How To Fuel with Real Food Gels
By The Feed.
Real food gels are making waves in the endurance community, and for good reason — they offer a natural, flavorful alternative to processed gels. Many athletes may opt for more natural options when it comes to fueling their endeavors, but struggle to find the right balance. Here is how you can use real food to fuel your performance.
The Feed offers many brands that focus on gels made from real food that are enjoyable to consume without compromising on flavor or ingredients and could help you avoid gut issues (if you're having any). If you're entering the world of fueling with real food and don't know where to start, or you want to try many different options, check out our Real Food Gel Tryout Pack with 6 gels for just $19.99 plus earn 15% in Feed credit.
How Real Food Gels Work
Similar to their processed counterparts, real food gels provide the necessary carbs for your workouts, with one major difference: the carbs come from real ingredients, not processed sugars. For some people, the standard processed gels don't cause any GI issues and make them feel good during workouts or races. Others may need something like a gel made with real food! Balanced natural ingredients, incredible flavors and, as a result, total confidence in what you’re putting inside your body to perform at your best.
How To Fuel with Real Food Gels
If you know how to fuel with gels, you know how to fuel with real food gels! The main difference here is that gels made with real food typically have a smaller range of carbohydrates than processed gels. Gels made with real food have about 17-25g of carbs per gel, while processed gels can have between 20-50g of carbs per gel, so if you are using a high-carb fueling method, you would have to consume more gels per hour with real food gels. As a reminder, you'll want to aim for 60-90g of carbs per hour (some elite athletes are even consuming 90-120g of carbs per hour!). That equates to about 2-4 gels per hour, with 1 every 15-30 minutes, depending on the gels you're consuming and your carb target. For example, if you want to fuel with Huma Chia Lemonade with 22g of carbs and consume between 80 and 90g of carbs per hour, you would take 4 gels, 1 every 15 minutes. On the other hand, if you are aiming for the lower end of the recommended carbs per hour or you are combining gels with a drink mix or bars to hit your target amount of carbs, you would consume 3 gels per hour, 1 every 20 minutes.
Our Real Food Gel Pack
We put together a Real Food Gel Tryout Pack with someone of our favorite real food gels for you to try. There's a variety of flavors, textures, and amounts of carbs so you can see what works best for you.
Here's what you get:
1 x Huma Chia Lemonade Energy Gel: These gels harness the power of the chia seed to help you power through your workouts. They are made of real food, like all-natural fruit purees, cane syrup, and chia seeds, and contain 22g of carbs and 105mg of sodium. (with *25mg of caffeine) Huma Chia gels have a thin texture, but you can still feel the whole chia seeds in the gel.
1 x Endurance Tap: Made with only 3 ingredients, maple syrup, ginger, and sea salt, this all-natural gel helps you meet your fueling needs with no stomach distress. Endurance tap contains 25g of carbs and 50mg of sodium per serving. Endurance Tap has a thin, watery texture, easy to consume.
1 x BPN Mixed Berry: It's a simple gel that is made from ingredients like brown rice, apple juice, and sea salt. It contains 24g of fast-digesting carbs and 110mg of sodium. This texture is a little thicker and more grainy than Endurance Tap but still easy to consume.
1 x Spring Energy CanaBERRY: With a taste like a strawberry banana smoothie, whole foods like organic Basmati rice, banana, strawberry, maple syrup, and more will fuel you for any adventure. This gel has 17g of carbs and 60mg of sodium. CanaBERRY has a thick texture with some whole foods mixed in.
1 x Rawvelo Passionfruit & Coconut: Made from a delicate balance of fruit juices, coconut sugar, and natural brown rice syrup, these performance gels are about as raw as it gets. This gel has 20g of carbs and 40mg of sodium. The texture is thin and the most similar to your standard energy gel, making for an easy transition from standard gels to real food gels.
1 x Veloforte Primo: Real ingredients like brown rice syrup, fruit juice concentrates, maple syrup, and Himalayan Salt give you the fuel you need, without anything that you don't. This beetroot & lemon gel, aka "Primo", has 22g of carbs and 120mg of sodium. These also have a thin texture and are easy to get down on the go. They are really small in size comparatively, making it easy to carry multiple or even fit 7.5 into a 150ml soft flask
Try them all with our Tryout Pack. Find the taste, texture, and style you like to fuel your next adventure.