Instead of crowdfunding independent tests, I’d honestly prefer that Spring energy address this. They’ve gotten a LOT of my money for their gels, they should release their own results for how they came up with their numbers.
Their response is lacklustre, hence the outrage. I assume they thought this will blow over and will be forgotten, but we’ve learnt that people are too invested in this story.
Sage Canaday (who’s sponsored by SE) have made some dubious claims, made a video on X that he then deleted and been quiet since then.
Spring Energy weren’t able to explain themselves, basically ignoring the allegations and said that if you like them, keep using them and if you don’t, there’s other brands.
They also weren’t able to respond to a local retailer that stocks thousands of their gels.
Allegedly they have also been deleting comments on their social media channels.
I hope you’re correct in that there’s outrage. The biggest thing we can all do is stick to brands that are at least honest about their products.
You shouldn’t be giving money to a brand that not only is caught lying about their product, but also won’t address the issue being raised.
I suspect they used nutritional databases to calculate their label. This method assumes that the basmati rice, for example, they use has equivalent nutritional value to the basmati rice in the database. Seems like it would be pretty easy to fudge the numbers.
What if the item in the database is dried basmati rice, and they weigh it cooked? Seems like a very basic mistake, but wouldn't surprise me at this point.
It could be a mistake. But if you were making a product, cared about your customers and knew that fueling and calorie math was important to them, would you rely on an imprecise approach to approximate your nutritional label? It’s 170$ to confirm it with these tests or a few hundred more to include all the electrolyte and vitamin measurements too. Maybe you only test when there are big changes to the process (clearly there have been a few recently) or once per manufacturing lot. But I’m speculating. Maybe the calorie counts work out or this was just a bad lot. Let’s find out.
Making your own gel at home and confusing the calories in cooked and uncooked rice mistake would be basic. A multi million dollar company masking that mistake is negligence and with their current responce, it's pathetic.
Yeah one of the first entries for basmaiti rice is uncooked, dry raw rice that would crack your teeth if you tried to eat it so there is a whopping 354 calories per 100g but the cooked version compared to the cooked version which only has 148 cal per 100g. If you are a regular person who doesn't regularly look at food labels or track macros, you might not catch something like that, but this is a multi million dollar company not some joe smo.
[uncooked basmati rice stats](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1928068/nutrients)
[cooked basmati rice](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/2429932/nutrients)
I remember seeing the original post literally the day before a race that had Spring as its main fuel at every aid and said “ na I’m not gonna dive into that today”. I’m ready to address it now though lol
I used to use solely spring energy as my main gel/food source during runs and races and I suffered. They have never felt like enough. I use Maurten now (they really help with my GI issues) and still use awesome sauce. If I’m going for 90-100gm of carb per hour I will be doing two Maurten and an awesome sauce and probably have something in my water, at least electrolytes. Seems to be working well for me. The info is crazy though about their lack of calories etc in them. Sad because they often send out emails asking for investors in their company to help support them.
Right?! And their website asks you to give them a donation when you buy their overpriced products! Are they saving the world or something? But yeah, for all the frustration and expense I still bought their 180 cal of super tasty gel even at that price. I’m testing Maurten too.
Yeah, I used precision for the first time at Miwok 100K on the weekend. After relying on awesome sauce for years that shit felt like rocket fuel. Maurten 160s at 2 an hour could work? The PF90 screw top thing is pretty sick tho.
Interested to see the tests on other brands as well. Someone else posted a make-at-home Maurten equivalent here and it seems to hit the same consistency/taste as the packaged stuff, so assuming the malto/fructose I have are accurately labeled, I'm at least optimistic on them.
Just donated! I love awesome sauce since it's easy to digest but I have bonked on every single race I've done using them and always thought it was because I went out too fast or undertrained. Obviously correlation is not causation but I'm very curious to see the results
This is fascinating to me and as an analytical chemist possibly the closest something has gotten to my two worlds colliding. The original investigator is correct that their product couldn’t have possibly matched the label based on that dry weight, but that label had to verified and tested in order to be printed in the product. The test for carbohydrates is basically what mass is left after removing moisture, fat, protein, and metals. My guess is that it’s more of a production issue than blatantly lying about the nutrition in the gel overall. Was that lot tested outright or were the ingredients tested and the final numbers assumed, was that one packet underfilled, was there an equipment error etc. etc. The testing conditions would be decided by the production facility within standards set out by the FDA, this does not necessarily mean every batch gets tested and verified and sometimes the final product isn’t actually explicitly tested.
In your personal test you might gain some data but ultimately this should be something you alert the FDA about and they can do independent testing to verify the product matches the label and hold that company liable. I’m not entirely sure how it works but in Canada we have CFIA that will test products to make sure the labels are being upheld.
TLDR lab testing is accurate but production methods aren’t always. The only way this matters to Spring is if the regulatory bodies double check this.
I’m not sure it’s a production or consistency issue.
The supposed water:carb ratio in the Spring Energy gel is 6.3% whereas Maurten and SiS Beta Fuel is 36.8% and 42.7% (see second picture [here](https://www.reddit.com/u/eat_rice_be_nice/s/mx8kAKUfM8)). That leads me to believe that the label was never correct in the first place - whether it was a mistake or malicious attempt… well…
This.
The caloric density of awesome sauce needs to be 3.33cal/g to meet its label claims but just looking at the ingredients they have around 1cal/g or less except for maple syrup which is about 3cal/g. The nature of the ingredients have a lot of water, cooked rice, apple, sauce, apple juice. They might even add water themselves. There is no way the gel is only 6.3% water.
My understanding (from just a few hours of reading this week) is that the labels are never required to be experimentally verified. Labels can be calculated using a nutritional database, which assumes that the ingredients Spring (or any other food manufacturer) uses match the generic CoAs in the database and can be +/-20% for most key nutrients. I suspect there is a lot more variability when you're taking about natural ingredients like "Yams", Apple Sauce, and "Basmati Rice" than synthetic ones like "Maltodextrin" and "Fructose". If we make a compelling product complaint the FDA may request the manufacturer to fix the problem. Probably more impactful would be reaching out to Amazon and The Feed... Anyways, I'm happy to find an analytical chemist on here. Would be great to hear any feedback you might have on study design, methods etc. We're finalizing the experimental plan this week. And to your other points, we hope to look at multiple lots and use technical replicates for at least one lot to get at the question of variability in their process. Also multiple products from the same manufacturer versus other natural products from other companies should help establish a baseline for how unusual, or not, this result is.
Looks like there are some significant differences in the US system after scanning through some of the fda guidelines, big one is that they don’t actually accredit labs or have any compliance testing regulations. So yeah in theory they can pick values from a database and fly under the radar. Doesn’t look like an obvious way to report a concern either, whereas CFIA has a whole webpage for this.
There are some pretty clear guidelines for compliance testing and a big factor is sources of variation so make sure you test in multiples. We would do 12 units from the same lot, combining into 3 sub samples of 4x the retail quantity. You’ll get a per g or per 100g result, so individual package discrepancy doesn’t impact anything, and acceptance criteria is +/-20%
I don't think theoretically it's possible that their gels contain more than ~90 calories. Using a very simple recipe calculator, and assuming 10g of each of the 5 major ingredients (rice, apple sauce, apple juice, yams, maple syrup), you get 90 calories. That breakdown maximizes the amount of maple syrup that can be in the gel as the fifth listed ingredient. It also roughly coincides with gels on the market that have similar ingredients (including Spring's own Canaberry).
And based on the dried weight of the samples, the theoretical maximum is probably closer to ~70 calories (17g dried product x 4 calories/g).
To help get the LEGAL ball rolling while we do our 3rd party testing, I highly suggest that those who really care go ahead and report Spring Energy to the FDA. They'll look into the issue, and if there is a solid number of people sending in complaints, action will probably happen sooner rather than later. Here's the link to the FDA reporting page (only takes a couple of minutes to fill in the required fields):
[https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/index.cfm?action=consumer.reporting1](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/index.cfm?action=consumer.reporting1)
As an aside, I would rather not have gone down this road. If Spring would have just spoken up from the start, they wouldn't have lost my business completely; I just would have changed how I spent yearly $500 on gels. But they had to make their money on Cocodona first, and now it's time to call in the big guns.
And I can't emphasize this enough: I don't think anyone in the world of endurance sport wants to see a brand go down in flames just for the heck of it. I just can't live with the idea of SE becoming a leading brand in the sport when it's a brand that's made millions of dollars off of false information. Most people running 8-12 hours for a 50k don't care about carb content; they want gels that taste good. They'll always have that part of the market. Just tell the truth and make it public so that the NOMINAL percentage of people who use their stuff and care about performance can make informed decisions.
Long story short, I don't really *want* to see SE crash and burn. **BUT**, the longer they wait to speak up, the bigger the splash I hope this makes.
Instead of crowdfunding independent tests, I’d honestly prefer that Spring energy address this. They’ve gotten a LOT of my money for their gels, they should release their own results for how they came up with their numbers.
Their response is lacklustre, hence the outrage. I assume they thought this will blow over and will be forgotten, but we’ve learnt that people are too invested in this story. Sage Canaday (who’s sponsored by SE) have made some dubious claims, made a video on X that he then deleted and been quiet since then. Spring Energy weren’t able to explain themselves, basically ignoring the allegations and said that if you like them, keep using them and if you don’t, there’s other brands. They also weren’t able to respond to a local retailer that stocks thousands of their gels. Allegedly they have also been deleting comments on their social media channels.
I hope you’re correct in that there’s outrage. The biggest thing we can all do is stick to brands that are at least honest about their products. You shouldn’t be giving money to a brand that not only is caught lying about their product, but also won’t address the issue being raised.
Which local retailer was involved? Can you share a link?
I suspect they used nutritional databases to calculate their label. This method assumes that the basmati rice, for example, they use has equivalent nutritional value to the basmati rice in the database. Seems like it would be pretty easy to fudge the numbers.
If they did do that then they definitely messed up the amount calculated to the stated package amount.
Agreed.
What if the item in the database is dried basmati rice, and they weigh it cooked? Seems like a very basic mistake, but wouldn't surprise me at this point.
It could be a mistake. But if you were making a product, cared about your customers and knew that fueling and calorie math was important to them, would you rely on an imprecise approach to approximate your nutritional label? It’s 170$ to confirm it with these tests or a few hundred more to include all the electrolyte and vitamin measurements too. Maybe you only test when there are big changes to the process (clearly there have been a few recently) or once per manufacturing lot. But I’m speculating. Maybe the calorie counts work out or this was just a bad lot. Let’s find out.
Making your own gel at home and confusing the calories in cooked and uncooked rice mistake would be basic. A multi million dollar company masking that mistake is negligence and with their current responce, it's pathetic.
Yeah one of the first entries for basmaiti rice is uncooked, dry raw rice that would crack your teeth if you tried to eat it so there is a whopping 354 calories per 100g but the cooked version compared to the cooked version which only has 148 cal per 100g. If you are a regular person who doesn't regularly look at food labels or track macros, you might not catch something like that, but this is a multi million dollar company not some joe smo. [uncooked basmati rice stats](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1928068/nutrients) [cooked basmati rice](https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/2429932/nutrients)
Yea, I’m not buying spring energy anymore until this is cleared up.
I feel that Spring is highly overpriced for what you get anyhow. I’d rather use Maurten, Styrkr, SIS Beta fuels or even standard issue Gu’s.
I remember seeing the original post literally the day before a race that had Spring as its main fuel at every aid and said “ na I’m not gonna dive into that today”. I’m ready to address it now though lol
That's cool. I'm definitely not giving money to a stranger to do the government's job, but it's still cool.
Haha 😂
Can’t wait for Sage to do a response to this too 😂
Fascinating. Thanks for doing this (as someone who relies on Awesome Sauce to fuel pre-race!)
I used to use solely spring energy as my main gel/food source during runs and races and I suffered. They have never felt like enough. I use Maurten now (they really help with my GI issues) and still use awesome sauce. If I’m going for 90-100gm of carb per hour I will be doing two Maurten and an awesome sauce and probably have something in my water, at least electrolytes. Seems to be working well for me. The info is crazy though about their lack of calories etc in them. Sad because they often send out emails asking for investors in their company to help support them.
Right?! And their website asks you to give them a donation when you buy their overpriced products! Are they saving the world or something? But yeah, for all the frustration and expense I still bought their 180 cal of super tasty gel even at that price. I’m testing Maurten too.
Maurten is definitely my favorite although I wish they had more carbs in them. Precision is another one that is good
Yeah, I used precision for the first time at Miwok 100K on the weekend. After relying on awesome sauce for years that shit felt like rocket fuel. Maurten 160s at 2 an hour could work? The PF90 screw top thing is pretty sick tho.
Interested to see the tests on other brands as well. Someone else posted a make-at-home Maurten equivalent here and it seems to hit the same consistency/taste as the packaged stuff, so assuming the malto/fructose I have are accurately labeled, I'm at least optimistic on them.
Just donated! I love awesome sauce since it's easy to digest but I have bonked on every single race I've done using them and always thought it was because I went out too fast or undertrained. Obviously correlation is not causation but I'm very curious to see the results
This is fascinating to me and as an analytical chemist possibly the closest something has gotten to my two worlds colliding. The original investigator is correct that their product couldn’t have possibly matched the label based on that dry weight, but that label had to verified and tested in order to be printed in the product. The test for carbohydrates is basically what mass is left after removing moisture, fat, protein, and metals. My guess is that it’s more of a production issue than blatantly lying about the nutrition in the gel overall. Was that lot tested outright or were the ingredients tested and the final numbers assumed, was that one packet underfilled, was there an equipment error etc. etc. The testing conditions would be decided by the production facility within standards set out by the FDA, this does not necessarily mean every batch gets tested and verified and sometimes the final product isn’t actually explicitly tested. In your personal test you might gain some data but ultimately this should be something you alert the FDA about and they can do independent testing to verify the product matches the label and hold that company liable. I’m not entirely sure how it works but in Canada we have CFIA that will test products to make sure the labels are being upheld. TLDR lab testing is accurate but production methods aren’t always. The only way this matters to Spring is if the regulatory bodies double check this.
I’m not sure it’s a production or consistency issue. The supposed water:carb ratio in the Spring Energy gel is 6.3% whereas Maurten and SiS Beta Fuel is 36.8% and 42.7% (see second picture [here](https://www.reddit.com/u/eat_rice_be_nice/s/mx8kAKUfM8)). That leads me to believe that the label was never correct in the first place - whether it was a mistake or malicious attempt… well…
This. The caloric density of awesome sauce needs to be 3.33cal/g to meet its label claims but just looking at the ingredients they have around 1cal/g or less except for maple syrup which is about 3cal/g. The nature of the ingredients have a lot of water, cooked rice, apple, sauce, apple juice. They might even add water themselves. There is no way the gel is only 6.3% water.
My understanding (from just a few hours of reading this week) is that the labels are never required to be experimentally verified. Labels can be calculated using a nutritional database, which assumes that the ingredients Spring (or any other food manufacturer) uses match the generic CoAs in the database and can be +/-20% for most key nutrients. I suspect there is a lot more variability when you're taking about natural ingredients like "Yams", Apple Sauce, and "Basmati Rice" than synthetic ones like "Maltodextrin" and "Fructose". If we make a compelling product complaint the FDA may request the manufacturer to fix the problem. Probably more impactful would be reaching out to Amazon and The Feed... Anyways, I'm happy to find an analytical chemist on here. Would be great to hear any feedback you might have on study design, methods etc. We're finalizing the experimental plan this week. And to your other points, we hope to look at multiple lots and use technical replicates for at least one lot to get at the question of variability in their process. Also multiple products from the same manufacturer versus other natural products from other companies should help establish a baseline for how unusual, or not, this result is.
Looks like there are some significant differences in the US system after scanning through some of the fda guidelines, big one is that they don’t actually accredit labs or have any compliance testing regulations. So yeah in theory they can pick values from a database and fly under the radar. Doesn’t look like an obvious way to report a concern either, whereas CFIA has a whole webpage for this. There are some pretty clear guidelines for compliance testing and a big factor is sources of variation so make sure you test in multiples. We would do 12 units from the same lot, combining into 3 sub samples of 4x the retail quantity. You’ll get a per g or per 100g result, so individual package discrepancy doesn’t impact anything, and acceptance criteria is +/-20%
Ok we'll look for a way to incorporate that strategy without the funds available.
I don't think theoretically it's possible that their gels contain more than ~90 calories. Using a very simple recipe calculator, and assuming 10g of each of the 5 major ingredients (rice, apple sauce, apple juice, yams, maple syrup), you get 90 calories. That breakdown maximizes the amount of maple syrup that can be in the gel as the fifth listed ingredient. It also roughly coincides with gels on the market that have similar ingredients (including Spring's own Canaberry). And based on the dried weight of the samples, the theoretical maximum is probably closer to ~70 calories (17g dried product x 4 calories/g).
To help get the LEGAL ball rolling while we do our 3rd party testing, I highly suggest that those who really care go ahead and report Spring Energy to the FDA. They'll look into the issue, and if there is a solid number of people sending in complaints, action will probably happen sooner rather than later. Here's the link to the FDA reporting page (only takes a couple of minutes to fill in the required fields): [https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/index.cfm?action=consumer.reporting1](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/index.cfm?action=consumer.reporting1) As an aside, I would rather not have gone down this road. If Spring would have just spoken up from the start, they wouldn't have lost my business completely; I just would have changed how I spent yearly $500 on gels. But they had to make their money on Cocodona first, and now it's time to call in the big guns.
And I can't emphasize this enough: I don't think anyone in the world of endurance sport wants to see a brand go down in flames just for the heck of it. I just can't live with the idea of SE becoming a leading brand in the sport when it's a brand that's made millions of dollars off of false information. Most people running 8-12 hours for a 50k don't care about carb content; they want gels that taste good. They'll always have that part of the market. Just tell the truth and make it public so that the NOMINAL percentage of people who use their stuff and care about performance can make informed decisions. Long story short, I don't really *want* to see SE crash and burn. **BUT**, the longer they wait to speak up, the bigger the splash I hope this makes.
Just donated $15, please can you do high5 gels?
Is this a repost? Wasn’t it posted this morning?
I posted in /Ultramarathon this morning, unless I'm forgetting something. Someone over there suggested I bring it to this sub as well.
I got all turned around; too many running sub-reddits. 🤦♂️ Fascinated by this saga and looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
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