacturer publishes it.
• Gut & Hydration. Fiber type and dose per serving; electrolyte content stated in milligrams with the use case labelled; sodium disclosed on broths and soups. Nothing here is framed as a remedy.
• Small-Meal Kitchen. True usable capacity versus claimed, leak behaviour, freezer and dishwasher tolerance, ounce markings, one-handed use, and whether a blender actually clears powder clumps according to owners.
• Strength & Movement. Weight increments and range, how fast a dumbbell changes, footprint, deck length and noise, and — for scales — repeatability and what the app does with your data.
• Shot Day & Travel. Whether an FDA clearance claim is real and verifiable, closure design, capacity, and for cases, what the manufacturer does and does not state. We never claim a case protects potency.

Specification cells come from manufacturer data and label text. When a value isn't published, the cell stays empty rather than getting a plausible guess.

6. Live listings, current prices

Every product we link is verified as a real, live listing, and prices and availability are re-pulled on a recurring cycle — last refreshed Aug 22, 2026. When we can't confirm a current price we stop quoting one rather than showing you a stale number, and a listing with a positive dead signal loses its link entirely. Prices move; the listing is always the authority.

7. Money

As an Amazon Associate, LeanFed earns from qualifying purchases. That commission costs you nothing extra and has no input into the formula above — the ranking is arithmetic on published ratings and prices. Our most common recommendation at the earliest stage is to buy nothing at all. See the full affiliate disclosure.

8. Sources

Health and medication facts come from primary sources — FDA labels via DailyMed, NIH and NIDDK, the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, CDC, USDA FoodData Central, and peer-reviewed literature. We do not repeat precise-sounding statistics from other blogs. More detail on how we research.

Corrections

Found an error — a nutrition figure, a price, a discontinued product, a claim we shouldn't have made? Email hello@leanfed.com. We fix quickly and will credit you if you'd like.