Let’s begin with the underside line – vitality gels are merely higher than sweet that can assist you gas via your endurance adventures comparable to marathons, century bike rides, extremely path runs, ironman triathlons, and different lengthy distance occasions. The successful components take care of the nutrient content material, ease of consumption and digestion, dosage of vitality and electrolytes, and packaging. We’ll delve into these components as we analyze a typical vitality gel versus among the extra fashionable sweet alternate options: jelly bellies, snicker bars, and laborious sweet.
Vitamin content material and digestion of vitality gels vs sweet
As we summarized in our vitality gel ingredient piece, the fundamental vitamins inside vitality gels are sugars – sometimes within the type of maltodextrin, glucose and fructose, electrolytes together with sodium and potassium, and optionally there may be additionally caffeine for that additional efficiency enhance and amino acids for restoration. The sugars are supposed to be simply consumed, digested, and distributed via your physique.
Let’s see how the assorted forms of sweet evaluate to the gels:
Jelly Stomach nutrient contents for endurance sport
Jelly Stomach candies’ three major elements are “sugar, corn syrup, modified meals starch”. Sugar on vitamin labels sometimes refers to sucrose (a molecule which mixes glucose and fructose). Corn syrup additionally incorporates glucose, maltose, and fructose. Modified meals starch is a carbohydrate however it sometimes performs the position as a thickening agent. In any case in a serving dimension of 40g, 28g are sugar and so they ship about 140 energy. This brings us to an analogous ball park as an additional giant vitality gel on the subject of amount.
Relating to Sodium, Jelly Stomach sweet incorporates 15 mg per 40g serving dimension. It is a bit low in comparison with 60 mg that’s contained in a typical 30g gel.
Jelly Stomach sweet additionally incorporates about 1/fifth the Potassium that’s accessible in a typical vitality gel.
General Jelly Stomach candies have excessive sufficient sugar content material however are missing in electrolytes and include no caffeine or amino acids.
Snicker bars nutrient contents for endurance sport
We chosen the Enjoyable Dimension Snickers bar for this comparability as this dimension would match properly in a runner’s pocket. The three major elements of Snickers are Milk Chocolate (most of which is sugar/sucrose), peanuts, and corn syrup. So once more we’re getting an excellent hit of glucose and fructose combo. Complete sugars add as much as 9g per 17g bar. You’re additionally getting some vitality delivered to you in fats format from the peanuts. Since a serving of 17g is about half of what some vitality gels weigh – lets depend two enjoyable dimension bars for comparability with vitality gels. This serving will ship 160 energy (fairly good – however you’ll must eat two of those bars).
You’ll get 80 mg of sodium from the 2 bars in order that’s fairly good, however you’ll not get any potassium to stability out your electrolytes. There may be additionally 2g of protein from the peanuts.
General Snickers (2 enjoyable dimension bars) exceed the energy of most vitality gels however a few of these energy shall be delivered as fats and never accessible for quick conversion into vitality. In addition they lack potassium.
Laborious sweet nutrient contents for endurance sport
You’ll need to suck on roughly 4 laborious candies to get about 90 energy of vitality. Laborious sweet is principally sugar that’s been melted with some citric acid and flavoring added in.
These candies sometimes don’t include any sodium or potassium.
General laborious candies do ship sugar that may be readily transformed into vitality however require some work in your half to get that vitality out – both sucking or crushing.
Consumption & packaging comparability of vitality gels vs sweet
Power gels primarily win out in ease of consumption and packaging. Relating to consumption, vitality gels are:
Relating to sweet, we’ve some points:
- They require chewing, sucking, or crushing of the candies
- They include further elements which can occupy your digestive system
- They might require quite a lot of water to swallow fully
Gels additionally win out on the subject of packaging. For over 30 years, sports activities vitamin corporations have been engineering vitality gel packets which are sturdy sufficient to face up to the transferring and shaking related to sports activities. They’ll face up to excessive and low temperatures. The opening mechanism has been patented by a number of gel makers.
Candies of any sort actually lack on the subject of packaging. They might depart you with a gooey substance in your pocket, operating pack or pouch. They require agile hand expertise or hand tooth coordination to get them opened. They might turn out to be rock strong in chilly climate or soften into unmanageable mess in sizzling temperatures.
The ultimate verdict is that candies do have some superficial dietary similarities to vitality gels, nevertheless, these similarities should not sufficient for them to substitute for the optimized sugar and electrolyte combos that vitality gels present. Whenever you add the opposite components comparable to ease of consumption and digestion, together with packaging and dosage, vitality gels reign supreme.
