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Thursday, May 12, 2016

Homemade Energy Gel - Second Try


My first try at Homemade Energy Gel went reasonably well, but in the end it was just too sweet/gross and cost too much.

1/2 cup Brown Rice Syrup (purchased at Bulk Barn in Canada) (300 calories, 81mg sodium)
1/2 cup sugar (400 calories)
1 scoop orange gatorade (90 calories, 160mg sodium, 45mg potassium)
1 tsp blackstrap molassas (also from Bulk Barn) (10 calories, 300mg potassium +/-)
1/4 tsp table salt (575mg sodium)
squirt of lemon

Put it on the stove with enough heat to get things to dissolve and mix up and bam.  Energy Gel.

Yields a cup and change of liquid, or about 9 ounces, 800kcal.

About 600mg of potassium, 800mg sodium.

Brown Rice Syrup is composed of the complex carbs maltose and maltotriose - both of which have surprisingly high Glycemic Indexes (higher than sugar!).  They break down into glucose without going through the liver - and whoooosh into the bloodstream.  (Note that there is contradictory GI information on the internet - some say it's only a GI of 25, but these seem to be wrong).

Sugar is made of sucrose, which contains one glucose and one fructose molecule.

Gatorade Powder is mostly sugar.

Sugar Profile

We end up with most of our calories coming from glucose, with not very much fructose... this is probably a mistake, we usually want pretty close to a 50/50 balance.  But it's not that far different from commercial gels... they typically under-represent fructose.  We could swap out regular sugar for Fructose (available in most grocery stores, inexpensive) if we want.

Potassium/Sodium

Commercial gels come in around 50mg each of the two, or less (generally).  This is about 60mg of K, 80mg of Na.  So should be good for a hot day!

Cost

For a batch (makes around 10 gels worth) we're talking about $3 or so.  Most expensive is the brown rice syrup at $7 for 450mL, everything else is pennies.

Taste?

Great!  Less sweet than normal crap.  Runny gel that went easily into a bottle and delivers a lot of energy in a hurry.




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