I will say, I am seeing some sports nutrition studies claiming that aspartame+carbohydrate reduced serum insulin levels in actively exercising individuals. But I’m not sure that is necessarily a good thing? As I understand serum insulin levels during workouts the insulin is there to allow the cell walls to open and drive glucose across the cell wall?
Anyway, my point of the post is like all things in sport training; to be aware of what goes into your body and to be vigilant. If you don’t care about aspartame, cool. But I think we all become a bit complacent and lured in by teams/ athletes riding under a banner of a brand and accepting that what they use will be appropriate for us (and/or safe).
I am guilty of just that. That was my point of this thread as much as it was calling attention to this additive.
Don’t get stuck on the Vegan, not the point. I completely agree with @professore on aspartame. I eat meat and a lot of it. But I also eat things to protect my gut health. Lots of info out there on gut health being critical to overall health and extending healthspan (I want to be riding at 80+ years) Aspartame has been shown to promote leaky gut which leads to other nasty things. I’m not a SIS user but thanks for the reminder to look closer at the dull ingredient list.
Disagree. Just because something is ‘generally accepted’ by the public at large doesn’t mean that we should put up with it. That stuff shouldn’t be in anything. Trans-fats are also generally accepted, I’m not eating that crap either.
This isn’t the case with SiS Go, which is what I assume he’s referring to. (The gels use Ace K, and the Hydro tablets use Sucralose.) The Go mix has 36 g of carbs in a combination of maltodextrin and fructose. If some of the maltodextrin were a simpler sugar, it would be plenty sweet. (I think Go is sweeter than it needs to be as it is.)
SiS seems to like the maltodextrin-fructose mix for providing carbohydrates; they use it for Go mix, Go gels, and Beta Fuel.
If you change the balance of maltodextrin to fructose, then you also change the osmotic potential, so you have to change a bunch of other stuff too to get that balanced back up (and the total carbs you want).
I had a quick google, and couple of other brands have artificial sweeteners in their electrolyte mix (eg High 5). Skratch was the first one I looked at that didn’t. So it can be done - presumably at the expense of something else (taste? cost? stability? shelf life?).
So you have, through your own unsupported opinions, created dietary restrictions. How does that create any onus on a company to adhere to or facilitate your arbitrary requirements?
Yeah, I’m not sure what the upside is. Like i mentioned above, maybe there was a study that showed it flattened out the insulin response during exercise? Is that a good thing? Hell if I know.
I was going to mention Skratch – its flavor is very good – but it provides relatively little sugar, so it’s kind of a different product. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Beta Fuel has no sweetener, since it has so much fructose that it’s already cloying. The classic Gatorade uses a sucrose/glucose mix without artificial sweetener, as does Skratch.
I’ve gravitated to Osmo in the last few weeks. Love their hydration product. Probably more than skratch. Anecdotally I think its my favorite i’ve used in 30ish years.
I like Torq stuff (UK based) - they tend not to use artificial sweeteners and generally taste nice. I particularly like their rhubarb and custard flavour gels, and mince pie flavour bars!
