What does chelated zinc mean on a label?
Our picks, by labeled strength, with a link to buy them: see where to buy. A strength with nothing certified at it has no pick, and is not listed there.
On a supplement label, chelated usually means the zinc is bound to an organic carrier, most often an amino acid such as glycine, rather than sold as an inorganic salt. It is mostly a shopping word. Of the zinc panels we track, 2 print it, as part of the salt's name (“TRAACS Zinc Bisglycinate Chelate”). The panels of the products sold under the word name a salt. Chemists count citrate and gluconate as chelates too, and where the line falls depends on who is drawing it. What a panel does print is the salt.
Nutricost Zinc Chelate 50 mg (120 capsules) is sold under the word; its own panel names the salt as zinc citrate, which is a chelate by the chemists' definition.
What this page cannot do is settle absorption. We do not measure it, nothing on this site is ranked on it, and no page here says one zinc form is absorbed better than another. What it can give you is the checkable part: what each panel names, what a dose costs per 15 mg of elemental zinc, and how many capsules that takes. The table runs from the weakest labeled strength to the strongest, cheapest first within each strength and format, because a price per 15 mg is only compared at the same strength.
6 salts appear on these panels, each with its own page: picolinate, bisglycinate, citrate, gluconate, sulfate, orotate. Prices are before delivery; each product page says whether the retailer publishes a delivery rate.
Where to buy: the pick for each type
The pick is the cheapest certified product, at the exact package sold where the certifier names packages, with no adverse finding on record, a price its retailer let us read recently, and no more than a year’s supply at the label’s serving; per delivered dose where the retailer publishes a delivery rate. Where none does, it is the cheapest such product before delivery, and it says how far the order is from free delivery. It is the same pick the category page shows.
How these lines are chosen
Among 1 product and 1 retailer listing we track; Amazon and Walmart are not included. A month is thirty doses of the size in the heading, priced the same way as the per-dose figure beside it. “Delivery known” ranks only products whose retailer publishes a delivery rate; a cheaper product with an unpublished rate is on its own line, or in the full list below. No product here that clears every other bar publishes a delivery rate below its free-delivery threshold, so the pick is priced before delivery.
How these lines are chosen
Among 2 products and 2 retailer listings we track; Amazon and Walmart are not included. A month is thirty doses of the size in the heading, priced the same way as the per-dose figure beside it. “Delivery known” ranks only products whose retailer publishes a delivery rate; a cheaper product with an unpublished rate is on its own line, or in the full list below. No product here that clears every other bar publishes a delivery rate below its free-delivery threshold, so the pick is priced before delivery.
How these lines are chosen
Among 7 products and 7 retailer listings we track; Amazon and Walmart are not included. A month is thirty doses of the size in the heading, priced the same way as the per-dose figure beside it. “Delivery known” ranks only products whose retailer publishes a delivery rate; a cheaper product with an unpublished rate is on its own line, or in the full list below.
A pick has to be independently certified, at the exact package sold where the certifier names packages, with no recall or failed test, a price its retailer let us read recently, and no more than a year’s supply at the label’s serving. Where the retailer publishes no delivery rate, the pick is priced before delivery and says so. Nothing we track here clears all of those yet. Each of these misses at least one bar, and says which:
A pick has to be independently certified, at the exact package sold where the certifier names packages, with no recall or failed test, a price its retailer let us read recently, and no more than a year’s supply at the label’s serving. Where the retailer publishes no delivery rate, the pick is priced before delivery and says so. Nothing we track here clears all of those yet. Each of these misses at least one bar, and says which:
How these lines are chosen
Among 1 product and 1 retailer listing we track; Amazon and Walmart are not included. A month is thirty doses of the size in the heading, priced the same way as the per-dose figure beside it. “Delivery known” ranks only products whose retailer publishes a delivery rate; a cheaper product with an unpublished rate is on its own line, or in the full list below.
A pick has to be independently certified, at the exact package sold where the certifier names packages, with no recall or failed test, a price its retailer let us read recently, and no more than a year’s supply at the label’s serving. Where the retailer publishes no delivery rate, the pick is priced before delivery and says so. Nothing we track here clears all of those yet. This one misses at least one bar, and says which:
A pick has to be independently certified, at the exact package sold where the certifier names packages, with no recall or failed test, a price its retailer let us read recently, and no more than a year’s supply at the label’s serving. Where the retailer publishes no delivery rate, the pick is priced before delivery and says so. Nothing we track here clears all of those yet. This one misses at least one bar, and says which:
Full comparison of every product in this category: Zinc. Every question we answer: the question index.
What this rests on: prices we last recorded at the retailer named on each product page, which go stale, and each page says when it was checked; the products we track, not every product sold, and Amazon and Walmart are not among the stores; listings and labels read at the source, each linked from the page. Found an error? Tell us. The full method: How we compare.