Squeeze Cuisine : Athletes Go for the Goo

Gu, Pocket Rocket, Hammer Gel, Squeezy and Fuel Cell are big. Sold at sporting goods stores, seen on race courses and hiking trails, they are high-carbohydrate gels designed to give an athlete a high-carbo energy boost before or during a workout.

What energy bars were to the late 1980s, “goo” (the sport nutrition industry’s nickname for high-carbohydrate gels) is to the ‘90s. Welcome to the world of squeeze cuisine.

“Gels kick butt,” says die-hard user Cody Malta. In one suck you get a blast of fuel that gets you to the summit, around the next corner or to the finish line. No chewing necessary.

What’s the common denominator of Chocolate Outrage, Ultragel and their cousins? About 70 to 100 calories of fat-free pow, bam, wham.

“When I’ve climbed for hours and I can’t lift another leg, I just pop one and it works,” says Malta, an avid hiker and mountain guide from Encino. Three or four packets of vanilla-flavored gel get him through the rocky parts of a daylong hike along Piru Creek in Ventura County.

What gels have over the traditional foods eaten literally on the run--bananas, orange slices, Fig Newtons--is convenience and digestibility during physical exertion. When minutes count as much as ounces and stop watches don’t allow time for pit stops or stomach cramps, gels are a welcome alternative. And price--between 90 cents and $1.25 for a 1-ounce packet--is no hurdle to consumers.

“We sell them mainly to people who are out there a long time,” says Jeff Tribole, owner of Runner’s High in Long Beach. “Marathoners, rail runners, triathletes and cyclists.”

Gels are packaged in slick plastic pouches that are dead ringers for over-sized catsup packets. They fit in the palm of the hand, so slipping five or six into a fanny pack, a jersey or cycling shorts is easier than wrestling with sticky fruits or peeling wrappers off gooey bars.

Then just rip open the perforated edge and suck or squeeze the contents. Chased by a couple of gulps of fluid (mandatory for proper digestion), these gels deliver pure, fat-free carbohydrates to exercising muscles.

“I’ve tried everything over the years,” says Jeff Vannini. “The gels are convenient.” The ultra-marathoner, who works at Phidippides, a running shop in Encino, says fueling during a marathon is never easy.

“I’d cut up energy bars into tiny pieces and tuck them into my wristband. Once, during a marathon on a hot day, when I needed them, they had melted. Then, on cold days, the bar would be so hard, it would practically break your teeth.”

In terms of palatability, he likes the gels because they are bland and not too sweet. “Most energy bars taste like horse feed,” he says. Maybe worse, the ones that taste good are usually high in sugar or fat. At least with gels, you don’t have to chew.

For many athletes, the fiber, protein and fat contained in bars or solid foods slow digestion and often make a pit stop necessary. When six-time Ironman winner Dave Scott competed in his first Hawaii Ironman triathlon in 1976, he and his peers relied on culinary experimentation to come up with fast energy food sources.

“Back then, we didn’t have gels. We’d come up with these awful-tasting concoctions,” says the 42-year old triathlete. “I lived on one. It was a mix of cornstarch powder and liquid in a squeeze bottle. It turned into something you could use for wallpaper paste. It coagulated like glue and was tasteless.

“What also worked was figs and bananas. With 50 calories per fig, they gave quite a boost. But the bananas, because of their high fiber content, sent some guys to the bushes.

“I was lucky. I had an iron stomach, and they’d just slosh around.”

The arrival of gels in slick packaging and a variety of flavors shows how far sports nutrition has come, says Johnnie G, an endurance cyclist-trainer and coach from South Africa who now lives in Culver City. He recalls using a crude form of gel in the early ‘80s. “Back then,” he says, “we’d pin bags of corn syrup to our shorts. It was the only thing we had.”

Gels come in several flavors, including orange, lemon-lime, strawberry-banana, chocolate and vanilla bean. The viscosity can be anything from syrupy to pudding-like. A few contain a small amount of caffeine, usually equal to a half cup of coffee.

They are snacks and should not be confused with meals or fluid replacements. But unlike energy bars, they aren’t sold at major supermarkets. They are geared to a small niche: athletes who exercise longer than 90 minutes at a stretch.

Replenishing and maintaining muscle glycogen stores during training and before competition requires a carbohydrate-rich diet, says Ellen Coleman, a registered dietitian and author of “The Ultimate Sports Nutrition Handbook” (Bull Publishing; 1996). Long-term events like distance running, distance cycling, cross-country skiing and triathlons usually lower muscle and liver glycogen significantly. “Carbohydrate feeding during events lasting several hours or longer also improves endurance,” Coleman adds.

Gels are an easy way to get carbohydrates fast in a small volume, contends Martin Yadrick, a dietitian and sports nutritionist in Chatsworth. “It’s the equivalent of eating half a bagel or half a slice of bread.”

But for the weekend athlete or average Joe who exercises less than 60 minutes, depleting stores of glycogen isn’t a worry. Yadrick says the most important concern for the weekender is fluid replacement. And Power Bar-style crossover appeal of gels for the masses is questionable--for texture and palatability, energy bars are more fun.

Sport drinks, energy bars and now gels are just a response to what athletes ask for. “In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the athletes wanted fluids with something in them, like electrolytes,” recalls Ed Burke, a former coach and associate professor of sports physiology at University of Colorado, who consulted on Power Bar, the best-known energy bar.

“Companies came out with products like Gatorade and Exceed. Then athletes wanted energy replacements, and out came the energy bars.”

When stomach problems hampered his race performances in 1983, former Olympic marathoner Brian Maxwell sought the answer in his kitchen in Berkeley. With his wife, a nutritionist, they created Power Bar and introduced it around the Bay Area in 1987.

This month Maxwell’s company, Powerfood Inc., introduces Power Gel, its high-carbohydrate gel product. And Maxwell is supplying gels to athletes at the Olympics and he recently sent goo to the Tour de France. Buyers like Sport Chalet’s Todd Spivek are paying attention. “When someone as big as Power Bar goes into making gels,” he says, “that is something to watch.”

The competition at the sales counter is heating up, and manufacturers aren’t taking time out. Fuel Cell, a New Zealand product new to this country, offers a clear plastic pouch and a thinner formula for the U.S. market. Hammer Gel, a Montana product that went on sale in April, boasts a patented sweetener made from grape juice and rice.

Power Gel’s flashy foil packaging, with its gusseted bottom that can sit up on a sales counter, is intended to snag the shopper’s eye. A few months ago Pocket Rocket introduced a new package with neon colors and snappy graphics. And the granddaddy of gels, Squeezy, which originated in South Africa in the ‘70s and is manufactured by Leppin Health Products in England, targets a visual redesign for early next year.

What’s inside the packet is hardly revolutionary. The ingredient list shows variations of fructose, sucrose, maltodextrin, potassium chloride and sodium chloride. Nothing dangerous, say nutritionists and dietitians.

“There’s no magic in gels,” says Ed Coyle, professor and director of the Human Performance Lab at University of Texas in Austin. “They’re starches. A pure sugar solution would be too sweet.”

What does the future of gels hold? New formulas with calcium, herbal extracts and vitamins, manufacturers say.

When it comes to the additions, Ellen Coleman raises an eyebrow.

“Gels serve a purpose. They’re fast energy in a very convenient form. They’re not a meal.

“So when manufacturers start talking about adding extras like vitamins or herbs, then you’re talking gimmicks.”