The Gel Label Guide: What Actually Matters on the Back of the Packet

Every gel comparison you find online ranks products by taste, texture, or price.

And maybe consistency. Is it thick or runny?

But none of that tells you whether or not the gel will actually work at the intake rate you need.

Specifically, what carbohydrate types are used and whether those carbs use one or both of your gut's absorption pathways.

Once you know how to read the back of the packet, you can evaluate any gel in about 10 seconds.

Flip over any gel and you'll see some combination of these:

The takeaway: you just need to recognize whether the gel is using one lane or two.

Your gut has two lanes for absorbing carbs.

Whether you need a gel that uses both lanes depends entirely on your hourly intake target.

The old standard was a 2:1 glucose-to-fructose ratio. Sutehall et al. (2023) tested optimized ratios and found 1:0.8 absorbs more efficiently at high intake rates, and most newer products have already made the shift. Below 60 g/h, the ratio difference is academic. Above 90 g/h, it matters.

The practical takeaway: if your label lists two carb sources, you're in the right ballpark.

Not sure what your hourly target should be? How Many Carbs Per Hour?

A lot of gels come in caffeinated versions. Usually 25–100mg per serving.

• Why you might want it: caffeine has a proven performance benefit, especially in the back half of a long race.
• Why you might avoid it: some people get GI issues from caffeine during exercise. And if you're saving caffeine as a race-day boost, you probably don't want to build tolerance.

No right answer here. Just be aware of whether it's in your gel.

Some products market "hydrogel technology" as a way to move carbs through your stomach faster.

Sounds good on paper. Rowe et al. (2022) tested hydrogel formulations directly and found no performance benefit over equivalent glucose-fructose blends. The hydrogel doesn't make the carbs absorb faster; it just keeps the gel matrix intact until the stomach breaks it down.

Don't pay a premium just for the word "hydrogel" on a label. Focus on the ingredients, not the delivery mechanism.

Here's a quick breakdown of products you're probably already seeing at races.

A few things jump out:

• Most are dual-source. The big differences are sodium content and serving size.
• The sodium spread across these products is wider than most athletes realize: 30mg to 180mg per serving. A heavy sweater targeting 1,000+ mg/h of sodium will need to either supplement or pick a product on the higher-sodium end.
• SiS Beta Fuel packs 40g per gel, meaning fewer packets but bigger doses.

None of this makes one gel "better." The framework is your sweat target and your hourly carb target, not the brand.

Pulse is what we built when we got tired of reading labels.

Three ingredients: honey, maple syrup, sea salt. Both lanes covered (honey is naturally glucose-fructose; maple syrup splits to glucose-fructose via sucrose). Sodium baked in. No formulation tricks, because the engine doesn't reward formulation tricks. It rewards getting carbs and sodium where they need to be on the rhythm.

The framework above still applies to Pulse. It's just shorter to read.

SECURE YOUR SUPPLY.

Initial production is strictly limited. Join the waitlist to secure your first-round allocation.

You don't need to become a label expert.

You just need to know two things: does this gel give my gut one lane or two, and does it have enough sodium for your sweat profile?

The lane framework lives on every label. The sodium math comes from Sodium Isn't Just for Cramps.

Pulse exists for athletes who'd rather not think about either. Both are valid choices.