For the past six to nine months, I’ve been looking for a high quality energy gel at a lower cost than GU. While I make a lot of my own energy gel these days, it’s nice to have some pre-made gel on standby if I get lazy. So, whenever I run across a new gel, I like to try it out.
I happened to find a couple flavors of Carb Boom at my local REI last fall, but never got around to trying them out until this spring. Over all, I’m pretty impressed. The first flavor I tried was Apple Cinnamon. Surprisingly enough, it tastes almost exactly like my own recipe for gel.
A quick look on the back shows why. There’s almost nothing artificial (assuming you can call maltodextrin natural) in the gel. The company uses actual fruit juices in its gels and the taste reflects that. Since then I have tried the raspberry, chocolate cherry, cranberry grapefruit, and grape pomegranate flavors.
While the apple cinnamon remains my favorite, the other flavors aren’t bad either. The raspberry is a bit tart for my taste and the chocolate cherry is a bit grainy due to using actual cocoa, but these are minor complaints. The texture is a bit more watery than my previous standard of GU however.
What really makes up for any shortcomings is the price. I picked up 3 bulk 24 serving packs of Carb Boom for $13 each. That’s pretty much unheard of for energy gel considering 24 servings of GU cost me $31.20.
Carb boom has also given me some new ideas for my own energy gel recipe. So, if I ever get some time (and go through 72 servings of Carb Boom), I might have some new gel recipes available.
When it’s all said and done, Carb Boom tastes great and costs a lot less than what I had been buying. While Carb Boom appears a bit hard to track down locally, it is available from quite a few places on the internet. So, you might want to give it a try.
