Last updated on January 11th, 2024
The Ingredients in Your Sports Performance Supplements Matter
I just wanted to share a quick story today about a recent discovery I made, and then followed up on. For over a year now I have been using and recommending BioSteel High Performance Sports Mix to athletes as a healthier alternative to other sports drinks on the market that are full of sugar and unnecessary ingredients.
One day about 4 or 5 months ago, in a private Facebook community someone asked about a BCAA mix and I stated that I trusted BioSteel as a BCAA and electrolyte drink and to stay away from sports performance supplements containing sucralose.
Someone in the group then pointed out to me that BioSteel has sucralose in it (albeit, the last ingredient). So I quickly went to the website and checked, and re-checked the ingredient list. No sucralose. But I had a tub in my pantry, so I went and checked the label and there it was. Sucralose.
Obviously, I felt pretty silly at this point and decided to further investigate. Sure enough, all the tubs at the grocery store and other stores I checked had sucralose in them. But the website didn’t have it listed.
I sort of forgot about the whole ordeal, but when my tub of BioSteel ran out last week, I decided to try a different brand. When I went to GNC to pick out another sports performance product, I decided to read the labels of BioSteel again and to my surprise, there was no sucralose in some of the products. Instead there was erythritol. Oddly enough, a near-empty tub my boyfriend has at home contains just stevia – no sucralose or erythritol. Or at least, it wasn’t labelled.
This week I decided to contact BioSteel directly to find out exactly what was up. Within 30 seconds of starting a live chat on their website, I was given an e-mail address for the Product Development Manager. I sent him an e-mail with my questions and in less than 2 hours I had a reply e-mail that addressed every one of my concerns. How’s that for transparency and customer service?!
Our original HPSM container contained 29 mg of sucralose per scoop of pink. This small amount was added to mask the bitter aftertaste of the amino acids in the product.
This is an older batch and has been replaced about two years ago. Since then we removed sucralose and replaced it with a proprietary blend of ingredients that includes erythritol (full list of ingredients can be found on website).
The discrepancies that you’ll find between each type of SKU could be from different production batches or from different food regulations. For instance, our Ready-to-Drink sports drink has a slightly different formula because it is registered as a food as opposed to a NHP.
So the reason I didn’t see sucralose on the website over a year ago was because it was removed from the product TWO YEARS AGO! Yet, batches were obviously still floating around and being sold. So yes, NEW containers of BioSteel don’t contain sucralose. Amazing!
This brings me to the point that labels and ingredients can change anytime without you knowing. So it’s important that you check the labels on your favourite products ALL. THE. TIME. Especially if you have any food allergies or intolerances. This includes all your sports performance supplements.
Also, if you check out their website, you’ll notice that the 3 versions of the sports mix (high performance sports mix tube, sports drink and high performance sports mix) all contain slightly different ingredients (only the HPSM in the tub contains erythritol, the other two products don’t). Not that there’s anything wrong with this, but you should be aware of it. You think you’re consuming the exact same product regardless of which variation you purchase, but you’re not.
Although, I am still not a big fan of erythritol being in the product, it’s a much better alternative to sucralose.
The Product Development Manager also addressed some additional questions I asked.
- Why did BioSteel use sucralose in the first place when it prides itself on such clean ingredients?
The reason why sucralose was included in our product as mentioned above was to mask the taste of our bitter amino acids. Our product carried a ratio of 9:1 stevia to sucralose sweetening. Ever since BioSteel has been introduced to the public we have included less and less sucralose in every batch and our R & D team continues to make great strides with natural sweeteners. In fact, by April we will release our original HPSM formula WITHOUT sucralose or erythritol. The sweetener will consist of stevia leaf extract.
- Why the switch to erythritol?
Through research and development we have tinkered with flavouring and sweetness until we could make a product that tastes as closely as our original. By adding this sugar alcohol along with stevia we were able to provide a very similar taste and sweetness to the existing product.
As stated in the prior question we have listened to user feedback such as yourself, and will release HPSM without any erythritol. This will be available sometime in April.
I can’t express enough how pleased I am to have received these responses and to have found out that the new batches in April won’t contain sucralose or erythritol, just stevia leaf extract.
Which brings me to my point of asking questions. As a consumer, you have every right to contact companies and ask questions about the products you are buying. If a company refuses to disclose information to you or answer your questions, you should reconsider supporting them.
If something doesn’t sit well with you, give your feedback to a company. You may not think you have any impact, but there could be hundreds or thousands of other people giving the same feedback which could lead to change.
I can confidently continue to recommend BioSteel to my clients…just make sure you’re buying the new batches that don’t contain sucralose.
Kudos to BioSteel for being transparent and quickly answering my questions.
By the way, I am not specifically picking on BioSteel, it just happens to be a product I use a lot and started examining more closely. You need to be diligent with all the products you are purchasing, and this experience opened my eyes as well.
