Are we getting scammed? Not sure why the other post was deleted...
False nutritional info on Spring Energy gels
I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve always really liked Spring Energy. I think they taste great and go down easily, including late during an ultra when few other things do. I especially liked their Awesome Sauce gel (https://myspringenergy.com/collections/all/products/copy-of-awesome-sauce-vegan) which boasts a whopping 180 calories and 45g of carbs, all while tasting like apple sauce. What’s not to love?!
However, at 5$ a gel (plus shipping and tax) they are not exactly affordable, plus I currently live in Europe where Spring is not available. So, I decided to see if I can recreate their formula at home with a kitchen blender. And while trying to figure out the relative proportions of the different components, I realised an interesting thing - there is nothing on the ingredient list that would result in the stated calorie/carb density (with the exception of maple syrup, which is like the 5th ingredient, and it tastes nothing like maple syrup).
My subjective feelings were not really in line with it either. At 45g a pop, you would think they would make me twice as full as “normal” gels - but in fact I experienced the opposite, I needed twice as many of them to stay equally full. During my last ultra, I was taking a gel every 30 minutes and alternating between Spring Awesome Sauce and Gu Liquid Energy. After taking Spring, I would already get a hollow-stomach feeling after 15 minutes and had to supplement with candy or sports drink. I did not feel that way after taking Gu, even though it supposedly has half the carbs of Spring AS. Also its texture is more similar to a “liquid gel” than a normal gel, so by definition something with a high water content.
So, I did a simple experiment. I work in an environmental chemistry lab and did it there, but this could also be done at home with a dehydrator/kitchen scale. I weighed the contents of gel, then dehydrated it and took the weight again. And lo and behold, the dry weight is 16 grams instead of the stated 45. If all of those grams are carbs, that corresponds to about 60 calories, not 180.
I wrote to Spring, so we will see what they respond - but wanted to give a heads up to the community, in case they are planning their race nutrition around it. I don’t think this applies to all Spring gels, where the nutritional value looks pretty believable, just their Awesome Sauce (which is also suspicious, since they all have very similar ingredients but the carb content is 2-3x different).
TL;DR: Spring Awesome sauce likely has around 17g carbs/60 calories, not 45g/180.